The positive mental health thread part 6

[Bunnyflop]

Morning all! Welcome to the new thread!

What beautiful flowers, @Callybrid! Your garden must be gorgeous.

Having a better day today here too, feeling a bit more hopeful about stuff. And a bit less silly to have made myself a face mask 😳 It went to the supermarket in my pocket and that’s where it stayed but I might put it on next time - I’ll see what the advice is.

Got bread in the maker and some rather experimental brownies in the oven - had to make a few substitutions as I was low on a few ingredients so we’ll see how they taste. The uncooked mixture was delicious 😋

Best of all though, DH has taken da for a bike ride so the house is mine for a while. Bliss. It’s so peaceful 😊

Not sure if this the right place to mention it but I managed to get some Carex handgel 70% alcohol in my local Superdrug this morning. £1.45 per 50ml bottle. Pleased to see these things coming back into stock!

Spudlet Masks are pretty much the norm in the supermarkets near me now and I think there is a good chance we will be advised to wear them in public places soon. I thought about making a few for us but the only suitable material I have is a summery ditsy print and my husband said I'm not wearing that, I'll look like Kirsty Allsop!

Well this is a milestone! I clicked onto the BBC website and found myself more interested in the weather than the news!

There must be quite a bit of regional variation I think with the masks, I've just spent an hour in a big Sainsburys and only seen one shopper in a mask. One or two of the staff too.

There are lots of masks for sale on Etsy. And please do wear them. They might cut transmission up to 36 times and the more they're normalised now the more others will feel brave about wearing them. I know it can make you feel stupid though!

I think we will have to get used to them, I have thought about it, but on the whole everyone here seems very good at the 2m apart thing. However in order to open up more of life again masks will almost certainly be needed.

Adequate masks up to the Oxford Labs spec are easy to make, and so long as there is no requirement to pay some company an inflated price for a manufactured one that looks like a surgical mask I prefer not to.

Does anyone know a link to a mask you can make which is up to the correct spec? I saw one somewhere on here which I can’t find now but the idea was you put a bit of kitchen roll in it and replaced that and then washed the fabric part after outings ( can’t find it now, but was this adequate ).

I'd happily wear a mask it does sound like they really help cut transmission

Was talking to a friend earlier though about it and he said I'll never wear a mask they're for dick heads 🙄

I'm worried lots will have this attitude Cos if I'm honest before lock down and before I knew how serious it would get.. if I saw someone wearing one I'd think dick head

@DianneWhatcock well there's likely to be a tipping point where he'll feel more of a dickhead without one. Plus if it becomes mandatory in certain situations people won't have a choice if they want to do something eg shopping.

@Arcadia that is very true!! Let's hope so

Dellow masks4all.co/how-to-make-a-homemade-mask/ gives more than one possibility. I have gone for Option 2: "T-Shirt, Scissors, And A Paper Towel (2 Minutes)" because I owned a dead t-shirt and a roll of kitchen towel.

He goes on a bit, but the instructions are fine.

A mask of this kind will reduce your chances of catching covid19 from a random passing person to pretty-near nothing so long as you don't both stand there sharing breath for a long time. Better if the other person also has a mask, at which point you are, effectively, safe.

Better to have two, one to wash and one to wear, unless you are only going out for one expedition in a day and it will have time to dry between uses; if they are damp the paper towel between the two layers of cloth disintegrates (and is a pain to get out!) Also remember to take the towel out for disposal in the kitchen rubbish bin before submersing the mask in hot soapy water, same reason.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime That's the site I was looking at. I'm hoping to make a few of Option 3. Just need to go through my stuff and find some suitable material.

I think they are worth while even if they do more for keeping others safe than for you -- they still help protect you a fair bit as well, so long as you take them off right and wash them and your hands as soon as you have done so.

My brother is my source for masks of this sort having been approved of by researchers both at Oxford and at Cambridge. He is retired, but turns out to know people in both places, and trusts them.

Mine was pretty simple to make. Didn’t take me long on the sewing machine but you could hand sew one quite easily. I chopped up a breastfeeding cover thing someone gave to me - I never used it and it was just hanging around.

Been sewing again today - some bunting. One string for the front fence, one for DSs playhouse and then another for my Dniece too - just got to post it to her as goodness knows when we’ll get to visit!

Excuse the mess

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime thank you !

Nice bunting!

Oh my goodness. I'm so glad I found this thread! I had a big old cry this morning as I'm so worried about my DS missing school and friends. But this thread and the gorgeous sunshine tonight has made me feel so much better.

Time for me to bow out of this thread (and therefore finally delete Mumsnet as this was the only thread I was on). I disagree with more and more that's being said here and it's stopped making me feel better about the situation. But before I go I wanted to say a huge thank you to the many kind people on this thread who helped me through some difficult early days. Take care everyone. Bye for now 👋

M0reGinPlease we'll miss you! Sorry to see you go! Take care! Be lovely if you came back! X

Spudlet I've been doing beginners yoga for the last couple of weeks and found myself saying "downward dog!" looking at your bunting photo!

And hello trumpisaflump