ADs shelter in The Sleeping Swans and have a group hug

[BogRollBOGOF]

Another installment in the saga.

Maybe following up with an Indian, Korma please, but protect the naans...

…. so the extra two weeks is now being muttered about as an extra two to four weeks …..

When will people wake up?

@Worldgonecrazy

…. so the extra two weeks is now being muttered about as an extra two to four weeks …..

When will people wake up?

Doesn't surprise me one bit. Because we can't be toooo careful

I am so fed up with all the howling for 'a two week extension ' ( because we all know it won't only be two weeks. They have just announced on our local news that there are no patients in ICU with COVID in Kent & Medway, and only 8 patients in hospital in the region with COVID overall.

And I'm on a FB group for our favourite Greek island and it is now full of our European neighbours getting ready to travel there.

All of which makes me incredibly fed up that we are still in this situation

I’m just so so fed up with this.

I'm in a steaming FUCK OFF mood* because of the twats buying into staying safe for a few more weeks. Staying safe is draining my will to live and dark thoughts are flitting though my head which they haven't since the DCs went back to school. I'm not going to do anything stupid and dangerous and it's a mental reaction to my life still feeling suffocatingly constrained. If it wasn't a direct reaction to a temporary issue, I'd be more concerned about myself.

I was crumbling this time last year. That's not a happy waypoint. The crumbs of freedom that limped me through the summer and into early autumn aren't enough now. I've been too empty for too long.

I've been for a "run" between the heat and my general mood it was a walk. CBA to break into an actual running pace when there's nothing to run for. My mojo ebbs and flows with seasons and events, but I'm so tired of pushing myself out just because.

• not you lot obviously, you help keep me sane.

for everyone struggling.

I think because work is so busy I can't be angry for long as I need to crack on so it's only occasionally it gets to me. I have accepted grudgingly that no nice holidays until next year and god knows when I will be allowed back into the office (15 months and counting at home).

I am sick of the moving of goal posts.

Here's our girl having her first bath, she was not amused! Not even a dandelion leaf would tempt her out of her shell. Normally I spray her with warm water daily to encourage her to feed but as I was changing her bedding yesterday and had to keep her contained in a Clover pot, I thought I'd give her a bath. She shot everything back in her shell, bless her.

@Worldgonecrazy a docile unfit population are supposed to be more pliant, more malleable. I dont think that always works though. People are becoming very angry. Including the unfit ones.

She is tiny!

My mood is lifting. Had a positive phonecall about DS's EHCP process; I was worried I'd screwed up the timings which was adding to my mood. Plus he's in a stinker of a mood with start-of-termitis which has simmered from coming home yesterday into drop-off this morning. His teacher next year is the former SENCO and previously took that year so while it's a shame that he'll by-pass the lovely teacher currently doing that year, it's good to know he has a well experienced teacher next. His current one is in her second year and hasn't had a normal, uninterrupted year. She's also been keen to use visors and masks which is not ideal for teaching a child with social and communication difficilties.

Glad your mood is lifting Bog

I tried to get anxiety meds today. Gp said no need to do online cbt and mindfulness and drink less gin. And basically lower my expectations of what meds will do.
He said he will reconsider in a weeks time. All good things I know. We do mindfulness at work, I hate it with a passion.

I see some scientists have finally caught up with something I've been worrying about since all this started - the effect on children's immune systems.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/09/covid-distancing-may-have-weakened-childrens-immune-system-experts-say

People keep double and triple checking with me that I don't mind them holding DD - I keep actively encouraging anyone who's up for it to hold her as I desperately want her immune system to encounter at least a few bugs!

I agree @110APiccadilly and feel the same. Something I once saw a scientist say in a random video about covid antibodies stuck with me and was along the same lines. He said that studies were not going to find antibodies for that long after an infection because it was a waste of an immune system’s energy to have antibodies against everything they’d ever come across floating around the bloodstream. Instead the immune system stores the information to be recalled later if needed. He made it sound like the immune system was almost an exercising organ and made me think that actually, in order to keep it healthy and up to date, conversely you almost need to come across as many bugs as possible as a child when you are building your system to ensure that you have a wide and varied memory bank. Historically, this has always been possible at nurseries and playgroups and schools (especially soft plays ) but with all those things closed for months on end, when have young children had the chance?

@BogRollBOGOF I so understand your mood and rage!
The sun has eased mine very slightly but then one of my DC came home really despondent because his classmate got sent home today with a cold and headache and so now we are on tenterhooks waiting for his covid test, the outcome of which will determine if the whole year group get to go on the planned activity week next week!!! He just looked so beaten and like he’s given up getting excited or expecting anything fun to actually happen or be open for him to go to and it breaks my heart (and makes me beyond angry and this whole load of bollocks)

@BogRollBOGOF

She is tiny!

My mood is lifting. Had a positive phonecall about DS's EHCP process; I was worried I'd screwed up the timings which was adding to my mood. Plus he's in a stinker of a mood with start-of-termitis which has simmered from coming home yesterday into drop-off this morning. His teacher next year is the former SENCO and previously took that year so while it's a shame that he'll by-pass the lovely teacher currently doing that year, it's good to know he has a well experienced teacher next. His current one is in her second year and hasn't had a normal, uninterrupted year. She's also been keen to use visors and masks which is not ideal for teaching a child with social and communication difficilties.

She's actually over double her start weight, so I must be doing something right!

[quote Lostinacloud]@BogRollBOGOF I so understand your mood and rage!
The sun has eased mine very slightly but then one of my DC came home really despondent because his classmate got sent home today with a cold and headache and so now we are on tenterhooks waiting for his covid test, the outcome of which will determine if the whole year group get to go on the planned activity week next week!!! He just looked so beaten and like he’s given up getting excited or expecting anything fun to actually happen or be open for him to go to and it breaks my heart (and makes me beyond angry and this whole load of bollocks) [/quote]
Poor kid, I hope they're all clear.
The impact on missing out on group trips and residentials is really being minimised.

We do things lile camping, but it's such a different dynamic doing it with Scouts/ school etc.
I had a really overprotective mum but I could do things like camps/ DoE with school and it was a massive leap of independence, and shifted friendships forming deeper bonds than you get in a classroom. I could walk through the countryside with minimal supervision, but not catch a bus past my house!
I continued the theme in a uni society, and half of us ended up married to each other because of the bonding nature of time together and dealing with challenges and laughing it through.

So many children don't get much chance to visit varied places and try new things and these experiences are so valuable. They've already been skimmed down where they're needed most due to budgets, risk management and staffing/ volunteer time.

Shouldnt they be starting to wind these down soon.

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/covid-test-firm-opening-bootle-20757176?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

@Lostinacloud that is spectacularly shit

[quote MercyBooth]Shouldnt they be starting to wind these down soon.

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/covid-test-firm-opening-bootle-20757176?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar[/quote]
There's one opening in my county too. I'd rather save the events industry than retrain into PCR cycles.

I can see the point in testing in healthcare as it affects treatment, but once everyone has had the opportunity to be double vaccinated, why?

As a parent you can handle 1-2 weeks isolating if you have a child with chicken pox for example, but we accept that most have natural immunity, and don't isolate the whole cohort in case. Plus the symptoms are distinctive. We just can't maintain this testing and isolating culture for every cough/ cold/hayfever/ teething temperature etc. Even then a badly timed dose of chicken pox is a nuisence. "Fortunately" my two went down with it within a fortnight of each other while I was on maternity leave rather than working.

I am in a rage about grandsons school. He is 4. Today he retrieved a soft toy from his playhouse and bought it indoors. He put it in his mouth, his other grandma said oh it will need a wash will be germs on it. The little man started spitting to get rid of germs. He then went to bathroom stood on a stool, pumped hand gel cleaner onto his tongue to get rid of the germs while running the tap over his tongue.

His school have been banging on about germs, cleaning with gel for months now. In his little mind what must he have been thinking that he put hand gel in his mouth. I felt like crying.

Poor kid.
I'm.glad that mine are of junior school years, old enough to understand a bit of nuance (not old enough for masks, large year group isolations and fucked-up exams)
We've talked about types of germs and good germs/ bad germs. How some handwashing through the day is good, but you can do too much of it too. How we need exposure for our immune systems, how we have gut bacteria that help us to digest.
Especially with DS1 prone to anxiety and struggling at the start of all this in the Feb/ Mar, they've done pretty well.
I had a school friend with OCD and it consumed her. Her hands were raw from washing, everything took forever with rituals, so many "dirty" things she wouldn't do; wouldn't touch money, hated public transport. I didn't want to be anywhere near that kind of path.

Its a way to replace some of the money lost to the economy @BogRollBOGOF To keep the testing and mask wearing going as long as possible.

Hello everyone. and for all and a for Curly's gorgeous tortoise.

I've not been around much lately due to house move and just trying to train my mind to think about things NotCovid. (It hasn't really worked.)

justasking that is so sad, your poor grandson. That handwash can't have tasted very nice. Schools making kids feel dirty and bad at a fundamental level is a bit of a hobby horse for me I had a dreadful first primary teacher who made me (and others) feel like we'd constantly done something wrong so that one really resonates.

Re the shiny new testing centres -- I suppose there's the potential for good money to be made from a nation of newly formed hypochondriacs. Those swabby things won't be free forever.

Maybe they'll test other things too? Many areas are crying out for more/better sexual health clinics, for example. DB (who's gay, and gets tested for HIV fairly regularly) says that the provision in London is great, Manchester not bad, anywhere else basically dreadful.

Just had a really nice and fun few days off with dh and ds but really struggling now. The more I see that 21st June going to be put back the more I think this is never going to end. It'll always be "one more week"
And the longer we fuck it up here the longer (and more out of pocket) I'll have to wait to see my family.

I keep telling myself that last week the papers were full of speculation that spanish and greek islands were going to be green listed and they were so so wrong. So maybe they are wrong about this.

All this constant leaking and speculation feels bloody emotionally abusive doesn't it?

And now that there are over 1000 people in hospital they are screaming "over there" for more restrictions.

NHS told to identify patients actually sick from Covid-19 separately to those testing positive

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-hospitals-nhs-england-data-b1862804.html

How the actual fuck are the govt only asking for this now???

They have been making policy decisions designed around protecting the nhs for 16 bloody months and at no point have asked for this before now. Holy fucking cow.