Life Goes On

Well, it has to, doesn't it. Pisces and I are lucky in that, while we are in the higher risk health group  for COVID-19, being retired we don't have to worry about whether we'll have a job in the morning. All we have to do is to try to avoid being exposed to the virus and to do that under the new rules being imposed here, while short of a compulsory total lockdown, has us pretty much confined to the house. This is easier said than done, though. We still need food but with online grocery shopping overwhelmed and the ridiculous amount of panic buying that has been going on leaving many items in short supply that is more difficult than it should be. Luckily Virgo and her husband have stepped in to do our food shopping and very grateful we are for their help.

Apparently the shop shelves are still being stripped of paper goods and staples as soon as they are restocked. Heaven only knows where all this stuff is being stored - most people don't have vast storage spaces after all. Are they stashing it in garages and leaving their cars on the street? Maybe they're taking over a spare room if they're fortunate enough to have one or is it going under the bed perhaps? I have no idea. One thing I strongly suspect, though, is that much of this stockpile is going to end up going to waste. A local Asian stockist was bemused by people buying - or rather wanting to buy until he put limits on it - multiple 10 kg bags of wheat grains.

The thing is unless you have some means of grinding wheat it's pretty useless - all you can do is boil it - and, as I found out before all this started when I decided to mill my own flour, electric grain mills are pretty darn expensive. I had a reason for this. I like to make my own bread and because wholemeal flour goes rancid fairly fast I wanted to make what I needed as I needed it so for me a 10 kg bag of wheat would be a reasonable investment at any time. For the present, though, I can't get it anywhere - but as the mill I ordered is yet to arrive I'm not really bothered. Now I may be being unfair here but I strongly suspect that most of those buying up grains have little idea of how to use them nor the inclination or time to make their own bread. Baking with yeast is not that hard but it is time intensive especially if you have to mill it first and I have to wonder if those buying up wheat and other bread making ingredients are going to end up throwing the whole lot out.

I'm feeling a little irked, too, by the fact that all the yeast, which was already in short supply just when I wanted to restock my supplies before this all erupted, has gone from the shops and is also likely to be tossed away. That's not really a major problem, of course, because I can always set up a sourdough starter but to get a sourdough starter going takes considerably more time than just reaching for the yeast packet. Sigh. Isn't it bad enough to know that there are people dying from this virus without us behaving like selfish hoarders. Let's hope this all ends soon is all I can say.