ADs and the hardon colanders

[CruCru]

Here’s the new thread.

The gritters were out, it had just gone down to freezing out in the countryside. Glad I'm back home again. I am so tired. At least there will be no teenagers wandering around the house at 2am to wake me tonight, the disturbed sleep is like having a baby again!

I was glad that the mud in the woods was semi-frozen. Much less sinking

Belated Merry Christmas everyone.

We had a good day yesterday and Christmas eve. Felt relatively normal spending it with my parents. Today we're going to the sales and possibly out to eat. I wouldn't usually consider either on boxing day but I'm anticipating everything closing shortly so got to go while we can.

I took DS on a short walk through the fields yesterday before lunch and he loved the frozen puddles and frozen mud!

Happy Christmas and I hope everyone had an okay day yesterday.

We had my BIL round as his bubble. He's a lovely, hilarious (very camp) guy who works as a nurse in a UTC (or did pre-Covid - he's now mostly doing work as an ANP on test and trace and 111). Anyway, that lifted the day and made it a bit more of an occasion!

And also - belated Christmas everyone! And thank you all for being a voice of sanity and a place where people can have different points of view without getting cross and stupid and rude. I'm lucky enough to be in a bubble with my sister and her partner and we had a very pleasant evening together last night. Now its pissing with rain in my bit of the West Country, where we've also gone into Tier 3 as of this morning. On the bright side, a combination of both of these plus Boxing Day, gives me complete licence to sit on the sofa for the entire day.

Happy Boxing Day all! Like MaudesMum, we’ve got storm Bella coming in strong here so looks like today we will mostly be eating random things and sitting on our bottoms. Although my daughter is building her new Lego set so that is quite constructive.

DH gave me the first four Cormoran Strike novels for Christmas (I already had ^True Blood) so I spent yesterday reading and feeling pleased about my choice of husband.

Going for a frolic in the park today and then can return to eating Celebrations and drinking Bloody Marys. Not a bad way to spend Christmas.

I hope everyone has had a good one.

After days of making lists, worrying at night, finally last night thought aha a full nights sleep bliss. That was until 5am when dog decided to spectacularly crap everywhere. OMG the smell and mess. Cleaned that up back to sleep awoke to find other dog had crapped on sofa. I would understand if they had eaten crap but the leftovers had been saved for their breakfast today. Unless guests aka rug rats had fed them I have no bloody idea why this happened. Merry Christmas all.

I love the Cormoran Strike novels, the first one I felt a bit meh about, but they kept getting better and better IMO.

Blimey @justasking111 had exactly the same problem with my bloody dog! Although he had the decency to wake me at 1.30am to go out then pretty much every hour since then! Joys of living in a flat with no garden. He also didn’t have anything unusual to eat.

Am waiting for reports in the local paper of a pink zebra wearing a waterproof and wellies roaming the streets. But it was just me in my onesie. Be a change from the Covid doom though I guess.

Apart from stinky dogs I hope everyone is having a good Boxing Day.

I’m home!

Must say I’m glad. Poor mum looked miserable throughout. But she didn’t talk about dad too much.

It was very weird not seeing any neighbours, they make Xmas fun.

Sister seems to have been fine alone so that’s good.

iheartmysmart I really hope that makes it into the local paper 😂

So cross police turned back a car from England who wanted to see the sun rise over Snowdon. Ummmm where's the covid in that. Meanwhile other English crossed the border to spend the day in a Welsh home. Not everyone wants to be in another home on Xmas day. OH walked the dogs yesterday morning in the hills lots of cars people who may just have wanted to be alone not everyone has or wants family on the day

@justasking111

So cross police turned back a car from England who wanted to see the sun rise over Snowdon. Ummmm where's the covid in that. Meanwhile other English crossed the border to spend the day in a Welsh home. Not everyone wants to be in another home on Xmas day. OH walked the dogs yesterday morning in the hills lots of cars people who may just have wanted to be alone not everyone has or wants family on the day

Dreadful isn’t it

Border police

My sister is under the impression that current rules allow travel for exercise

I don’t think they do

I think they just want everyone cowering at home and the weather will help them with that

I admit if I had a car, I’d be going everywhere.

Loads of people in the park this afternoon. My normal moan about wanting people to be allowed indoors again so they're not clogging up the outdoor spaces. I'm used to parks being relatively quiet on an uninspiring afternoon. I wouldn't really mind, it's just so many walk across the whole path or randomly stop and make it hard to move at your own pace. Such behaviour should be saved for the High Street

Hada good fry-up for brunch and back to mulled wine with cheese and crackers. DS1 has discovered that he likes boursin. It's now film/ Switch time.

I'd be travelling for exercise between now and when the ground dries out. My calves don't cope well with living at one of the highest points in town. It was doable in the spring as the rural footpaths dried out in the good weather and it was easy to spread out into the countryside. Now it's already ankle deep in claggy clay and hard going, worse than usual because it's more walked on than it normally would be. Flatter ground is a a couple of miles away and 60m lower by the river.

First time round I did drive to the supermarket, park, run, then shop to make it part of an essential journey

@BogRollBOGOF

I'd be travelling for exercise between now and when the ground dries out. My calves don't cope well with living at one of the highest points in town. It was doable in the spring as the rural footpaths dried out in the good weather and it was easy to spread out into the countryside. Now it's already ankle deep in claggy clay and hard going, worse than usual because it's more walked on than it normally would be. Flatter ground is a a couple of miles away and 60m lower by the river.

First time round I did drive to the supermarket, park, run, then shop to make it part of an essential journey

Here in the city, sort of, the tarmac gets horribly bouncy in summer. In the heatwave summer I avoided running over that completely as it was just ick.

In London, travel for exercise is more “can I use the Tube to go to a decent park etc”. Sister says yes. I cba to look at the law which is probably unclear. She reckons yes in Tier 4 and no in full lockdown.

I also noticed that St Paul’s is now open. I realise that is about worship but I can certainly feel the unfairness that they can open but galleries and museums can’t.

I expect a full lockdown announcement any minute but the weather looks too bad to travel to meet sister in a park anyway.

Kew Gardens etc open. They must know most people will take public transport there.

Yes, parking is horrendous around Kew Gardens!
Someone in another thread mentioned that their local zoo is open in tier 4. That can’t be right, can it? We had tickets for London Zoo and they emailed to say they had had to close again under tier 4 rules.

Hope everyone had as good a Christmas as they could do. I see the Boxing Day sale shaming is in full force now - how dare you even shop online?!

PC monitor's died so I've ordered two replacements (I run a double monitor setup but my second one was always crappy so I'm replacing both) and we've ordered a new sofa as well - so I'm deeply horrendous as a person.

@DrDiva

Yes, parking is horrendous around Kew Gardens! Someone in another thread mentioned that their local zoo is open in tier 4. That can’t be right, can it? We had tickets for London Zoo and they emailed to say they had had to close again under tier 4 rules.

I can see that if gardens are open, then a zoo could be open. Some will opt to close because of staffing and public transport issues?

Entirely possible some don’t know the rules and I don’t blame them.

Kew Gardens have cancelled their night time light shows which also puzzled mum but my first thought was it will be something to do with staffing

The rules are mad because we have a “private” garden locally which has been ordered to close. It’s private in the sense it’s funded by a charity but used by the public. So if Kew Gardens can be open, why can’t they?

They were clearly confused themselves because they didn’t announce closure till after Tier 4 came into effect. Perhaps someone from the council ordered them to close.

This has actually just given me a nudge to write to the local MP again.

He sent quite a sharp reply to my email post Tier 4 - literally “what’s your alternative?” he said.

I copied and pasted the infection control measures I mentioned to him before, reminded him that dad was on advisory committees about infectious disease when he was alive - local MP will know but understandably has forgotten, just reminded him that I wasn’t talking out of my arse.(once again, not claiming dad’s knowledge but had to grow up in a house with infectious disease as an issue.)

Then I got a very polite and almost apologetic reply but it didn’t address a single point I made about infection control.

So I will put that back to him and ask him to address my points. Or will he just pass it to SAGE? If I got a letter from SAGE I might have apoplexy!

I do think it important to emphasise to MPs that many of us would rather not have lockdown- the voices of people who love it are very loud.

I’d say keep contacting over Xmas if you are anti lockdown, don’t let them forget it. In theory there is a vote on 2nd Feb. I don’t have much hope but MPs do need to know how people feel.

The sense of depression is palpable out there. Not many people in the Tube but fair to say mask compliance dropping, thank goodness.

Domina I admire people who can cope with two monitors. I don’t have space but I think it would be quite full on!

@AcornAutumn

Domina I admire people who can cope with two monitors. I don’t have space but I think it would be quite full on!

I've found it pretty indispensable with online lectures and stuff - stream the content on one screen yet still be able to take notes on the other - drives me mad not having two.

Domina I’d take notes by hand but that’s just a preference.

Rules changed on Christmas eve to allow zoos to reopen in tier 4, the initial legislation copied from nov forced them to shut but for some reason the government saw sense (in the fact outdoor in a zoo is no different to stately home gardens) and changed it. The legislation was a bit rushed (schools were briefly illegal in tier 4 but have had their gathering exception restored).

I love two monitors. Going to be very grumpy if work force me into one big one.

@Littlebelina

Rules changed on Christmas eve to allow zoos to reopen in tier 4, the initial legislation copied from nov forced them to shut but for some reason the government saw sense (in the fact outdoor in a zoo is no different to stately home gardens) and changed it. The legislation was a bit rushed (schools were briefly illegal in tier 4 but have had their gathering exception restored).

I love two monitors. Going to be very grumpy if work force me into one big one.

Oh, how did you find that out? I heard about the schools but just assumed it was a drafting error.

I don’t get the private gardens thing. I can’t meet my parents in their garden where there will only be the three of us but I can meet them at the local town garden which is always absolutely packed. Makes no sense.
We aren’t a huggy family and are unlikely to indulge in affectionate displays.

I’ve emailed my MP several times but he’s a twat and just replies along the lines of “it’s a pandemic, do you want us all to die”. Hmm not everyone but I could give you a pretty long list.