I spent Saturday cleaning the house. Normally, a day spent cleaning would produce a small but useful sum with coins found in odd places. Enough to treat the cleaner (me!) to a nice box of chocolates, bottle of bubble bath or a bunch of flowers.
Alas, we have been contactless or buying online since March. My Saturday haul came to the grand total of...11p.
I’ve planted indoor chard, kale and cabbage (in the porch, which will soon look like a greenhouse!) with the hope of harvesting it in December during a likely shortage of greens.
I haven't used cash since about half-past March, but I do have a money box in which I put any loose change I have, or find. It is full, and has been for months and months, so I really need to take it to the supermarket or bank, to put in their loose change machine...
They'll probably change all the coins before I get around to it...
Having finished the ecover toilet cleaner, I bought domestos bleach. My main learning is that bleach effectively cleans your toilet, and ecovoer toilet cleaner does not.
I had been wondering why they were gradually discolouring and whether I was going to need to buy some sort of special product.
(Why did I not realise this you ask, because pre-pandemic I had a cleaner and because I am deeply undomesticated, I answer.)
Interesting that this thread has slipped down the page, despite the fact we are still mid-pandemic (heck, we are probably not even as far as the middle). I suspect it's because Coping with Covid has morphed into Coping with Everyday Life.
I don't know - is there any going back? Or just through? One thing I feel I have to do is re-establish certain activities in the new context - painting, for example. I relied on classes and the occasional course to keep engaged. T'ai Chi likewise.
Interesting that this thread has slipped down the page, despite the fact we are still mid-pandemic (heck, we are probably not even as far as the middle). I suspect it's because Coping with Covid has morphed into Coping with Everyday Life.
I don't know - is there any going back? Or just through? One thing I feel I have to do is re-establish certain activities in the new context - painting, for example. I relied on classes and the occasional course to keep engaged. T'ai Chi likewise.
How to self start?
Find Zoom classes. They are not the same but still enjoyable.
I do German, art, Church and puppy classes by Zoom now. It fills my week very well - alongside the dog walking, gardening and jigsaws. 🧩
There is an online event coming up this weekend that has two options for inclusion: zoom or fb live. Now, fb I can just about cope with. But zoom, Much less so.
Is there such a thing as being “un- zoom-able ?”
Also
Am I alone in not enjoying the whole facetime/ zoom / camera - in- my - phone/tablet/ computer linking Thing?
Hermitage style living has never seemed so attractive!
I took a work folder down from a top shelf to check something and it was properly write-your-name-in-it dusty. It wouldn't have a chance to get dusty normally, but I last needed it in January.
How to self start?
Firenze, I have typed up a morning routine, which I tick my way down, to ensure that my day gets off to a definite start, and also stops tasks bleeding into the afternoon, the plan being that I can focus on something in the afternoon.
There is an online event coming up this weekend that has two options for inclusion: zoom or fb live. Now, fb I can just about cope with. But zoom, Much less so.
Is there such a thing as being “un- zoom-able ?”
Also
Am I alone in not enjoying the whole facetime/ zoom / camera - in- my - phone/tablet/ computer linking Thing?
Hermitage style living has never seemed so attractive!
No, you're not the only one. I'm not at all keen on these things - I don't use FaceBark or Twittery at all, though I can cope with Zoom for about 15 minutes!
I use emails a lot, but don't have a government surveillance instrument smartphone.
I think @Firenze is right, and we are just getting on with The New Normal™...
I haven't been involved with Zoom at all, apart from a couple of "pub" quizzes arranged by my nephew, where we all took part, although I was in a team with my sister.
One of the things I find hardest about the "new normal" is not being able to give anyone a hug: BC* it used to take my family ages to say hello or goodbye, as everyone had to hug everyone else. At least before the current increased restrictions we were allowed to cuddle my great-nephews and great-nieces, but as I understand it, we can't even meet them now - at least not indoors.
On a really selfish note, I'm a bit concerned about what life's going to be like when I move into my own place (due to happen on the 23rd). Although I can cope with my own company for quite a while, the prospect of not being allowed to have any visitors until God knows when is a bit bleak.
@Piglet - I'm totally confused as to who is permitted to visit anyone else, but do the restrictions in Scotland apply to all the members of your own family?
I don't recommend it, of course, but I bet there's a lot of government-inspired law-breaking going on (in a specific and limited way).
Some areas are allowing people who live alone to ‘attach’ themselves to another household, not sure if this applies to your area, Piglet.
I am used to teaching online, having done it for 13 years, but I do not enjoy Zoom yoga even when we have Zoom coffee afterwards. I hated the family quiz attempts. After church break out rooms can also be awkward as you are assigned them, rather than naturally falling into conversation; it is not as purposeful as a chosen interaction, face to face or online.
Bizarrely, the situation has improved communications at work as academic staff who physically work in the uni are now in the same position as us associates who normally work from home. I’m enjoying regular meetings in Teams where I actually see my colleagues and I’ve been invited to faculty research study days. Online conferences are also cheaper and more accessible to me.
Thanks @Heavenlyannie - I think that's what I'd seen on the news.
BTW, a Guardian reader has come up with a simple new slogan, easy to remember, and based on that popular, traditional, English folk-dance, the Hokey Cokey...:
IN - complete lockdown
OUT - Rule of Six
SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT - take the *government* as your example, and do what you like...
@Piglet - I'm totally confused as to who is permitted to visit anyone else, but do the restrictions in Scotland apply to all the members of your own family?
Depends on indoors or outdoors, and whether it's a home or a public space... But pretty much, yes.
Basically if you want to visit someone or have them visit you in your own home, it's a no unless:
you and they form part of an extended household. As @Piglet is currently living with her sister, she is not eligible to do that. When she lives alone, she may form an exclusive extended household with one other household only. And you may not change that other household. You do not have to physically distance (so hugs allowed), but if one of the extended household has to isolate, all members do.
You can go into someone’s house to provide essential care and support such as childcare and delivering shopping to a vulnerable person
Tradespeople are permitted to come in
So at present, Piglet is only allowed into anyone else's house if she is providing essential care or support. She's only supposed to have any physical contact with her sister, because they are a household. Baby-sized great-nieces/nephews are OK, because children under 12 are exempt from physical distancing, but (I think) only if they are outdoors...
Outdoors you have the max six people (this means over 12) from two households rule. Likewise for indoors in restaurants/bars/cafe etc
if you want all the detail. But as you say, I have little doubt that (in a specific and limited way) this is not necessarily adhered to...
Interesting that this thread has slipped down the page, despite the fact we are still mid-pandemic (heck, we are probably not even as far as the middle). I suspect it's because Coping with Covid has morphed into Coping with Everyday Life.
I don't know - is there any going back? Or just through? One thing I feel I have to do is re-establish certain activities in the new context - painting, for example. I relied on classes and the occasional course to keep engaged. T'ai Chi likewise.
How to self start?
I think it's Coping with Everyday Life and what that looks like in this Covid times. I've had conversations with various friends about how in a way things are harder now because lockdown had very specific perameters but now everything is a judgement call. Now, for example, I do have weekly lunches with two friends in a local cafe. We've had couples round to a meal in the house, and up to six people outside on the patio for coffee. This Sunday we have two other couples coming here for a meal. A couple of weeks ago I went to an aerobics class at our local leisure centre. I enjoyed the latter (lovely to be in a live class rather than trying to do something online) but remain uncomfortable about exercising in a (very large but windowless) room with 40 other people, and will probably not be repeating that.
I'm fine with Zoom and I like the way it feels completely "safe." So much else doesn't, and is a calculated risk. And we don't know for how long it's going to be like that. A long time, I suspect.
The local council seems to expect things to get worse again: they have asked Nursery to confirm which parents are "key workers" according to the email we had today.
The way we were living in March has, with a little loosening if the restraints, become my "normal" but I have suddenly been jolted into the need for "old normal" by a problem with my washing machine; a problem that involved a noisy spin cycle and the smell of burning.
The Domestic Appliance care bods who advertised in the local press are no longer advertising their services and the person suggested by the local Domestic Appliance shop no longer does calls to private homes.
The larger company I contacted would not give me any idea what parts might be needed (nor might cost) and wanted to charge 1/3 of the cost of a new one to come out and look at it.
Seems the new normal involves hand washing in more senses than one.
The larger company I contacted would not give me any idea what parts might be needed (nor might cost) and wanted to charge 1/3 of the cost of a new one to come out and look at it.
Sounds about par for the course. They won't want to commit themselves over the phone, even on an "it's probably this" basis, because people get upset when they're told that their problem can probably be fixed with a cheap part in half an hour, and then find out that they've got to replace the whole machine.
It sounds to me like you've had a bearing fail in a wheel that supports the drum of your washing machine. If that is the problem, then it is a relatively cheap replacement. It took me about an hour to do a very similar replacement on my dryer earlier this year, and I'm slow, and the dryer is in a cramped corner and hard to access. This paragraph, of course, is a guess, and worth exactly what you paid for it.
I don't know how I'll work out who my extended household will be - my sister will want (and need) to be able to do granny duty with her new grand-daughter, so she's presumably not allowed another household.
It's probably too much to expect that the one-household rule will have been eased by the 23rd ...
Many in my area of California have been on fire evacuation as I was earlier in the month. I was able to see my son and family for the first time since March. We were at his place a little over a week. At first, we wore masks and stayed apart, but as both he and his girlfriend work from home and only do grocery runs once every two weeks, and the children are homeschooling on zoom, by day 5 we ditched the masks and ate together at the table. We are all fine, but I do wonder what the outcome of thousands staying in hotels, and with friends and family may be. To have a little normal was really a boost for my mental health.
I don't know how I'll work out who my extended household will be - my sister will want (and need) to be able to do granny duty with her new grand-daughter, so she's presumably not allowed another household.
It's probably too much to expect that the one-household rule will have been eased by the 23rd ...
@Piglet - I think it probably is too much to expect that one-household is going to change...
The whole bubble/extended household thing can be a bit of a poisoned chalice - a widowed colleague had to decide whether to bubble with her mother with or her daughter (and new baby grandchild). And how do you make that decision? It can be a difficult call...
It was intended to help alleviate loneliness, but as a single person myself, it's been of no use to me whatsoever.
Me neither - but my family (although we keep in touch electronically) is scatty scattered, and therefore can't visit me even if they could IYSWIM.
The New Normal™ is not too onerous - as I've said elsewhere, I miss the music and singing at church, but in other ways the worship is being maintained reasonably as per usual. We even have a daily Mass again, thanks to FatherInCharge's ingenuity in employing an otherwise rather unused area at the back of the church as a 'pop-up' chapel, augmenting the 3 side chapels we already have. The idea is to leave plenty of time between the use of each individual chapel, so that the virus can safely die off...
BTW, I've not yet suggested to him a name for the new chapel. St Popup's is obvious - perhaps commemorating one of the early Desert Fathers, who lived in a hole in the ground - or maybe St GoPak's - after the patron saint of folding tables as used in church halls.
On a day-to-day basis, I just go to the shop(s) now and then - every couple of days - and the wearing of a mask for 10-15 minutes is not too uncomfortable, except for the steaming-up of my specs.
I'm not looking forward to queuing outside the Co-Op in the rain, though - whatever happened to those old-fashioned sun blinds that High Street shops used to have? They'd be just the job...
... The whole bubble/extended household thing can be a bit of a poisoned chalice
Exactly - I've got a sister, brother and sister-in-law, two nephews and two nieces (all with partners, three with children), all in or around Edinburgh, and I hate the idea that I might have to decide on one but not the rest.
If I thought I could get a job and somewhere to live in Orkney I think I'd almost be tempted* - being near my family is lovely, but it's un fat lot de bon if I'm not allowed to see them.
* Actually that's a bit of a unicorn - there's nothing available that I could afford anyway.
Not at all - one appears to require the Wisdom of Solomon to decide how to arrange these things, and very hard indeed it must be.
Is it easier @Piglet to arrange meetings, perhaps with only one or two relatives at a time, outside the home environment?
As I've said, I'm totally confused by the English rules (along with our PM and his dad), so the Scottish rules are probably equally arcane...if, perhaps, more cogently explained by your government...
Is it easier @Piglet to arrange meetings, perhaps with only one or two relatives at a time, outside the home environment?
As long as you don't have more than 6 people over the age of 12, and from no more than two households, and you all physically distance, that's all perfectly acceptable. And I don't think there are limits on how many households you can meet in a day. So you can meet one household in the morning, and another in the afternoon and have coffee/a meal indoors both times...
But if what's really missed is the physical contact of a hug... you can forget that (unless it's your extended household). And you have to choose which one other household you may want physical contact with. So Piglet would have to choose one of the six other households she mentions...
I'm not exactly the most touch-feely person out and I'm missing the physical contact of a hug.
No, that's what I mean about the poisoned chalice. You have to pick one family unit over another. Your mother or your daughter? Your sister or your brother? Your niece or your nephew?
At least, so far, we can meet in places like cafes and restaurants, of which there seems to be quite an abundance in Linlithgow. I'm sure we'll manage to work something out.
Kingsfold - the lack of physical contact was hard for me too. As soon as it was allowable I had a massage from a physiotherapist I have known for years but in the meantime bubble baths helped.
I get a hug from my daughter when she comes over to see me. She and I are in our 'bubble' but can see no one else. My daughter, being in a place with extra lockdown, cannot see either of her two sons or the two new babies, much less the ones already here! Me neither! We are both really and utterly fed up.
So I have ventured into the Open University Free courses, just a short introductory one to see how it goes. I did a whole year one a few years ago, but don't aspire to anything too great now, my memory is not what it was! There are loads of interesting-looking free courses if this goes well!
My great-niece, M., and her classmates have been sent home to self-isolate until next Friday, as one of her classmates (whose mother is a key worker) tested positive. As far as I know, M. hasn't been tested, and has no symptoms; her little brother is still going to school and her parents haven't been told to isolate.
My grandkids attend a ginormous local comprehensive. They managed two weeks of this term before being sent home, as pupils in their years had tested positive. First it was going to be two weeks at home, then indefinitely. Thankfully they returned to school on Monday, but part time in shifts. They’re in different shifts so it helps that they can travel to and from school independently and on foot. Fun and games.
Kingsfold other things that have helped me are using a bath brush or one of those net ball to clean myself - it's the tactile combined with a scent I like, but plain soap would also be OK.
I have also been doing mindfulness meditation for the last couple of years. There's a practice named the body scan (which can be found on You Tube with Jon Kabat-Zinn) where the meditator is guided to breathe deeply and connect with different parts of the body, starting with the feet. If I do that then have a shower I feel really connected up with myself.
I realise meditation may not be for everyone, but I have found it beneficial.
When I worked in a psychiatric ward we used progressive muscle relaxation for our relaxation therapy sessions, it’s a technique that’s been around since the 1930s and I’m guessing a lot of these new methods are rooted in it. You work your way up the body, tensing and relaxing muscles. I used to use it on medical wards to help patients sleep.
My yoga teacher also uses a method that connects with different parts of the body.
Heavenlyannie, progressive muscle relaxation seemed to be the only method on offer for so many years, I tried it with numerous people but it never left me feeling relaxed. If I tensed a muscle it stayed that way. Trying it left me feeling an abject failure - and frustrated as well.
It's great that there are so many different approaches now.
Good that you’ve found something that works for you. I find yoga breathing really relaxing, and I use controlled breathing a lot with anxiety. It’s currently good with my Post-covid fast heart rate too.
Minor grouse - due to inefficient enzyme I am prone to flaking and splitting skin, particularly on my hands (cue tubs of axle grease and vinyl gloves a lot). Having been away for a few days last week I was continually and dutifully applying hand sanitiser which unfortunately is very desiccating and stings like buggery.
Someone upthread said something that has made me think...during the early part of "lockdown" (pre-Cummings) it was simple. One might not have liked it but it was clear. Stay at home.
Then things got a great deal more complicated and it is quite frankly exhausting, trying to keep up with what one may and may not do, and where, and with whom.
No oder everyone is feeling knackered. And grumpy. And dreading the dark days ahead of us. (And I hate bloody Christmas so there is that not to look forward to as well.)
I'm sure there is something in what you say, and, looking at the news (FWIW), it may be that a second complete lockdown is possible, and quite soon.
At least we'd have some idea of what NOT to do, and where NOT to go etc. etc.
(BTW - am I the only person to be gobsmacked at the revelation that the entire economy of the UK appears to be based on pubs, restaurants, wedding venues, and tourism?)
Comments
Alas, we have been contactless or buying online since March. My Saturday haul came to the grand total of...11p.
I've weeded the paved and gravelled bits of the garden.
The carpets in particular are looking at me in mute reproach.
I don't expect a monetary return on any of this.
I haven't used cash since about half-past March, but I do have a money box in which I put any loose change I have, or find. It is full, and has been for months and months, so I really need to take it to the supermarket or bank, to put in their loose change machine...
They'll probably change all the coins before I get around to it...
O, but they crunch a bit.
I am eyeing the summer room as well......
I had been wondering why they were gradually discolouring and whether I was going to need to buy some sort of special product.
(Why did I not realise this you ask, because pre-pandemic I had a cleaner and because I am deeply undomesticated, I answer.)
I don't know - is there any going back? Or just through? One thing I feel I have to do is re-establish certain activities in the new context - painting, for example. I relied on classes and the occasional course to keep engaged. T'ai Chi likewise.
How to self start?
Find Zoom classes. They are not the same but still enjoyable.
I do German, art, Church and puppy classes by Zoom now. It fills my week very well - alongside the dog walking, gardening and jigsaws. 🧩
Is there such a thing as being “un- zoom-able ?”
Also
Am I alone in not enjoying the whole facetime/ zoom / camera - in- my - phone/tablet/ computer linking Thing?
Hermitage style living has never seemed so attractive!
How to self start?
Firenze, I have typed up a morning routine, which I tick my way down, to ensure that my day gets off to a definite start, and also stops tasks bleeding into the afternoon, the plan being that I can focus on something in the afternoon.
No, you're not the only one. I'm not at all keen on these things - I don't use FaceBark or Twittery at all, though I can cope with Zoom for about 15 minutes!
I use emails a lot, but don't have a government surveillance instrument smartphone.
I think @Firenze is right, and we are just getting on with The New Normal™...
One of the things I find hardest about the "new normal" is not being able to give anyone a hug: BC* it used to take my family ages to say hello or goodbye, as everyone had to hug everyone else. At least before the current increased restrictions we were allowed to cuddle my great-nephews and great-nieces, but as I understand it, we can't even meet them now - at least not indoors.
On a really selfish note, I'm a bit concerned about what life's going to be like when I move into my own place (due to happen on the 23rd). Although I can cope with my own company for quite a while, the prospect of not being allowed to have any visitors until God knows when is a bit bleak.
Sorry - rant over.
* Before Covid
I don't recommend it, of course, but I bet there's a lot of government-inspired law-breaking going on (in a specific and limited way).
I am used to teaching online, having done it for 13 years, but I do not enjoy Zoom yoga even when we have Zoom coffee afterwards. I hated the family quiz attempts. After church break out rooms can also be awkward as you are assigned them, rather than naturally falling into conversation; it is not as purposeful as a chosen interaction, face to face or online.
Bizarrely, the situation has improved communications at work as academic staff who physically work in the uni are now in the same position as us associates who normally work from home. I’m enjoying regular meetings in Teams where I actually see my colleagues and I’ve been invited to faculty research study days. Online conferences are also cheaper and more accessible to me.
Obviously not the same as being free to visit family though.
BTW, a Guardian reader has come up with a simple new slogan, easy to remember, and based on that popular, traditional, English folk-dance, the Hokey Cokey...:
IN - complete lockdown
OUT - Rule of Six
SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT - take the *government* as your example, and do what you like...
Depends on indoors or outdoors, and whether it's a home or a public space... But pretty much, yes.
Basically if you want to visit someone or have them visit you in your own home, it's a no unless:
So at present, Piglet is only allowed into anyone else's house if she is providing essential care or support. She's only supposed to have any physical contact with her sister, because they are a household. Baby-sized great-nieces/nephews are OK, because children under 12 are exempt from physical distancing, but (I think) only if they are outdoors...
Outdoors you have the max six people (this means over 12) from two households rule. Likewise for indoors in restaurants/bars/cafe etc
if you want all the detail. But as you say, I have little doubt that (in a specific and limited way) this is not necessarily adhered to...
I think it's Coping with Everyday Life and what that looks like in this Covid times. I've had conversations with various friends about how in a way things are harder now because lockdown had very specific perameters but now everything is a judgement call. Now, for example, I do have weekly lunches with two friends in a local cafe. We've had couples round to a meal in the house, and up to six people outside on the patio for coffee. This Sunday we have two other couples coming here for a meal. A couple of weeks ago I went to an aerobics class at our local leisure centre. I enjoyed the latter (lovely to be in a live class rather than trying to do something online) but remain uncomfortable about exercising in a (very large but windowless) room with 40 other people, and will probably not be repeating that.
I'm fine with Zoom and I like the way it feels completely "safe." So much else doesn't, and is a calculated risk. And we don't know for how long it's going to be like that. A long time, I suspect.
The Domestic Appliance care bods who advertised in the local press are no longer advertising their services and the person suggested by the local Domestic Appliance shop no longer does calls to private homes.
The larger company I contacted would not give me any idea what parts might be needed (nor might cost) and wanted to charge 1/3 of the cost of a new one to come out and look at it.
Seems the new normal involves hand washing in more senses than one.
Sounds about par for the course. They won't want to commit themselves over the phone, even on an "it's probably this" basis, because people get upset when they're told that their problem can probably be fixed with a cheap part in half an hour, and then find out that they've got to replace the whole machine.
It sounds to me like you've had a bearing fail in a wheel that supports the drum of your washing machine. If that is the problem, then it is a relatively cheap replacement. It took me about an hour to do a very similar replacement on my dryer earlier this year, and I'm slow, and the dryer is in a cramped corner and hard to access. This paragraph, of course, is a guess, and worth exactly what you paid for it.
I don't know how I'll work out who my extended household will be - my sister will want (and need) to be able to do granny duty with her new grand-daughter, so she's presumably not allowed another household.
It's probably too much to expect that the one-household rule will have been eased by the 23rd ...
@Piglet - I think it probably is too much to expect that one-household is going to change...
The whole bubble/extended household thing can be a bit of a poisoned chalice - a widowed colleague had to decide whether to bubble with her mother with or her daughter (and new baby grandchild). And how do you make that decision? It can be a difficult call...
It was intended to help alleviate loneliness, but as a single person myself, it's been of no use to me whatsoever.
The New Normal™ is not too onerous - as I've said elsewhere, I miss the music and singing at church, but in other ways the worship is being maintained reasonably as per usual. We even have a daily Mass again, thanks to FatherInCharge's ingenuity in employing an otherwise rather unused area at the back of the church as a 'pop-up' chapel, augmenting the 3 side chapels we already have. The idea is to leave plenty of time between the use of each individual chapel, so that the virus can safely die off...
BTW, I've not yet suggested to him a name for the new chapel. St Popup's is obvious - perhaps commemorating one of the early Desert Fathers, who lived in a hole in the ground - or maybe St GoPak's - after the patron saint of folding tables as used in church halls.
On a day-to-day basis, I just go to the shop(s) now and then - every couple of days - and the wearing of a mask for 10-15 minutes is not too uncomfortable, except for the steaming-up of my specs.
I'm not looking forward to queuing outside the Co-Op in the rain, though - whatever happened to those old-fashioned sun blinds that High Street shops used to have? They'd be just the job...
If I thought I could get a job and somewhere to live in Orkney I think I'd almost be tempted* - being near my family is lovely, but it's un fat lot de bon if I'm not allowed to see them.
* Actually that's a bit of a unicorn - there's nothing available that I could afford anyway.
Sorry - I'm being a bit self-indulgently silly.
Is it easier @Piglet to arrange meetings, perhaps with only one or two relatives at a time, outside the home environment?
As I've said, I'm totally confused by the English rules (along with our PM and his dad), so the Scottish rules are probably equally arcane...if, perhaps, more cogently explained by your government...
But if what's really missed is the physical contact of a hug... you can forget that (unless it's your extended household). And you have to choose which one other household you may want physical contact with. So Piglet would have to choose one of the six other households she mentions...
I'm not exactly the most touch-feely person out and I'm missing the physical contact of a hug.
It is indeed a dire situation, but I suppose it has to be faced...
So I have ventured into the Open University Free courses, just a short introductory one to see how it goes. I did a whole year one a few years ago, but don't aspire to anything too great now, my memory is not what it was! There are loads of interesting-looking free courses if this goes well!
I have also been doing mindfulness meditation for the last couple of years. There's a practice named the body scan (which can be found on You Tube with Jon Kabat-Zinn) where the meditator is guided to breathe deeply and connect with different parts of the body, starting with the feet. If I do that then have a shower I feel really connected up with myself.
I realise meditation may not be for everyone, but I have found it beneficial.
My yoga teacher also uses a method that connects with different parts of the body.
It's great that there are so many different approaches now.
Then things got a great deal more complicated and it is quite frankly exhausting, trying to keep up with what one may and may not do, and where, and with whom.
No oder everyone is feeling knackered. And grumpy. And dreading the dark days ahead of us. (And I hate bloody Christmas so there is that not to look forward to as well.)
At least we'd have some idea of what NOT to do, and where NOT to go etc. etc.
(BTW - am I the only person to be gobsmacked at the revelation that the entire economy of the UK appears to be based on pubs, restaurants, wedding venues, and tourism?)