So, we're almost through the second lockdown, although it seems to be being treated a bit half-heartedly by many despite the ever rising infection cases. Not as many shops seem to be shut, alot more seem to think that they are essential. All those that got hit hard the first time are being hit again, those that came out of the lockdown early before and survived, now seem to being staying open, those that had to shut the longest and suffered the most are suffering some more. There seems to be a whole set of trades and professions that seem doomed.
The service industry is clearly suffering the most, it's the one thing that the country seemed to have turned to when manufacturing took a dive. We, as a country don't really make anything anymore. Everything that we used to make and in great quantity, we no longer do. Cars, just about gone, Coal, gone! Steel, gone! Furniture, textiles, clothes, everything like that is only done by a few and they are usually specialists. All the run of the mill stuff is gone, and is now done by others, so we have to import and then it's half the price that we used to do it. So we turn to bigging up the service industry, gyms, clubs, retail, beauty salons and they are the ones that are closed and dying.
Those that are surviving are surprise surprise, the big conglomorates, the tech companies. The internet business is booming and the big players in that are raking it in. By the end of lockdown 3, that's probably all that will be left. The only trouble with that is, with all these companies either closing or shedding half their workforce, there will be mass unemployment and people won't have the money to spend.
Food banks are feeding more and more, as there are more and more going without. Not everyone can be furloughed, and that will come to an end again soon, companies are just laying people off to try and weather the storm and survive. Are we heading for another Great Depression almost 100 years since the last one?
My furlough has ended, not that they wanted me back. It seems I was dispensable! So much for the 'this is the criteria that we will use when deciding who to get rid of', not a sick day in 11 years, always on time, always did all I was asked to do, more than often went above and beyond and yet I'm the only person so far the company has made redundant! I've now joined the ranks of the unemployed and am currently looking for another job. Funnily enough, there isn't that much out there. A lot of delivery companies and some of the bigger stores are taking on temporary staff to cover the Christmas period, but do I fancy a temporary part time job? Not just at the minute.
I've been going through the adverts and applying for those I feel are most suitable to my skill set, and as yet unsuccessful. When I was last made redundant, just over 11 years ago, I struggled to find a job in the career that I had worked in for 30 years and took a temporary job in a completely different industry doing a completely different thing. That temporary job has lasted for 11 years, the longest that I have ever worked for one company! Now I've got to decide if I want to stay in that sector or change completely once again. Sometimes just doing what you know is not only easier but less stressful, going into a different field brings with it a whole load of new challenges, not least deciding what to do.
Sometimes people spend years doing a job that they are fed up of, wanting to make a change and do something new, just waiting for the opportunity. I don't, at present, have that something new that I'm aching to do, so in the mean time I will look around and see what there is and go from there.
I've brought some lightness to my lockdown, I've upgraded the lighting in my loft. I have replaced the old fluorescent light tubes with new LED ones. Of course I imagined that it would be as easy as just taking the old tubes out and putting new ones in with a different 'LED' starter, not a bit of it (although it can be, if you pay over the odds for fancy tubes with starter converters), I had to rewire them inside. It turned out to be quite easy, as they only need the power to one end. You just disconnect the wire from the live feed, cut the return from the end that you are powering and reconnect it to the live feed, thus doing away with the ballast and the starter, and Bob's your uncle, ping, instant light!
(Warning! always disconnect the power before starting any electrical work)
The LEDs use about 85% less power than the old lights, but only if you rewire them and don't power them through the Ballast (If you are rewiring on the bench then it makes sense to remove the ballast completely to make the unit alot lighter when fitting). Not only are they much cheaper to run, they come on instantly, none of that waiting for them to flicker, flicker, dink and your lights are on, just ping, instant light! (Think I said that before, but it's so good I've said it twice). Not only that, there is no annoying buzzing sound all the time, think you can tell I'm pleased with my mornings work!
It has taken a bit of getting used to the new brighter bluer light, but I think I'm about there now. Not only did I do the loft, I changed the light in the shed and thus far, one of the two in the garage (workshop). The other one is longer than all of the others and all the lighting stockists locally seem to be out of stock of the longer tubes, so that one will have to wait.
For the past 25 years or so, I've been researching my family tree and that of my wife's family. This of course ends up with 4, 6, 8 families that you end up researching, loads of information to sift through and compile but usually there is someone else who is interested as well and they often have information from other parts of the family and that helps, sometimes by adding and sometimes by confirming what you have discovered. This is a hobby/pastime that I get the bug for about every 3 or 4 years, do intensely for a few months and then not touch for another 3 or 4 years.
Whilst visiting my father during lockdown, my daughter has been looking through a lot of his old photographs, so I've taken the opportunity to try and identify the people and get their names written on the back and of course this has rekindle my interest again and I have been trying to find out more information on those people and how they fit into our tree.
My dad has half a dozen albums at most and I have a bundle of photos that came from his Aunt when she died a few years ago, so it's not been an overly arduous task. His Aunt had written on the back of a great many of them, so the ones that my Dad didn't know she had for the most part identified and we're sure that my Aunt will know the rest. My wife on the other hand, has spent every friday for the past couple of months going through her mums boxes and boxes of photographs trying to date them and sort them ready to go into albums. I think that they have all just about had enough, but they have had a lot of laughs whilst doing it, which obviously makes it much easier and more bearable. She had a pasting table and the dining table full of packets, boxes and albums!
What I have noticed in doing this, is how many people use their second/middle name and not their first name. A great many because they are named after a parent. In my dad's family, his great grandma was called Ann, his Step Grandma was Annie, she had a son Albert Edward, known as Ted and he married a Martha Annie, known as Annie. She then had a daughter, Annie Irene, known as Rene.
Looking up the dates of births, marriages and deaths, on people who's real first name you don't know is a nightmare! It is also very rewarding when you find who and what you are looking for. Many folk my parents age know little of their Grandparents, except maybe their name, often they know nothing of where they came from or their parents names, so it can be an insight into whether your family has lived in the same town for generations or whether they have travelled. My Great Grandfathers family was based in Chester, where he and all his siblings were born. He moved to Manchester and then when Rolls Royce moved to Derby, he moved his family there for work. My grandfather grew up in Derby, worked at Rolls Royce but then moved his family to Luton to work at Vauxhall. Now our family is spread far and wide, either through work or marriage, and none of us anywhere near Chester.