Anyone else going nuts staying at home? I have a nice home and wife along with loads of tech gadgets but am getting tired of no foreign holidays :/
I Want My Holidays Back: Anyone else going nuts... - PMRGCAuk
I Want My Holidays Back
75 Replies
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They seem a very long way away at the moment.....
But then everything does!
Good News re your Diabetes 👏🏼
Not going nuts but feeling sad, missed out on holiday to sicily with my husband and son last September as I was just too ill. My lovely husband planned to take me to Italy in may and that did not happen! Now wondering just how to celebrate next year - I will be 60, my son will be 21 and also will graduate - was hoping for foreign trip but hard to plan .
Ah I know. But really want to see my two kids in Canada!!! Some day soon we will be set free!!!!! X
PMRproAmbassador
We weren't able to do much last year either so I haven't been anywhere except the UK for the annual family visits and a science meeting in Albuquerque where it was so hot you couldn't really sight see for nearly 2 years. We decided we should sell the camper van because I can't manage it on my own and OH is unlikely to get well enough to help so I don't even have that to look forward to.
But it's OK - we have had a very spoiled life really with many many trips all over the world to look back on. Lots of people don't have that,
Amen.
Spot on. Life is more than holidays. If we had some in the past...lucky us.
Being alive seems very precious...every day can bring interest and joy...and I am so fortunate that the steroids cope with most of the pain....
I live alone and haven't been out of my front door for 9 months and no visitors. I am fortunate to still be able to work online...need a big push some days. But I have lots of internet contact with friends and family and I am learning so many new things.
I just feel so grateful to have this time...too many people I know didn't get this far (not because of corona).
What lovely comments, agingfeminist. They've made me think realistically. It is what it is at the moment regarding lack of freedom and it's up to us to try to find even the simplest of pleasures in each new day. Phone calls with friends chatting about times past bring joy for me and laughing with each other is uplifting. We have a roof over our heads and sufficient food-more fortunate than some-and I try to get up each morning with at least one aim for the day and don't beat myself up if I don't achieve much. After a previously busy and hectic life housework is done as and when, I can pick up a book at any time, I can have a nap when I need it (or even when I don't), I don't need to be concerned that a visitor (not had anyone in the house for months) will have to suffer my 'bed hair' or the sight of me wearing my most comfortable clothes: anything with an elasticated waistband is bliss!
Pain and discomfort, anxiety, not knowing what should be done for the best are relieved to a great extent by the suggestions, reassurance, support and encouragement shared in this group.
I wish anyone experiencing pain, discomfort or loneliness better times ahead. For anyone missing their family and friends, it won't always be like this......it's just that for now it's a big pain in the backside!
Your positivity is so encouraging. I have not been much further than round the block since March but have read some good books, improved my IT skills and look forward to Skypes with my grandson here in the UK and my daughter in Norway (though on darker days I do wonder if I will ever hug her again). I have quite a few friends for phone calls and one neighbour who will do the round the block exercise with me. As you say, so much more than many people.
Exactly! I feel the same after travelling the world. I don’t miss crowded airports. I enjoy what I have . Take care.
Going places can be fun, I'll grant that. But the process by public transport can be agonising at the best of times. See these people booking meals in a stationary aircraft? They must be totally crackers and have far more money than common sense! I object to being taken a loan of just because I'm a captive audience.
Exactly. I try not to complain as it feels like “first world problems”. Instead I look back at all the photos that captured wonderful trips from the past. If/when things get back to a “new normal” I will be prioritizing domestic travel within Canada to see my family. We’ve already postponed our family reunion at the homestead in Saskatchewan. The farmland has been sold, but we’d just like to gather once more before the house is sold.
Funny how our priorities change in a pandemic. I’m grateful for all of our past adventures, and hope to make it to dream destinations some day, but for now, I’m going to focus on family and our beautiful country of Canada.
We have had a spoilt life really! But I still need to see my daughter and grandson in Australia. Family all over the USA and so on. It is nice loafing at home and I do not like shopping at all. I am a great lover of men's clothing. Cool stuff but get all that from Amazon Prime Wardrobe now then I find I have nowhere to wear it. Boo boo.
How strange - not being able to go shopping is the least of my complaints!!! Bad enough going to the supermarket for food! And that is anyway, not because of Covid - and we can't food shop online here.
I know how you feel as it will be my 50th Wedding Anniversary next Saturday and cannot even have a family meal out as there is too many of us ☹️☹️
Friends of ours published a menu complete with recipes, and invited friends and family to share their anniversary dinner via Zoom, including a playlist for listening, dancing and karaoke. While not mandatory, some of us dressed in outfits approximating fashions from our youth (and some of those were quite hilarious.)
It was actually quite a lot of fun since we hadn't been together for so long. Quarantine stories and laughter abounded, including chuckling over the variations in recipe results. Off limit topics included politics, pandemics and detailed accounts of the state of our health.
It was good to see the old gang.
My brother did 2 birthday parties during the very tight lockdown in the UK. He and his wife and daughter were in one house, their son, his partner and both her children in the other. They got the same decorations and made the same birthday food and used the tablet computers to be present at each other's table. Not sure how they dealt with the birthday cake - my brother may have made 2 (he's a confectioner baker to trade but now drives buses). A very good time was had by all!
Hi
The last thing I want to do at present is to go on holiday or have family visit .
I would rather we all concentrate on staying safe.
Half term holidays are bad enough and we are likely to be invaded with mainlanders for next two weeks .
Just for now I wish thay would all stay at home.
Pity you can’t pull up the drawbridge anymore!
I booked a trip for next summer yesterday. Dreaming. Can cancel up to April 2021. Dreaming.
We have been doing country drives. Fortunately the fall weather in Ontario has been good. Sunny. Beautiful colours. It’s a small substitute for travel to Paris. (where I had planned to spend my birthday this year).
I don't know about holidays or seeing the children/family abroad (Canada) but we haven't been able to children or grandchildren in this country since March!!!
It sad that we are missing Grand Children growing up
Its one of the things you cant get back
I have a very good friend in Kamloops who is desperate to see her granddaughter, it's such a shame. Here (UK) I am missing my little great nieces and nephews...used to see them every week or every 2 weeks. Now the youngest 2 are walking!!! We haven't been able to celebrate our son's engagement either.. they got engaged the weekend before lockdown!!! But we did manage a family meal at ours (2 households) for our Ruby wedding....can't really see any improvement until at least after Christmas. Stay safe everyone.
I'm getting tired not going on holiday to villages/spa towns which are only 1 1/2 - 2 hours away - needn't be 'foreign' for me.
We've been to Austria - 35km, to get English cheese and diesel. Furthest we've been is Bozen, 70km, same region, for dexascans and to sell the camper van. Drove there, drove back. Not even a coffee ... Weren't allowed out of the region for months. Weren't allowed out of the village originally.
Poor you - you are both going to miss the camper terribly. Our daughter has one but I can't even get in it without a special step and when I'm in it I find it difficult to move about without knocking something that hurts. We'd have to have a supper duper one - not that either of us could drive it at our age.😂
I feel for you, selling the camper van. Last October we returned home with our caravan knowing that it was our last trip. For the last ten years we’ve spent 6/8 months of the year being ‘old age travellers’ travelling around Great Britain. We didn’t venture abroad due to my husband’s health.
Now we are practically housebound. My lovely capable, funny husband has been diagnosed with mixed dementia. This is affecting his memory and his mobility. Spatial awareness is not good, he’s subject to falls. In a year he’s gone from being a man with lots of hobbies and interests to sitting reading and watching tv. In himself he’s quite happy. That I have to be thankful for. I have to motivate him to walk with his zimmer around the house. It’s a wheelchair when we go out. Mind you, that’s visits to the surgery. We are blessed with a wonderful supportive doctors and nurses.
It’s hard watching him, knowing I’m slowly loosing him. It’s hard being responsible for everything, we’ve always shared. I’m exhausted most of the time. Covid has been a double whammy. Help is there but how many people do I want to let in the house.
Yes, I have wonderful memories and maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to remember. At the moment they reduce me to tears. Sorry this is a ramble.
I do try and count my blessings but some days it’s hard. My best wishes to you and your husband and thank you for all your words of advice.
So very sorry Jean56. Silly question, but do you have any pets? They can be a wonderful comfort when you're struggling. I'm sending you a hug.
You are so right having a pet to cuddle and to talk too is a massive comfort. I used to have cocker spaniels who I loved to bits. Unfortunately having any dog now isn’t an option. OH would fall over it and walking would be difficult as I have to get someone to sit with OH. I’m lucky to have friends with dogs who come to the house so I do get a dog to cuddle. I’m not really a cat person, although we’ve had cats, I know where I am with a dog! Thank you for taking the time to reply.
A similar story for us both - not dementia but he'd given up everything intellectual last year (his hobbies) and being deaf doesn't watch news as much as I do and doesn't like sport so little to talk about. Dementia is such a cruel disease, you lose the person twice in the end.
OH can still walk with a rollator but only on the flat, He didn't do much in the house but now things I could manage with a bit of help from him are down to me as well as lots I have never had to do. I had just arranged a cleaner - she was to come the first week of lockdown and I haven't screwed up the courage again yet. And there is an explosion of cases in the valley - due to a clutch of weddings in one village and election celebrations in another and a lack of distancing ...
It’s not great is it? No matter what the illness is life is lonely for the partners. We don’t have the conversations or the fun we used to have together. I make a joke or comment on something he would normally have found amusing and I find I’m explaining what I mean. So sad.
It’s the overwhelming responsibility of everything, from dealing with finances to putting the bins out. Lifting the wheelchair in and out of the car, great when you’ve got PMR!
I do have a cleaner, she didn’t come during the lockdown but is back now. We are fortunate, at the moment the infection rate is low where we live. We do live in a tourist hotspot, easy reach from London for a day trip, so we will see what happens over half term. We found during the summer months people on holiday seemed to think they’d left the virus at home and it was perfectly ok for them to carry on as normal.
Funny that isn't it - seems to be being invited to a wedding is what does it here! The tourists have started to disappear now - and it will be interesting to see what happens for the ski season. They have adapted snow cannon technology to disintect the cabins on the lifts - but nothing would get me in a gondola with someone else! Chairlifts maybe, plenty of wind if they don't have the pull-down covers, but they have switched to gondolas here - difficult to fall out/over! It was not shutting the ski resorts sooner that spread the first wave all over Europe and letting them go on holiday for the summer brought the second I'm sure.
Him being deaf messes up the jokes here - I've had enough after repeating it 3 times and then usually have to explain! Food is the worst though - I hate everyday cooking anyway and when it is such a restricted choice he will eat I end up making 2 different things as my freezer is so small I can't really do a batch cook for me. OTOH, he's just asked for pancakes for the 3rd time in a row - it isn't that demanding 
I had a quite good venison sausage last night - peas and broad beans on the bottom, halved a head of chicory to cradle the sausage - straight in the oven. There was a "done in the oven" cookbook as one of the books of the day on Kindle yesterday and you could look at a lot of it in the preview - didn't find enough to make it worth getting but some ideas that hadn't occured to me like the peas and beans as a base - and green beans bake well it claimed!! I roast most veg and all fish now- one Le Creuset oval roasting pan for everything!
Nothing would get me on a ski lift at the best of times, I don’t do heights.
As for cooking. I used to enjoy cooking, it’s now become a dreadful chore. I’m lucky himself is happy to eat whatever I put in front of him. He has always enjoyed food, too much really. I have to keep a control of how much he eats. He has no restraint where food is concerned, never has, no cut off valve to tell him he’s had enough!
I miss going out for a meal. Not to have to cook would be wonderful. It’s not just the cooking it’s the clearing up after we’ve eaten. I’m not a messy cook and I always clear up as I go along but to just sit and have someone else clear the table, bliss! We have a dishwasher, wonderful invention but it has to go on early evening so I can empty it before bedtime. It’s too painful in the morning bending. Poor old s*d that I am.
Life can be cruel. It’s the importance of keeping a sense of humour no matter what.
My dishwasher is next to the dining table - if pushed I can put my plate etc in without moving! I don't have a morning stiffness problem - but emptying it was always his job while making morning tea! He's back to making tea (if he wakes up in time!) but not the dishwasher yet. All the downsides of living alone but none of the benefits.
I absolutely agree, no benefits. Himself always made the early morning tea, I’ve never been good in a morning even before the onset of PMR and arthritis. It takes me a long time to get moving and my poor addled brain hopefully catches up by lunchtime......if I’m lucky.
Is it both the PMR and the arthritis that makes mornings bad? Have you tried taking the pred before bed or splitting the dose to make morning better? I'm on Lodotra - take it before bed so it releases at 2am. Brilliant. But I don't have any sign of osteoarthritis - whatever one rheumy tried to tell me 14 years or so ago!
It’s the osteoarthritis. It’s a family thing. I’ve got it in my hands, neck, lower spine and hips. It’s ok, once I get moving. My hands are particularly bad at the moment. I picked up a wine bottle the other night and nearly dropped it, the pain in my right hand was excruciating. I had to use both hands to pour the wine into the glasses.... after that things improved 😂
Just a small thing! I pour milk from a carton, 1 litre, into a smaller plastic jug and use that instead of the 'heavy' load at different times of the day. The same with wine, etc.
How very UK traditional Constance!!
Forever British!🤪
I do pour milk into a small jug. Now why didn’t I think of doing the same with wine........
I was just thinking this morning that growing old is even harder than I ever dreamed it would be and both of us are still ambulatory and I think our brains are working.... The reason the "Atlantic Bubble" is still more or less working in Canada is because of a two week quarantine requirement for anyone entering. Which basically killed the tourist industry this summer, although Atlantic Canadians did travel within the bubble and made up for some of it. The "Bubble" is only more or less working at the moment because one of the provinces now has more cases and deaths than during the spring and despite good testing levels, quarantine rules, orange-zone semi-lockdowns, excellent tracing, it doesn't seem to be slowing down. I suppose it will happen here eventually. Meanwhile we wear our masks and enjoy relative freedom.
I’m sympathise with you Jean. My husband has the same condition. Not in a wheelchair yet but heading in that direction. Very sad to see an active man reduced to limited mobility.
Lonely isn’t it? Suddenly you’ve gone from a wife to a carer. You’re watching him disappear. I know normally there is help but with Covid we are very much alone. A balancing act of taking care to be safe but getting some support to keep us sane and healthy.
Yes Jean it is lonely. Scary to think of the future.
I try not to go there, it’s too frightening. A day at a time is what I try to do. Someone suggested practicing mindfulness. Unfortunately he then said it means you live in the moment. That was where my sense of humour broke loose and I got the giggles. There are quite a few moments I really don’t want to live in! I like the idea, we all need space, peace and to just be but there are places we don’t need to dwell.
There are moments I can't wait to be out of!!!!
We can't drive here in the UK! I was born in Devon too. I had to take a test when I came back to England and failed looking at the medical questionaire I had two major foot surgeries in the USA and had to have one here when I came back. I'm walking fine now BUT at 69 yo and a bit frazzled at times decided not to even bother driving. I have a USA State license but that can't be used after 3 years so I may buy an e Scooter and fly around on that.
I have a bus pass but I have always hated all the coughing and sneezing on buses. Now? It's a no no for us.
Desperate needs we use a taxi
I love our small towns and villages but love loafing in the sun too much
We had a holiday home in the Cotswold that we used until my arthritis started spreading and then the 'pleasure' (???) of PMR joined in. We haven't been back to England for six years now.😰
I miss travel - big and small trips but was lucky enough to escape to Italy (Emilia Romagna & Venice) this summer. That has to keep me going.
really missing far east trips, haven't been anywhere for a year- not even neighbouring European countries. But I have been reading travel writers- kind of virtual trip. Makes for a mixture of longing and happy memories. Meanwhile...there are trips to the end of the garden...
I am missing my family dreadfully. I am in Spain with my OH who is ill with cancer. My daughter,is in thr U.K. with my three granddaughters and my son in Finland with my other two granddaughters. I haven’t been back to thr U.K. for 15 months due to my husband’s illness but at least they got to come to us. Now with Covid,we can’t see anyone and I can’t go anywhere. Feeling low today.
Felt sad for you having a tough time. It's the hardest thing being a carer in Covid times. I just joined my ailing, far away brother to WhatsApp so we can send pics or emojis when feeling low. Silly but nice drop of comfort.
I am so sorry to hear that GlynisE. That's a very challenging situation to be in and no wonder you're feeling low. We all need the human touch and to not be able to hug and hold are family when we most need to, is very difficult. I know it's not the same, but are you able to Zoom, Skype or WhatsApp video chat with your family in the meantime? At least you get to see and speak to them in real time. I hope you feel a little less unsettled very soon......even the worst day only lasts 24hrs! I send you my best wishes and a hug.
Thank you so much for your reply. Yes we skype all the time and thank God we have that but not the same as that hug. Goodness knows when it will be.
I think we're all dealing with our own different challenges as a result of the pandemic adding to other challenges we already have in our lives, but we will get through them, and as an ex nurse, I know that the low times in our lives don't last forever. We develop coping mechanisms and find alternative solutions or ways forward. Unfortunately, there are always going to be low times in our lives but there will always be happy times too. While ever you can talk to someone....through whatever medium.....you are never really alone.
We had a week on south coast this year - it was great - UK is wonderful - assume you are British? All clean where we stayed and restrictions in place - good to get change of scene
Yes from Devon.
Suffolk is beautiful - Southwold etc and still medium tier
No
Have never been abroad - could never afford it. So I'm not missing something that I have never had.
Two years ago just before we were due to fly to Italy my OH had a heart attack and finished up in Harefield Hospital. I don't see him being well enough to fly again. I miss the buzz of foreign holidays but have to console myself with memories.
We had our Ruby wedding in December and had so many trips organised for this year. We are lucky to have travelled extensively in the past , we also have a touring caravan which we have used only twice this year. Maybe we will travel again next year, now we content ourselves with walking in close countryside. My thoughts go to you who have more difficulty with mobility and I thank my lucky stars .
everyone has their unique personnel concerns and I sympathise .During this difficult time we simply have to find ways of coping.Need to be realistic that things have changed forever and waiting with baited breath for "return to normal" is wasted energy.Got to find new ways and take opportunities when we can!Best wishes to everyone,enjoy happy memories..prepare to be flexible in the future.
Yes, I too am going "stir crazy". On advice from my medical professionals I am having to shield until the end of November - at least. I started my shielding on the 8th March. Thankfully I have had a few garden projects to do. Now they are all done, so am I !!
I have had to cancel 3 holidays and another has been rolled on a year. But somehow I do not see me taking it.
So I fully sympathise with you.
Indeed I hear what you say
T'is surely nice to get away
But this virus can too roam
With you and to your home
Better to wait anocther day
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