Covid-19 effects on a remote island in Orkney

Transcript of MumDeeDoes video #7:

​Hello my Darlings and welcome to Mum Dee Does. I am Dee, a mum who does it all and today we are going to the beach whilst I tell you all about how this quarantine has affected our life here on Eday. So come on, let's go!

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First of all, I have to remind all of you that we live on a very isolated island as it is, so for a while we haven't actually even noticed any difference. Yes, the government locked down the
country and we were not allowed to leave our homes, and we had to stay distant from all the other people, but for us here on Eday life continued on as usual. We would go outside and we would not see a single soul. We live some half mile away from our nearest neighbour so we have all this land around us to take the dogs out and play with Ronnie and all our beaches are deserted, and there's no one else out here - so for a while nothing changed.


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Then our local shop and the medical center closed its doors to pop-in visitors and you had to make an appointment to use these services, which, once again, didn't affect us all that much because we don't frequent these establishments that much. We expected some food shortages and, rightly so, because our shop has really struggled. Luckily for my family, we have found a different way of ordering groceries. We order all of our weekly goods from a neighbouring island and our neighbour delivers it straight to our door, which is very convenient for us. The local community really stepped up and we actually have more services now than ever before. So, instead of going to the med-center to pick up my medication it now comes straight to my postbox which is even more convenient. Because we don't have a car and so that means a three mile walk to the med-center which now I did not have to make.

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The post system remained brilliant, as always, but our next door neighbour has decided to start making courier deliveries to people on the island, including the grocery shop from the island next door, and so all the goods that we order online - they come straight to our front door. We don't have to worry about picking it up from the pier, so that has been a really good improvement for our life. I really hope these services continue on as the lockdown eases and eventually lifts. The local charity here on the island has been really good. They organised extra boxes of food to be delivered to people's households just to combat the shortages at the local shop and they also organised hot meals to be prepared and delivered to people once a week, which for us here on Eday was a real treat as there are no restaurants, no takeaway shops, no food establishments of any kind so that was a real treat, and we're very grateful to everybody who's been involved in doing that. You see, we live on such a remote island that we're used to deliveries and posts being a few days or even weeks delayed and so that wasn't any different, we did not notice any food shortages because the shop that we use from Sanday was really well prepared and they're very much on the ball with all the latest government legislation and they seem to be on top of their supply chain, so there's been no shortages of food - not since we started using Sanday shop anyway. Edie shop struggled a little bit because it's such a small establishment but, as I say, we found a different way of getting our essential goods and so now we're sticking with one that works for us.

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Social distancing meant that there were no tourists coming onto the island and so whilst I really like seeing tourists for that interaction with the outside world, it's actually been quite nice, and calm, and quiet, and we didn't have to worry about the dogs running off or spooking tourists or anything like that, so it's been really good. The downside was that the ferries no longer carried people into town, so those neighbours of mine who usually work in Kirkwall were no longer able to commute into town. A lot of the council services have closed their doors, so things like the library the leisure centre- they all shut down, so people on mainland Orkney no longer could attend those, but we don't have those services here on Eday anyway so we didn't miss out, however we used to take a boat and take part in these activities now and again which we were unable to do this year, but it wasn't so bad really because we just stayed on the island and we made up our own games and our own entertainment and it's been a really good time. As and when we were allowed to meet with our friends outside we did that, whilst wearing face masks, whilst keeping our distance...

Edie had to cancel its annual Gala week and that's when the summertime activities on the island take place. Usually a lot of people turn up and take part in games and activities to win prizes and to celebrate our little island life, but this year the events have all turned digital which means the quizzes were held on Zoom and all the other competitions were done at your own leisure and at your own time and then photographs of your results were submitted to the competition to win prizes. For example, a sandcastle building competition took place at individual people's time and locations and all we had to do was take photos and submit them to win a prize. Now, Ronnie and I, we built loads of castles but because Ronnie is so small he likes to stomp on the castles and so there was nothing really for us to take a picture of to submit to this competition, but we had a really good time anyway and there were other children on this island who won prizes for the best sandcastle that they built and took photos off and submitted to the competition. So the spirit of the community went ahead as normal, it just wasn't an actual gathering of people but rather a virtual version of all the events.

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We came to the castles beach to enjoy a bit of low tide and Sam and Charlie [dogs] came with us and it's been a good call as Ronnie is really enjoying throwing a ball for the dogs and the dogs seem to enjoy sniffing in the seaweed, so everyone's having a good time!

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Overall, it made us realise just how lucky we are to live on this island and in such a beautiful wild location. It made me appreciate our location and our island that much more. It might have its challenges in normal times, and the isolation can be daunting and difficult. However, when the quarantine hit our lives haven't changed all that much and we actually realized just how lucky we are and we were simply able to continue with our life just as we had always been and as we're used to.

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Mama, mama...


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Ready?


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So thank you very much for watching, subscribe down below to find out what Mum Dee Does next week. Ta ta for now!

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Bye bye!
Good job!