The Anti Dementors, danger-buffooning their way through life!

[Drivingdownthe101]

New thread!

We met up with another family last week for the boys to do an hours cricket nets practice, we did sneak back to theirs for lunch at a social distance ( they have a v big garden). Later on they announced that we could do the same from today.
Since I had insider info on the exact timing of lockdown and various other critical points, friends just assumed I’d known in advance.

With regard to dentists, we gave all our PPE to the NHS at the beginning of lockdown ( we had to) now they won’t give it back! So many practices can’t open fully until PPE becomes available.

She’s been doing online school for sixth form and is so much happier. I don’t think she’ll be able to cope with university which is sad in many ways as she’s extremely bright and more than academically able. She was very interested in the prospect of university being online as it’s one way she might be able to get a degree in the future.

Open University is bloody good I've both stuyded with it and know many people family and friends who got their's degrees with them.

So if she really can't manage a usual university that's absolutely no reason she couldn't do distance learning and get one with them - it's more usual to do it around work and study p/t which takes around 6 years for a degree but you can take a full timetable.

You can also space courses out - if there needs to be a break or take a course with fewer credits and hours. They've been around over 50 years and do knwo what they are doing and are still one of the largest univerities in the UK.

I think some tradition brick and mortar universities are looking at setting up distance learing as well and have been for a while and some do p/t now - the local college here also does degrees full and p/t which I belive isn't uncommon so if she needed to stay close to home for support that's an option and credit transfer is supposed to exist between institutions which could also help.

So there are already options out there.

Many of DH students have ASD and they do cope and do well at University and there are support services the university has that help them.

Apparently my "infantile cheeriness" isn't going to solve a pandemic.

No shit.

And a Pollyanna insult.

Honestly I think life would be better if these miserable arseholes locked themselves in their houses forever more.

@TrustTheGeneGenie well the only response to that is "NER NER NE NER NER" and a big raspberry really isn't it?

@Cattermole that made me laugh!

My school have confirmed today that they're planning to re-open from the 15th! Not sure yet whether I'll be in as they're still working on staffing, but I bloody hope so. Either way, it will be nice just knowing they're taking some slow steps back to normal.

ah yes, cheeriness won’t solve a pandemic. Unlike glooming and worrying and telling everyone you’re picturing dead bodies all over the beaches, which will absolutely solve a pandemic. Virus will just say “fair play, can’t compete with that” and mutate itself into oblivion!

(more seriously though I think that when you’re very anxious it does feel like you have to be keeping on top of everything and constantly thinking about and planning for the worst so the worst doesn’t sneak up on you. But that’s why anxiety is probably not the inner voice we should be listening to, let alone insisting everyone else listen to as well.)

With regard to dentists, we gave all our PPE to the NHS at the beginning of lockdown ( we had to) now they won’t give it back! So many practices can’t open fully until PPE becomes available.

I wonder if it's all be used so can't give it back.

I do get why dentsit and orthodontist need PPE to re-open but can't help wishing they can get it as soon as possible and re-open.

I'm in wales though so no idea when they can open here at all.

Morning all. I don't have school age DC anymore so I'm just observing, but if DD was in the relevant years, she would be going today no question. The village school has opened and the FB "fun" has started...my favourites so far is .." I don't think the school should of (sic) opened today 'cos I'm not sending xx in and it's not fair that she's going to be missing out". This was followed by the usual "I agree hun" "you're a good mamma" and other such usual bollox, and then came the killer from her friend and I shit you not this is the exact reply (names excluded)... " I know hun yyy isn't going in either, do you want to bring xx to mine I've got a few others coming up they can all play in the garden together when we have a coffee".

We seem to have more than our fair share of idiots in this village.

trappedsincesundaymorn I have no words.
There is one mum on our Reception WhatsApp group who is very anti schools going back... ‘no way my boys are being guinea pigs, I’m keeping them safe with me’. She lives round the corner from us, we walked past yesterday and she had a garden full of kids. About 8 of them.

I was very lucky that my giant filling collapsed a few days before lockdown and I got an emergency appointment on the final Friday. The remnants of that tooth would have broken off by now.

It was a week or two before our routine appointments so he did a routine check while he was at it and I booked me and the DCs in for October, which was reassuring as their checks were cancelled a weekor so later.

I'd rather defeat a pandemic with optomism than gloom!

DH was anti-dementoring a friend last night. He's not the worst by any stretch of the imagination, but had sent a gloomy link about assymptomatic spead. DH sent some perspective back. Our local testing centre is picking up a handful to zero cases per day. DS2's class can have more kids off with norrovirus come the winter!

The worst dementors aren’t actually on top of the facts though, are they?

In our house we are following the science very closely (dh is a mathematician who has been doing covid modelling in a group with some mathematical biologists and has taught epidemiology for years) and we are pretty chilled and optimistic about it all. Dh isn’t discounting a second wave (in the winter when we spend more time indoors again) but he doesn’t think it’s going to happen from people going to beaches or children being back at school, and there’s a good chance we will be better at both treatments and targeting our prevention measures by then.
To properly dement you need a little knowledge (the Spanish flu had a second wave!) and no grasp at all of statistics.
We are thinking quite obsessively about covid here - a typical day starts with the latest from Medrxiv- but it doesn’t seem to have harmed our mental health.

My DS came home from primary week before lockdown telling me

"Stress does not help your immune system, staying calm does though!"

It's true cortisol and stress can impact the immune system. Dementors need to be wary of that!

And another one who'd been posting again and again that it was too early to send the kids back to school on FB has now just replied to my comment that mine are back today with a "glad it's not just mine going in"

Considering it was literally death when I stuck them on a 30 day snooze a couple of weeks ago - funny how people change.

I think we should reclaim the Pollyanna title somehow. Afterall, in the book, she wins out in the end and it is her positive and optimistic outlook that helps her achieve this.

Next thread - "Pollyanna triumphs!" "Pollyanna v The Dementors" or "Pollyanna dangerously buffoons all Dementors" Or something on those lines

Feeling a bit deflated after speaking to DM. She kept saying how ‘brave and sensible’ I was being in sending DS back to preschool. I kept telling her I wasn’t being brave, but she wouldn’t have it. Now I find myself doubting my decisions.

Definitely, Khione!

nextdoor.co.uk/agency-detail/england/south-west/hm-government-4/

How to stay safe when going outside. Going out this weekend? 🌳

Watch survivalist Megan Hine talk about the actions we should all be taking to protect ourselves

DS was so happy to be back at school this morning. DH said he didn't even look back to wave as he skipped in, and thought the headteacher dressed in completely OTT PPE taking temperatures was hilarious (while DH rolled his eyes)

Morning all. There's something really lovely about imagining children going back to school today. I hope yours have a lovely time if they're there and I'm thinking of anyone who can't send theirs yet - it's shit. I hope it makes a difference in particular to any children particularly struggling.

This is all getting so tedious isn't it? Somehow I ended up looking at Professor Alice Robert's Twitter feed. I used to be such a huge fan. She's full of doom about how schools shouldn't be going back and we shouldn't be coming out of lockdown and teachers should be in PPE and my heart just sunk. Surely she can see the risk is tiny? I do actually support mask wearing in crowded indoor spaces (or I will more so as we go into winter and are indoors more and heading for flu season) but not in schools. Why have so many otherwise rational intelligent people lost their minds over this? The government and media have done far too good a job of terrifying people but people like her should be able to critique the situation. Instead she's scaremongering.

I actually think that the people who are enjoying lockdown are doing more damage to their general mental health than those of us who LOATHE it!

Nooo @spudlet! Ignore ignore ignore. You are entirely right; if sending your little spud to school right now is brave, you're also a VERY brave little soldier every time you drive somewhat on the motorway, let him ride his bike to a friend's house, or allow him a bounce on a trampoline. Don't doubt yourself!

In the spirit of the first day back, I was glad to see a more positive article in the Guardian - quite different to other ones...a bit more balanced (thankfully)

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/01/parents-are-clearly-anxious-teachers-prepare-for-safe-return-to-school

“Parents are clearly anxious because more are keeping them off than choosing to send them. But we’re going to be ready in trying to make it as normal as possible for the children when they come back,” said the headteacher"

"In the playground, bikes and bats and balls will also need to be wiped down between groups." - but they are using them

"Learning for year 1 (five- to six-year-olds), and year 6 pupils (10- to 11-year-olds) will be a more adventurous affair, with teachers taking classes on the playing field or the “forest school” in the school’s adjoining woodlands, weather permitting."

(The head) "was confident the school were taking all the steps to mitigate the risk of the spread of the virus..."

@BillywilliamV I would describe myself as someone who is quite enjoying lockdown but I can understand that for some people it's utterly shit and that the economy can't sustain it for much longer. I am pretty on board with the idea of local lockdowns if they can actually make it work.

Why have so many otherwise rational intelligent people lost their minds over this?

This is the question that keeps me up at night. Mainly because I think - what would happen in the event of something worse than coronavirus? How will we cope with a more serious pandemic? With the effects of climate change? I used to think we would be fine as our stoic tendencies and Blitz spirit would kick in and we'd all just rally together. I hadn't predicted all the dementoring...