ADs getting ready

[CruCru]

Sorry it’s a bit of a lame title.

My late mother in law was terrified of air raid sirens up to her death at almost 90, so I always cock a sceptical eyebrow at the "masks don't frighten children, they're resilient!" thing.
Am all on board with masks if they are a necessary evil, but let's not make them out to be desirable or normal. Anything that stops us carrying out the normal functions of humanity is not desirable.

Zoom, Netflix, internet shopping, virtual reality - all good as a somewhat piss-poor substitute for the smelly, chaotic reality of being human....

And, CruCru I suspect many will look back on this as a golden time too, although I definitely won't be one of them.

I'll be the one sitting in the corner looking bemused going "What the fuck just happened????"

Strangely I had a similar ‘imagine being born in 1900’ conversation with Mr Crazy. I opined that any poor soul born then would have had to live through two world wars and never had the joy of listening to Bowie, aren’t we lucky to have been born late 20th century 😎’

Good news for the Welsh

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-53263649

In wartime people never had to keep apart or were made to feel their family could kill them

And if he was alive now (and not 120) he'd have said. 'Lockdown - for a poxy virus - you must be fucking joking - I'm going for my paper'.

Yes. If my great aunt was alive (she would be 124), I can imagine her reaction would be “don’t be so bloody ridiculous”. Followed by a lecture on how and why the war (both of them) was shite

Scots ADs, Devi Sridhar is telling us on Twitter channel our internal daily sunshine and thus be able to enjoy holidaying in Scotland.

Did anyone see the Grace Dent article in the Guardian? It was very good but the comment section was predictably full of affronted dementors.

@Cattermole

Aw, bollox, GeneGenie! How do you feel about that?

Disappointed but they're not making me work my notice so I can start my new job. In a weird way it's nice to know they didn't want rid of me.

My gran was a child in the war (and in London for large parts of it). My mum remembers her having a PTSD reaction to the noise of an aircraft engine overhead which stopped (when Doodlebug engines stopped, they were about to come down). The idea that children are resilient and unscarrable is nonsense.

If people had kept 2m apart during war my aunt wouldn't have adopted an " blitz orphan". And the "orphans" birth mum wouldn't have married a GI and moved the the US😆. They knew how to party in those days.
DH and I used to joke so much for the permissive society as we were the first generation anyone could remember where all the babies were conceived after marriage.

I’m happy to holiday in Scotland. Trouble is, I like off the beaten track and from what I’ve seen on FB, the locals are beating pitchforks. I don’t have a Scots accent and tbh I’m nervous about incurring the wrath of the dementors. Plus everywhere is knee deep in shite. Was hoping to head to the glenlivet estate. Covered in shite. 🤮

I'm from west wales and a welsh speaker
I've read enough to make me not book a holiday down west this summer
And as soon as I can fly I'll be off somewhere where my money is welcome
Going to try north Devon and hope we're welcome
But I'm not going to be told to fuck off home we don't want tourists by a part of the world where I lived for twenty years

I know Dad's Army isn't real but I do wonder if the ARP Warden Hodges was based on a real life person and there actually was a need for him to go round yelling at people.

@Cattermole you are doing as much as you can. You don't need to feel guilty at all

@AnxiousElephant77 YNWA, my lovely. We'll be here when you feel more like it

@GeneGenie that's crap for you.

Re the living to 80 thing. That would have me outliving most of my family including dh, bil and fil.

We've been told a brief bit of info about the return to school for ds today. They're back in as current year for 2 days, with half of one being time with new class. Then they will be in their new class. Its actually very little change re set up except for the 'old class' days and ds is really pleased with the teacher he has and that he is with all his closest friends. He is super resilient (most of the time - a bit quicker to tears at the moment, but so am i) and just mad keen to get back. I've been checking through uniform. I'm one of those people who buys things when I see them and in sale, knowing they will be used eventually, so he has sufficient sweatshirts and pants, although they may be a touch big. Also been lucky enough to be passed some items from others, so have 'spares' (and will do same with his outgrowns). Just need to get some polo shirts. I've always found sainsbury's to be the best so fortunately can order online easily. School are sensible and don't insist on logos on everything, but we also have a local embroidery shop who will logo school stuff.

I haven't been keeping up with the threads, what's your new job GeneGenie?

I've just done my first week in work since the lockdown started and it's been glorious, blissful normality. I sat in a room with other human beings! We got within 1m of each other and shared a homemade pie and no-one thought twice! And everyone is a lot more worried about their Year 9 report deadlines than whether we're all going to die in September. Unfortunately that's it for me til next year, but my GOD those five days have made a world of difference to my sanity.

@psychomath medical secretary at my local hospital

Awh normal sounds gooood I can't wait!

Talk about a loaded question (the road markings one) @Orangeblossom78

Besides, some of the LGBT+ movement doesn't support some of the rest of the LGBT+ movement, so it's all a bit of a bollocks bandwagon, really. a bit too literally

@CruCru

The problem with the sort of posts that HairyFloppins just posted (obviously I know you didn't write it) is that they assume that no one ever complained or was unhappy during wars and catastrophes. My grandma said that the Second World War was a complete pile of shit nearly all the time - random people would go around shouting at people for not following their random, made-up rules, they couldn't get anything in the shops, that had to get rid of their dog (I don't know how, just that dog food wasn't available on the ration) - but afterwards everyone else seemed to just go on about how marvellous it all was.

Someone was trying to claim on a thread the other day that people during the war didn’t make a fuss about their mental health, it was all stiff upper lips and jolly sing songs in the air raid shelter. Bollocks to that, of course people suffered. We’ve been left with the image of keep calm and carry on because that was the propaganda the government wanted put out. There was no social media, no quick or easy ways to create your own media, the people back then didn’t have the language we have now for discussing mental health and it wasn’t something that would have been much discussed, but it must have been abject misery for most.

Six years, six years of not knowing if we were going to win or end up defeated under the nazis rule, six years of black outs and civilian bombing, six years of husbands and sons, some only teenagers, being sent away with the very very real possibility of never coming back, or coming back horribly injured, six years of children being sent to live with strangers and rationing and shortages which lasted well into the fifties.

I suspect most people were deeply unhappy throughout and probably wanted to tell Vera Lynne where to stick her bluebirds.

I saw that post too @HairyFloppins what a complete pile of shite it is.

For a start since when would someone born in 1985 have grandparents born in 1900? I was born several years earlier and my oldest grandparent was born in 1920.

Second people suffered greatly in the war. One of my grandmothers lived in London during the Blitz. Her eyelashes and eyebrows fell out with shock and never grew back. She had what would probably now be known to be PTSD. My other gran lived in Nazi occupied Belgium and although she never spoke about all of the horrors she had seen (what she did tell us was bad enough) 30 years later she would wake screaming in the night about it.

Oh the irony of Pointless being replaced by an episode of the Sadly Show fronted by BoJo...

I know it's moved on a bit but Leicester si has finally been released and applies from tomorrow..
As far as I can see at a quick glance through, the restrictions are the same as those currently in place for the whole of England regarding movement and gatherings. Movement restrictions are only about staying overnight away from home and not on leaving or entering the area in the day.

twitter.com/HansardSociety/status/1279056767788486657?s=19

Jesus frigging Christ.
Why did I go back on the school thread
They can't open schools because there's not enough hand washing facilities and hand wash dispensers won't work because the handwash can be slippery if it drips on the floor and a dementor once had a nasty accident falling on slippy handwash.
Jesus wept.
Can someone tell me I'm not going mad

[quote Ibake]@bubble. You're not a weirdo, and if you are, then so am I. Your posts make me howl, especially your excellent use of thought brackets. You definitely sound like the voice in my head. If that makes us weirdos together then so be it, we'll be distinguishable only by the fact that you've got a mask on and I haven't [/quote]
Ha that made me laugh. I am distinguishable by my look of terror, my mask and Mohican so you'll definitely know who I am 

So glad you're all Press The Red Button types. I definitely feel better now. YY about the Nothing to Declare guilt - also being pulled over in random Christmas drink driving checks - they once insisted on breathalysing me despite me being 38 weeks pregnant and on my way to work at 6.30am 

@Cattermole It sounds so hard and I know how hard it is to set boundaries (more guilt). This will sound awful, but could you use the drinking as an "excuse" (I mean "reason" actually don't I?) to step back and not engage? I'm shit at giving advice though as I never take it myself. Sorry.

Actually I'm coming to think that shielding is a perfect excuse (well apart from the huge downside of the High Risk Of Sadly Death ) to do the favourite MN activity of going no contact. Husbands, parents, in laws...

@AnxiousElephant77 Hope you feel better. I may have you mixed up, apologies if so, but if you are the poster waiting for the wedding best of luck!

And a review of the rest of England regs here
twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1279061386413383682?s=19