ADs getting ready

[CruCru]

Sorry it’s a bit of a lame title.

Not because they’ve never been to the zoo before , but because I think they’ve forgotten there’s anything to do except walking!

People are just arseholes aren't they, and they'll continue to be arseholes. This situation has just brought them out of the woodwork, so whilst previously their family might have been the ones to take the full force of their arsehole-ness, unfortunately now it's us because they think they're right like all arseholes do and they'll shove it down the throat of anyone who stands around long enough.

There are some who I think probably have developed anxiety related issues and who are genuinely terrified and are desperately grasping to get other people to see "the truth" and that's very sad but you can't help someone like that until they're ready to help themselves (speaking as someone who prev suffered anxiety)

Mr Dowser’s father helped liberate the POW camps after ww11
He was a good bit older than his mum.
Mr D didn’t have a brilliant relationship with him and he passed away when he was 16..makes you wonder how much was war related.
My nana’s and grandads all lived through the first and second world wars..poor things. Thankfully my father was just a bit too young to fight

I reckon I was born in the best of times.

@IAintentDead south east I guess :)

@FrugiFan ... the numbers have always been correct in that the pillar 2 positives were always included in the UK daily announcements & total number of cases but up until now haven’t been localised. So they aren’t extra cases we just know where they were now! It’s unfortunate timing (with the dementors being Uber demented) but perhaps best to get it over in one go like ripping off a plaster!

Case numbers are really coming down now - in a few weeks it will be reflected in the Sadlies. I wish they hadn’t made such a big deal about the R number, it will cause hysteria now numbers are low, not a useful measure but attractive to the delicate minded. Cases per 100k much more relevant now it isn’t rampant.

There was a phrase for it, “he had a bad war”. I recently read a book, The Strangers Child by Alan Hollinghurst, which was set over the span of the Edwardian era to the modern era. One of the themes was the effect of having been on active service on returned men, or the impact of the deaths of those who didn’t return.

Yes Dr Jenny Harries made this point about the R number on the Sadly Daily Death Show. And noticeable by Germany. But Dementors have to have stats they can skew.

When all this started - when people were strongly discouraged from going outside - a couple of dd’s friends (18/19 yo) were really scared. I made the point they were more likely to die of a DVT from sitting at their computers all day than from catching CV. It really is truly sad to read about that poor young man.

I don’t remember my parents saying one good thing about the war.
Only that it was great when it ended.
My uncles were in the navy, thankfully they came back safely
I do remember my mum saying that their Andersen shelter was the only one in the street that didn’t flood.
I can remember growing up in the shadow of the war and always being scared my lovely dad would have to go and fight.

When the Russians invaded aDgh a istan..I was worried That things would kick off and my first husband Would have to go and fight.
Thankfully we didn’t get involved but I had a two year old and another on the way ..so found it a very Scary time..always best to keep away from the news
Sticking to that mantra now.

Afghanistan..1979

Yes @Dowser one benefit of lockdown (and there are a few) is that I've stopped being a News Junkie. Now we turn over whenever it comes on. I feel much happier!

There's a lot of being stuck in a narrative and being afraid to modify it. The situation has changed and will change and our behaviour needs to change accordingly.

In a way the dementoring is more dangerous now because it's all about shades of grey. Like it or loathe it, early lockdown had the clear agenda of preventing overload in the NHS and substantially reducing community transmission. Chris Witty was quite clear tonight about the current need to balance the virus and the economy (with all the indirect effects on health that can outweigh Covid) The dementors don't like the grey and ambiguous. They like to know that by staying on you save the NHS, that by wearing a mask, you won't need a ventilator. To them, modifying your stance as the situation changes and more information comes out is a confession that you were wrong. So they're stuck, trapped in with fear and without persepective.

I had to stop driving for about 3 months around DS1's birth. By 36 weeks, my bump was rubbing the steering wheel, I was struggling to move with SPD, could only use a P&C space to get in/ out of the car, and then the snow came. It was that December when everything was iced up from the end of November until new year. It was just too dangerous to drive in my state in those conditions, and I only left the house if I was chauffered door to door. The birth was hard. Long labour, EMCS, 36 hours in HDU looking rather yellow. The generic advice is no driving for 6-8 weeks/ postnatal check. My check was at 8 weeks, so I didn't drive until then because it had been so long and my body had been so much. (10 days postnatal, it took all my stamina to walk 100m to the post box and back) It was a big thing in my head to drive again although at least I had been leaving the house, walking and built up to catching the bus. It's not healthy to be detached from realism for too long.

For those who opted to take stay at home rigorously by choice, the real world was a scary uncertain place with a widespread mystery illness, long contagious incubation period and panic buying, and they've not caught up with how its relaxed a bit and better than it was.

If you've been terrified for your children in school, bought into early concerns about super-spreading children and are uber-strict about social distancing and PPE, it's hard to take that leap of faith that it is bettee to restore normality to our schools and let them work differently to other institutions.

Sometimes the worst fear is the fear of being honest with yourself and letting the pride go.

I work in risk and am all about risk assessment so like shades of grey. I think most folks don't. @BogRollBOGOF agree with all you said.

I’ve got letters, probably at least a thousand, from the war. The oldest ones are from my grandfather to his parents and them to him when he was evacuated to finish his schooling. Then there’s letters between him and my grandmother from the point they met, him being called up and then serving in the navy. Plus letters between him and his parents and sister while he was away. It’s an almost complete record of ordinary people during the war. I haven’t read all of them I must confess, but the ones I have read are a mixture of the mundane and the frightening. In one sentence they’ll be writing about a nearby building being struck by a bomb and in the next it’ll be what they had for dinner or listed to on the radio.

Town was definitely busier today.
A fee more shops open.
Post office now stopping open till 5 instead of three.
Surprised McD was shut..but Greggs was

And df and gf Mr Dowser..has just said..he had a sausage roll.

I’m shocked at his deliberate flouting of da roolz. He’s just confessed.
Now 😱
He’ll probably have a sinus headache in the morning.
The sky is filling up with heavy black clouds. It’s been threatening rain all day..but oh no..it’s saving it up for our trip to the caravan tomorrow.

Dentists were lovely. I’ve really fallen on my feet there.
Shame I have to go back for the real thing next week
The dentist , who looks about as old as my oldest grandson said that he’ll probably numb it a little bit and would give me a longer appointment.
Like 30 minutes
.i now have that joy to look forward to

Would I swap it for a 30 minute he’ll drive down the A19 like I had last week
God what a choice..maybe not.

@Drivingdownthe101

I’ve just booked the zoo for the day after the DD’s finish school for the summer. I could cry at the thought of how excited they’re going to be.

I've promised the DCs that we'll go back in a couple of weeks. We enjoyed it so much that I bought us annual passes. The zoo needs the funds, they were thrilled when I asked. I thought that the odds of two more visits to break even were very high, plus it's open all year. I'm currently saving on extra-curriculars.

We have NT membership. I CBA to go to the palaver of basically booking a walk in a local park. I accept the membership as a charitable donation, we normally get great value out of it between what's local and going to places like Cornwall, so we'll take the hit this year, they need the funds. It'll pay for itself again longer term.

There's a lot of being stuck in a narrative and being afraid to modify it.

Yep.

Or at least there is a lot of unwillingness to modify the narrative in a way that allows for normality to resume.

I think that is the essence of the Dementor mindset - things can get worse, but not better.

You can't trust the government, unless it is to lock you up.

Numbers are terrifying or they are lies.

@BarkandCheese
Oh what a fantastic legacy.
I hope you’ll do something with them..put them together in some sort of order for your family tree
Maybe pick the best bits and do a book
I’d love that
All I have is Mr Dowsers letters to his mum when he was in the merchant navy in 1975..they are all pretty boring..as he would be away for 4-5 months at a time and rarely go ashore.
What a waste.
He did get ashore in Japan for a week and Australia but usually the ship docked, they were collected and taken straight to the airport.

Meanies.

Yes I think this is right. I have an optimistic positive outlook on life "Pollyanna" if you like (yes I could be annoying in real life). And so dementors are inherently the opposite to me. I sometimes think they couldn't see a brightside to the most positive thing ever.

You know what until now I've always been a glass half empty kinda person. Not anymore I tell you, not anymore!!

Weirdly this shit show has made me more optimistic and I find myself going ah it's not that bad, things will probably be fine soon. Where my former self would be worried about every little thing.

Don't know what's happened to me but I'm determined to keep it up. I've had a few wobbles don't get me wrong.

[quote Dowser]@BarkandCheese
Oh what a fantastic legacy.
I hope you’ll do something with them..put them together in some sort of order for your family tree
Maybe pick the best bits and do a book
I’d love that
All I have is Mr Dowsers letters to his mum when he was in the merchant navy in 1975..they are all pretty boring..as he would be away for 4-5 months at a time and rarely go ashore.
What a waste.
He did get ashore in Japan for a week and Australia but usually the ship docked, they were collected and taken straight to the airport.

Meanies.[/quote]
I typed up my grandfathers evacuee letters for DD to take to school in a binder when they were doing a topic on the home front. There are just so many of the rest I don’t really know where to start. I literally have boxes and boxes of them.

@TrustTheGeneGenie oh I've had wobbles and some seriously dark days...Black Dogs and all. Still here though and fighting!

I wish we lived near a zoo.
Our nearest is probably flamingoland .
In winter you can see the animals for £12 but summer it’s all in with an expensive ticket..and we aren’t into theme parks.
I think I’ll email them and see if they will consider doing a deal like that
It might help them out of a financial hole.
I love the animals. I’ve been to Woburn and longleat..especially when I was a trustee for a charity in Milton Keynes and visiting my friend in Dorset.
Used to go regularly to animal kingdom and sea world , In Florida then we hen I watched blackfish, I couldn’t go back after that.
Loved the pandas I. Edinburgh zoo..can’t believe they were actually awake when we were there..and moving..oh joy.

Mr Dowser and I spoke of getting a dog the other day..then Decided it wouldn’t work with our life style...well our normal lifestyle..it would work perfectly with this one.

Saw my dd today, she’s going camping tomorrow and has tickets for a festival in three weeks.

Good for her.

I love Seaham glass, mainly have greens and whites but there are a few rare bits in there.

My lockdown project was to continue decorating a glass with it. It is in exactly the same state as when I started it just over a year ago.

@BakewellTarts

Yes *@Dowser* one benefit of lockdown (and there are a few) is that I've stopped being a News Junkie. Now we turn over whenever it comes on. I feel much happier!

Me too! I watched SO MUCH BREXIT. I watch Election Night until I fall asleep, even though it is the really boring bit where they just interview lots of people, all saying "let's wait for some actual results". I watch Orla Guerin saying "scenes of terrible devastation" in Syria/Iraq/Venezuala/Primark on Oxford Street. And now I've stopped watching any of it. Totally cured of my news habit!

I'm a late 70s baby, with mid ww2 baby parents, grandparents 1912 - 15.

Late dh's granddad actually did serve in ww1, born v late Victorian era. Dh was a late surprise, as his mum had been, so possibly the 1900/1985 might just be arguable (rare though)

Maternal ggf was in ww1, got gassed and came home with tb, died 11 years later, after years in and out of hospitals. Maternal gf was not healthy enough to fight in ww2 (declared c3!). I remember overhearing that 1 of his nephews (older brother's son) had tried to commit suicide (or possibly had succeeded, I'm unsure as I was 'too young' to be told) due to his wartime experience. My mum's friend's dad was a PoW and she always said he 'was never right'. He was never able to eat a proper meal, only tiny portions, and was really suffering what we would call PTSD.