ADs against the ‘’ current abnormal ‘ and ‘ antisocial distancing ‘...Gather here 👍

[Dowser]

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Hello Girls..it’s me again.

Hope your all out and about enjoying this glorious Saturday.

Despite having made our garden as wildlife friendly as possible we rarely see hedgehogs. Though they have so many hidey places they could be there. We do regularly see deer in the field behind us when we have tea in bed at the weekends.

We had a hedgehog a in our garden in May but I haven't seen it since. I did see one scuttling across the neighbours drive when I went to the gym last week (5am) . Has anyone to any tips on how to entice them in? I have a cat so can supply cat food

@SomewhereEast

The I newspaper is leading with a survey claiming that two thirds of parents are anxious about sending their kids back to school???? I honestly don't know a single parent who isn't happy to send their's back, including parents who are more cautious than me generally or were sceptical back in June. Its so strange too how no one talks about nurseries, which have been open all summer. Maybe its just that the eastern side of Yorkshire seems to have emerged as AD central or something? I honestly don't know

@SomewhereEast See, I think this is the result of vague or loaded questions on the "survey". There are a few parents who are genuinely anxious about the virus. I know only one family like that. But I know several who are anxious that the school is going to enforce SD on the children, even though primary does not have to in Wales. Some are anxious that their senior school children will have SD and the effect on their mental health, or their Y11/13 kids will be thrown under the bus. Some are anxious about blended learning being shoved in through the back door.

When faced with the question "are you anxious about the return to school?", all of the above will tick YES. But only one of those is not going to send their child back.

This is why I hate surveys

I just saw that three quarters of a million jobs have been lost between March and July. And that's before the furlough scheme ends or even starts to wind down, as it does this month.
I'm concerned. I doubt there will be enough of those supermarket and deliver driver jobs to go round that we're always being cheerfully told the unemployed can just snap up at present.

I have had as many as five at once when there were 3 young ones but they don't generally hang about when the door opens so it's not easy to get good photos. I am trying to open and close the door fairly frequently when they are around (I let them have a good feed first). To get them used to me.

I have found they don't eat wet cat food (or at least mine don't) they will eat dried meat flavour cat biscuits but they really do seem to prefer (the more expensive) hog food. Wilko do a smallish bag for about £4 I think, which is what I started with. I used to just scatter a handful over the garden and when I knew it was going I would scatter a handful and then put a few on a board on the patio - with a trail from the garden. Now I just feed on the patio. They love mealworms but they are the equivalent of pure sugar for them so they should only have a few.

I only put a couple of handfuls out a night so a bigger (Amazon) bag lasts about a month - they won't bankrupt me.

Why the fuck is it ok on schools threads for teachers to slag off us feckless parents who apparently are too selfish to get our children tested/isolate when they show symptoms? I’m sick to fucking death of it. I don’t agree with teacher bashing, I also don’t agree with parent bashing.

And breathe.

@justasking111
We spent two lovely breaks just outside portmadoc
Lovely place and the estuary is to die for. People very nice also.
We took the train up snowdon which was spectacular but somehow I felt the sheer majesty of the mountains was better observed from driving through the llanberis pass with them towering over you.
No thunderstorms here but the temp plummeted rapidly about 8 pm
So I switched the heating on..as you do.

Nice and sunny this morning. Somehow not the same when I’m looking out at houses and our garage wall instead of green fields.
I shall see if my granddaughter wants to pop into town this afternoon while her mum packs for camping tomorrow.
We didn’t get time for h and m and the toy shop last week.

@Drivingdownthe101

Why the fuck is it ok on schools threads for teachers to slag off us feckless parents who apparently are too selfish to get our children tested/isolate when they show symptoms? I’m sick to fucking death of it. I don’t agree with teacher bashing, I also don’t agree with parent bashing.

Hear hear.

Could not agree more.

Our school is asking for proof of the outcome of tests - not sure how that would work in practise but I don't think ignoring getting testing will be an issue.

DH univeristy is now saying they'll probably have the lectures in few days a week - which is a change from not opening campus till next year but they've made so many changes and backtracked who knows what it will end up as. He'd like to be back in even traveling on the trains to get there.

@Drivingdownthe101

Why the fuck is it ok on schools threads for teachers to slag off us feckless parents who apparently are too selfish to get our children tested/isolate when they show symptoms? I’m sick to fucking death of it. I don’t agree with teacher bashing, I also don’t agree with parent bashing.

Because on MN teachers are hide who can never be questioned, never get it wrong and certainly all children are liars and deserved whatever shit was dealt to them and there are no mean, bad nor just plain bullying teachers. Good teachers are great and I have met a few but I have known some really bad ones in my time but God forbid I say it on mn!

Therefore whatever teachers say is right and unquestionable and parents are always wrong and just hate teachers. That is trotted out time and time again on here.

I don't understand when we've had such high levels of compliance why people still believe it's only them following the rules and parents can't be trusted. I think the reason we notice people who break 'the rules' is because they are very much the exceptions. I'm so fed up of reading about how people think they are the only ones restricting their lives and treating everyone else like naughty children.

@IAintentDead - thank you for the pics. I adore hedgehogs!

I've known a few outright nuts teachers. Including one of dd's year 11 teachers who phoned me every week to say dd was misbehaving and lazy. She called me in for a meeting, which I took very seriously, even asking all dd's other teachers for feedback so I could see if there was a widespread issue. A ll her other teachers said she was a good student who contributed well in class. This teacher continued to phone every Wednesday to shout at me that dd that was going to fail her GCSE. In the end I stopped answering the call. DD got a grade 8 in the subject.

The woman was NUTS. I also met a few like her during may own school career.

Fortunately there are very many more really good teachers. And then a vast middle swathe who are just variable and fallible just like the rest of us.

@Allshoppingcancelled I had one like that. Told my parents I'd be lucky to pass English Lit O Level. I got an A.
I didn't do Spanish at school. That was lucky. He got done for indecent images of children.
But I also had great teachers and so so teachers. Just like any other occupational group really.

Interesting interview in the Times yesterday with Sweden’s top epidemiologist - he says the evidence for mandatory masks is ‘astonishingly weak’ and that the policy could backfire

Sorry - link behind paywall
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/facemask-evidence-is-astonishingly-weak-says-architect-of-swedish-strategy-bm0w335zr

It’s what gets me about so much of the ‘Covid-safe’ policies - I have no problem with complying with measures which are proven to help stop virus transmission (eg hand washing), but so much of this stuff is safety as performance art - done because companies/institutions/individuals feel they need to be seen to do something, regardless of how effective it may (or may not) be

PS I love hedgehogs - my dad used to feed the ones in his garden - he was convinced they liked marmite sandwiches ... we used to give them dry cat food as well

On the survey about schools. Yes about the lack of nuance in the questions.

My husband's employer told them how shit the office would be, then sent a questionnaire round asking if people wanted to return. Of course the majority answered 'no' given the conditions, but they concluded people weren't ready to return because they didn't feel safe enough.

One country has realised that people need to sit near their colleagues, not random strangers to get any benefit from being in an office, but the UK branch is pressing on with hot desking, plus complicated new booking software to accommodate it - so that you can come in and sit with a bunch of randoms.

Interesting interview in the Times yesterday with Sweden’s top epidemiologist - he says the evidence for mandatory masks is ‘astonishingly weak’ and that the policy could backfire
Post that on MN and people would say he was the wrong kind of expert despite all those on threads asking if posters are "a fucking expert on epidemiology" "if you Listen to the govs advisers...."😤 yeah that bunch are rock solid with evidence🤔
It's like banging your head of a brick wall only the bad news is real by real experts the rest are just 'pretend experts'😄

@countrygirl99 well done you! I must admit DH and I got a bit childish about it. Her nuts teacher started spraying (bad) behaviour points in dd's direction. She'd never had even one before. Very soon she had 87. all from the same woman. We offered dd £50 if she could make it to 100. Sadly, time ran out and we kept our £50.

safety as performance art love that phrase! So true!!

@Allshoppingcancelled I don't think I would have dared give DS1 that sort of target

You're probably wise. The target was our way of trying to turn the teacher's outright bullying from a scary thing to a joke. But perhaps not very grown up of us

safety as performance art bit like those sprays that some places are making people walk through.

I'm so hot. We walked to the park and I managed to get served takeaway ice cream at a cafe with no mask and paying cash. That wasn't the plan. We were meant to just go the park and then home. The poor woman serving looked like she was about to pass out behind her mask.

DS hates his teacher. He has her next year too. She seems ok to me but she's not as pro-active as the one before. I'm dreading the complaining when he (hopefully) goes back in september.

Has anyone realised that the mask policy has sweeping consequences for us, but it has actually cost the government next to NOTHING?

They barely needed to spend any money on it. It was an easy headline grab, causes lots of public division (of which MN is proof), makes the government appear to be doing something, people have to wear the masks like badges of compliance; a bit like plastering "I believe in Father Christmas the virus" to your face. Also, I think the fact that they made the practicalities about enforcement so woolly and vague means that they secretly don't value it that much; they're content to let the public fight about it, as they've seen this works a treat for keeping them distracted. The fact that they decided not to implement a costly system of official exemptions speaks volumes.

I'm clutching at straws that this lack of seriousness means it is a temporary measure which they don't want to spend money on, even though the government have said NOTHING about it being temporary, or even when it might be up for review. If we hear something about it, I might actually treat it with some respect; but meanwhile, I shall refuse to spend my money in muzzle-up situations. I shall continue to make noise about it, because we don't want it becoming permanent by stealth, which I think could easily happen if we let it.