ADs drinking al fresco at The Sleeping Swans

[BogRollBOGOF]

ADs, grab your thermals, long johns and winter woolies, we're finally off to drown our sorrows at the Sleeping Swan!

Unrelated to the state of the NHS, but I am very excited. Things are opening up slightly more here now and I have DD booked in for baby swimming!!

Thanks everyone! Also, so glad for swimming, yay!

I am now waiting for results of my application to a new school for DS. Please cross your fingers for me 🐱

Fingers crossed @ISaySteadyOn

Good luck @ISaySteadyOn. Hope the new school works out

Angry this morning. New poster at train station saying ‘mask up now to get on holiday sooner’. Firstly masks amongst general public do F-all to stop spread of covid, and second, local public transport is not a high risk transmission area. Why are the lies still being spread?

Yay for swimming @110APiccadilly !

Good luck with the school @ISaySteadyOn

That sounds like nonsense World . Is it from the government or the train operator?

My small pleasure at the moment is looking at my gym's app each morning to see what classes they have added for a week today. Yesterday I signed up for a body pump class. Just seen yoga has been added for Wednesday. I've paid for a virtual one until half term but it's great to know it's there from June.

Good luck ISay.

I'm just hoping DD actually likes the swimming! She likes water in other contexts though - was delighted when we went to the seaside and I dipped her feet in a little pool, and also enjoys her bath - so I think there's a good chance she'll enjoy it.

They usually do. The temperature might be a surprise for her. My two get cold easily in the water so still wear shortie wetsuits to help. Unfortunately I discovered them at the end of my years being waist deep in a training pool. I do use mine still for a splash type session where I get much colder than lanes.

I miss swimming. I'm not a member and the different systems in different places is off-putting. I can handle my boys' routines but each type of session has a different procedure at that pool. I love swimming but always did struggle with the sensory input of changing with the humidity, echo and confined spaces. I can't physically walk into many cubicles and am very particular about getting the lightest ones.

I know it's not normal yet, especially for less formal groups, but it's great that more baby/ toddler groups are getting going again. Their importance for helping mums to feel human and stimulating little brains is deeply underestimated.

Morning all. Fingers crossed for you here ISay.

I am also grasping for normality with both hands. As of Monday I can go and eat in a restaurant -- inside! (I'll be living in Scotland after the weekend.)

If I never hear the phrase 'variant of concern' again it won't be too soon. Although I've attempted to de-sting it by pretending that it's an obscure album track by Depeche Mode.

@Worldgonecrazy

Angry this morning. New poster at train station saying ‘mask up now to get on holiday sooner’. Firstly masks amongst general public do F-all to stop spread of covid, and second, local public transport is not a high risk transmission area. Why are the lies still being spread?

It's the emotional manipulation that rankles with me. 'Jump through this bureaucratic hoop or we'll take away your sweeties.'

It’s all so obvious. Regulations easing? Sunny weekend forecast? Quick, let’s get the scare stories out in the media.

It's the emotional manipulation that rankles with me. 'Jump through this bureaucratic hoop or we'll take away your sweeties.'

And again, and again, and again...

I'm not far from one hot spot, but fortunately we've done really well on vaccination which should hamper chains of transmission to a broader area. I'm less alarmed than I would have been back in the autumn.

I wasn't planning on hugging aquaintences from there in a hurry

Local Welsh radio government this morning. Try to stay indoors whenever you can 🙈

OH and you can eat out indoors but if not in your bubble stay 2 metres apart

No swimming lessons here yet too dangerous so DIL is taking four year old off her own bat because pool is open

Thanks for the crossed fingers everyone. Just heard he is number 1 on the waiting list for the school I wanted. You all must have helped 😉

Ive placed an order for that book A State of Fear.

@justasking111

No swimming lessons here yet too dangerous so DIL is taking four year old off her own bat because pool is open

Could be worse. Could be Ceredigion - don't know what they think they're playing at tbh. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57091904

Could be worse. Could be Ceredigion - don't know what they think they're playing at tbh. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57091904

And I wonder why I'm having a WTAF kind of day. I could comment, but you already know it and we've been saying so much about it all.

My WTAF mood is not helped by a message from school reminding us that bags are banned... yet they need water bottles, reading records and books. Not sure how a bag actually breathes Covid around the room...
Plus masks on the playground to remain in place until at least half term because a near empty playground is clearly more hazardous than a secondary school classroom

I kept going through the winter clinging on to the thought that things would be better after Easter. It is good having the activities back in the evenings, but I'm not really feeling much benefit out of changes yet. I was begining to sink to a really low point in May/ early June last year. I still feel leached dry from it all and not really recharging.

Unsavoury SAGE

"INDEPENDENT SAGE a group of scientists setting themselves up to provide more accessible and authoritative advice than SAGE itself recently celebrated the anniversary of their first public meeting. They have doubtless improved transparency by pressuring the government to reveal who sits on the SAGE committee and all the minutes of their meetings to get a better understanding of "the science" the government claimed to be following. They also released a rude video (now deleted) attacking Englands chief medical officer Chris Whitty and the UKs chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance.
This reveals more about the egos , politics and academic ambitions of Independent SAGE than it does about the CMO and the CSA. At its best science provides a safe context to form a hypothesis , prove it wrong, go back to square one and keep repeating it until, say you come up with a Covid vaccine. At its worst vainglorious academics rip each other to shreds on Twitter with a certainty that belies the fact that science is built on error and uncertainty.

Private Eye.

I loathe the way independent sage are revered over there @MercyBooth
I can't even put my finger on why. They are generally touted as a group holding the government to account, questioning their data and showing that we all need to be in lockdown. Now. Forever. Yet any scientist that questions it at the other end of the spectrum, not predicting covid caused global annihilation if we don't all glue ourselves into our houses, are labelled as "not credible at all", "conspiracy theorist", "right wing with an agenda".

Since when did a group of people on Mumsnet become the authority on which scientist has the more credible background, or their political leanings and even that they know better than them because they've looked at the data on Worldometer is just breathtakingly arrogant.

Also, the amount of times I have wanted to scream "ITS NOT THE INDIAN VARIANT WREAKING HAVOC IN INDIA....ITS THE KENT VARIANT" this week alone has just got ridiculous.

But I suppose when the media are showing scary pictures from India in one story, then doom plopping a story about the Indian variant, suppose folks will get the two confused.

It's almost like they know this.....

I've said since last summer, this climate of fear isn't going to end until they stop publishing and announcing the case figures every. bloody. day.

Indy Sage are just a bunch of people annoyed that no one wanted them on Sage, imo.

Although isn't there one who's on both Sage and Indy Sage, now I come to think of it? Which is a bit weird.