ADs building hadron colliders out of used yoghurt pots

[NannyGythaOgg]

... whilst waiting to see if the kids are or are not going to school next week and walking with imaginary cows.

previous thread

The grant for hospitality was onerous, lots of scanning of bank statements going back to last year, business plan needed by the time DS had done all that it timed out 20 minutes given. When he and many others got back online sorry pot empty.

Rishi eat out to help out, remember that, well the businesses have not received that money, why? Well because the welsh government has decided to investigate the applications.

That bastard Drakeford has received the money from Rishi each time, it is theft!!!

Oh phew, I’ve found you all again! Lost you in the turmoil of end of term, and I’ve missed so much chat!
Jourdain that sounds really tough with your DD. IME schools are being pushed hard to get results back on target, to the detriment of the kids’ mental health. My DS is certainly struggling, though he was very proud of himself yesterday because he ran away from a PR lesson because he felt overwhelmed, but after a few minutes calmed down and took himself back to join back in!
And re performing arts - it’s my area, plus I teach it. I am in awe of the positivity and ingenuity of my students, who remain committed to their art and to ways of ensuring it lives in. The government has no clue of the goldmine in our arts sector.

No, it's none of us - not our kids either! DD1 has (suspected) quite a complex thing going on, caused by a response to strep bacteria which results in neurological symptoms. It's the strangest thing I've ever heard of, but according to our GP, not so uncommon. Sometimes she's fine but basically whenever she has any inflammation anywhere in the body, it causes these neurological issues. She gets super severe OCD, has meltdowns because she's so stressed and can't cope, loses her bladder control, refuses to eat and has all these horribly debilitating tics where she jerks her head or gets stuck on a word, saying it over and over again. Needless to say, when she's suffering like this, she can't concentrate on or cope with anything. The poor thing just can't understand why her brain is sabotaging itself.

The real irony is that, if we can get some ibuprofen down her, the inflammation clears up and she'll be back to herself in a week or so. But when she's not well, she gets horribly paranoid and is convinced that we're trying to poison her!

Of course, it has a massive knock on her confidence and wellbeing even when she is well. But none of this matters, because fucking Covid.

(Sorry - rant over. I'd just like my family and friends to be able to visit in hospital, and I'd like my DD to get the therapy she needs and deserves, and I'd like the flipping Covid crappy restrictions about anything and everything to stop. Sometimes I just want to scream that IT'S NOT FAIR!)

@justasking111

Broken here drakeford has gone nuts

Don't you think he looks like somebody who should play the tube in a Salvation Army band?

Again, thanks for all the good wishes.
Mr d got an email from the company.
No apologies, no explanations, just a you will get a refund
When it hits our bank..they will get an a very angry letter from me.

Looking on the bright side, we won’t have to quarantine for Christmas...and may not have done anyway because am so sick of this government ruling by knee jerk reactions.
Do you think Boris gives a shiny shit about covid?
Course he doesn’t
Acorn, sweetheart, just taken one minute a time.
I’m not into allopathic drugs but would some good quality valerian, passiflora, gotu kola help you
Natures answer does excellent tinctures and may help take the edge off

This guy Richard Whelan really knows his stuff and his website is a living testimony to his life’s work.
If I lived in NZ I’d be at his clinic like a rat up a drain pipe

www.rjwhelan.co.nz/herbs%20A-Z/gotu_kola.html

www.rjwhelan.co.nz/herbs%20A-Z/valerian.html

www.rjwhelan.co.nz/herbs%20A-Z/hops.html

www.rjwhelan.co.nz/herbs%20A-Z/st_johns_wort.html

Also essential oils like lavender and geranium, sweet orange, bergamot and ylang ylang are are very uplifting
Tk maxx have been doing packs of tisserand oils, 6 for £12 so a bit of a steal.
I’m quite taken with a lovely diffuser from there, they range from £10 to about £24. I think I paid £16 and it came with three oils
The lamp changes colour..very calming

@QuantumCheese

Time for a little rant. Radio on in the background at work and every ad break there was the covid instructions - masks, distancing, hands etc. Found myself shouting fuck off at the radio all day. Then went into town to be greeted by similar announcements over speakers in the street provided by our local council! Dh said it was like living in Russia 40 years ago especially with the queues outside shops and banks 😡

I said that from day 1 When they took our freedoms away

@Blobby10

My son is an engineer on Chinooks - he hates them with a passion !! wants to work on the big transporter planes . I find them amazing machines - how they can be so manoeuvrable whilst so big and cumbersome ?!!

I love seeing them the occasional times they’ve flown over caravan in N Yorks

to everyone struggling today.

Also to all parents of children who are struggling with their mental health. I have been that mum (well before covid happened) & know all too well the dread that comes with a phone call from school. Seeing your child like this is a punch to the gut, but none of this is your fault.

if you are supporting someone else with poor mental health. (Been there too, still am). You are not being cruel to them by giving yourself some space.

As was mentioned up-thread, it's one day at a time, in tiny shuffly steps. Remember to look after yourselves.

Gosh, that does sound very hard, Jourdain11.

I'm feeling guilty for having such a moan now. She does so well, in spite of all her troubles.

She's having a particularly bad day today and I feel so bad that I can't be there for her. We tried to facetime but her verbal tics were so bad that it was just distressing for her. I just want to give her a non-Covid-secure hug!

DS's rice aversion was more easily addressed - they got a pizza takeaway 😂

for everyone struggling. Spoke to my DM today, took her food, so allowed. And she is so excited about the vaccine. Even my DF has had his flu vaccine.
She is so looking forward to having her precious GD’s in her house, and me and DSis, we are a afterthought.

💐 for everyone struggling, if I hear anyone else in the public eye say this is a marathon not a sprint I will completely lose it. It’s like every time we finish a marathon someone comes to tell us we have to run another.

I went for a socially distanced walk with some friends yesterday, it was so lovely to see them, we have been in a church group together for many years. Normally we would have a lovely evening at someone’s house at this time of year, with a bring and share supper. Just seeing some friends made such a difference I slept well last night for the first time in ages.

Conversely today I went out to do a little Christmas shopping with my husband and honestly after choosing 3 or 4 items I felt I really needed to get out. I had my lanyard on and nobody questioned it at all and I am usually OK if my husband is with me. I think it will be a long time before we feel comfortable in groups with strangers 🙁

@Jourdain11

I hate the way the performing arts have been so badly screwed over. One of the actual world class sectors of this country and the government just don't seem to give a shit!

I just had a plaintive video call from DS (5). "Please mummy, can't you come home soon? Since you've been in the hospital we've only had rice for dinner!"

DD1 had a proper meltdown at school today and started banging her head on the wall and scratching her arms and her face. I'm pissed off that apparently the staff can't restrain a spindly little 8 year old? I'm not in denial that she has some issues going on with her mental health, but all the Covid crap is making her so much worse.

@Jourdain11 I really admire your courage and spirit that's all I can actually say. It's shit but you're being strong in a way that I can't even imagine...,

Oh my goodness Jourdain11 your poor dd. School should have somethjng in place for her to be able to go to a quiet place without asking. All this worry on top of your own illness life truly isnt fair. 💗 for you all.
How is Drakeford getting away with it? Is nobody questioning this? The hospitality sector should get together and sue him? They are challenging NS in court in Edinburgh as what she is doing keeping Edinburgh in teir 3 has been declared illegal and lawyers are calling for it to be suspended.

It certainly isn’t fear of the virus, just a weird feeling of being overwhelmed and overstimulated.

for all who are feeling a bit crap.

Is it just me or is the mass testing of schoolkids feeling like a Christmas lockdown by stealth by the back door? By the time they have got it up running it will be the middle of next week. So loads of families in isolation over the Christmas and possibly New Year period.
If they wanted to do this why didnt they do it during the November lockdown. Leaving it to less than two weeks before Christmas looks like a Christmas lockdown by stealth.

A smile for you lovely people

An old one, but very appropriate.

The Post Turtle

While suturing up a cut on the hand of a 75 year old farmer, whose hand had been caught in the gate while working his cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Mark Drakeford and how he became FM.
The old farmer said, "Well, you know, Drakeford is just a Post Tortoise."
Now not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked,
What's a "Post Tortoise?"
The old farmer said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a Tortoise balanced on top, that's a post Tortoise."
The old farmer saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, he sure as hell isn't goin' anywhere, and you just wonder what prick put him there in the first place."

"if I hear anyone else in the public eye say this is a marathon not a sprint I will completely lose it. It’s like every time we finish a marathon someone comes to tell us we have to run another."

The guy who (reputedly) ran the first ever marathon died of exhaustion at the end of it. Someone should tell your using that metaphor.

• those using that metaphor

@Jourdain11

I'm feeling guilty for having such a moan now. She does so well, in spite of all her troubles.

She's having a particularly bad day today and I feel so bad that I can't be there for her. We tried to facetime but her verbal tics were so bad that it was just distressing for her. I just want to give her a non-Covid-secure hug!

DS's rice aversion was more easily addressed - they got a pizza takeaway 😂

You are amazing

Some of her traits overlap with DS1's behaviour's when he's struggling. He was headbutting the brick wall of the school building a couple of days ago superficially because he'd left his water bottle inside. Just generally without any other life-complicationsin the equation, it's just harder not being able to just walk in and talk and sort things, especially when you have a child that doesn't like or have the emotional capacity to speak out.

Last winter, our school kept taking on an utter bitch of a supply teacher. I've been a supply teacher, but I saw this cow in action and every time I went to get one of my pupils for their dyslexia intervention, they were so relieved to get away from her. She seemed to think she was still in the 1950s of strict standards and no recognition of SENs. She once had DS1's class, took exception to DS1's handwriting and made him re-write his work. He is strongly dyslexic and dyspraxic and it's painful for him to produce his barely legible scrawl.
Being prior to March 2020, I was able to enquire with the regular teacher if Miss Bitch had access to DS's "about me" sheet to realise that her response to DS's handwriting was inappropriate, and had the opportunity to check while I was there to assist with swimming. It's just easier to do things casually rather than formally writing it down.

I've just given permission for DS1 to watch two PG films next week, but have advised that he struggles with dramatic tension and suggested doodling as a coping strategy.

Ah, thank you so much - you are so much more clued up than I am. DD's class teacher is strict but very understanding of her issues, and actually, the teacher's rigidity works quite well for her because she knows what to expect and the familiarity of routine calms her when she is distressed. She has toilet cards and time out cards, and also some time with a one-to-one. Unfortunately, the TA was also out isolating today, so she obviously felt all at sea.

From what DH has managed to deduce (and it's mostly from DD2, who is a year lower, but is also the kind of kid who soaks up all the gossip about unusual goings on!) she was getting in a worse and worse state because she was doing her tapping/jumping up and down from her seat, which is an OCD thing that's really hard for her to control. The supply teacher told her off and one of her tics came on - she has this clearing her throat thing that sounds like a growl and she was jerking her head. You'd think it would be obvious that she wasn't playing up, but the teacher shouted at her and said it wasn't ladylike (even though other kids in the class were calling out to say she can't help it) and that was the last straw.

DD2 gets quite protective and told me on facetime, "They'd ONLY say that to a girl - they'd never tell a BOY that it was unMANlike!"

I'm really pissed off and I hate to be That Mother Who Complains, but I am going to email and say I really don't want DD in this woman's class again unless she can be more sensitive and approachable. She can go to the other Y4 class, who have a lovely young male teacher who everyone likes. They're one bubble anyway so ffs, what does it matter?

I've been fighting the good fight on a couple of Covid threads which spilled into "trending now". I was asked "do you just make stuff up?". Never mind the fact that Saint Boris and his merry men do, on a daily basis.

I hope the hospitality industry (and many others, such as the wedding industry, theatre and film) do all get together and sue the pants of the government. There needs to be a very strong public backlash against the government, even if it happens some time after the plandemic - oops, pandemic; we need the precedent of a lockdown being called as easily as it was to be well and truly stamped out, so that future governments are less tempted to call one on a whim, like Saint Boris did. This is the fight we need to be fighting in due course.

What grinds my gears is Tim Martin and other very wealthy owners/directors moaning in the press all the time about the state of the pub/restaurant industry. Well Tim and co. put your money where your mouth is, take them to court get them to prove that the figures spouted are accurate and it is necessary to close down hospitality. That goes for all the other big breweries. Get together take them on and blow them out of the water if you believe that the government and the scientists are spouting nonsense.

Jourdain, she sounds a lot like the one I encountered. If I didn't know you were a hundred miles away...

I normally err on the side of sympathy for supply teachers having started off as a very youthful looking 23yo on casual supply and getting through my NQT year in two school on long term supply, and I've always said to my DCs to be kind as it's hard when you don't know a class, but there are just certain things that very obviously indicate that a child needs more TLC, and that what you see is not a choice.