ADs don't want your freedom, ADs don't want to play around

[BogRollBOGOF]

🎵 Every day I hear a different story
People sayin' that you’re no good for me
Saw your lover with another
And she’s making a fool of you, oh

🎵 If you love me baby, you'd deny it
But you laugh and tell me I should try it
Tell me I’m a baby, and I don't understand

Go Wham!

"My state in Australia is still Covid free "

Thanks for that.

Found you all again. This keeps disappearing off my watch list.

@MrsLCSofLichfield

"My state in Australia is still Covid free "

Thanks for that.

Sorry, it wasn’t meant to be a boast. I should have added ‘but not for long’. There’s plenty of Covid madness here even without the Covid.

The downside is there is no natural immunity and some people are going to lose their minds once Covid actually comes and starts spreading.

In good news, I went to a real school assembly yesterday. It was lovely.

Hey, also, we all made it through the first full week of school!

In other news, I changed the tortoise's bedding today and she let me know she wasn't happy!
First I put her safely in her Clover pot with some yummy dandelions. She shit on them then stamped in it. Cleaned her off.
Then I gave her a bath, which she's not keen on. I dried her off, put her back in the Clover pot, she shit in her pot and stood in it again. Cleaned her off again.
I put her back in her lovely clean cage, lovely clean straw, fresh food and water and she shit in the corner and stood in it again, this time with her front foot!
Generally speaking she poos once a day, once every two days or so, little cow must have saved this lot up especially.
Sooooo I thought I'd leave her to settle down, looked in her cage and she'd dragged all her food all over the place, kicked her bedding into the water bowl then shit in it for good measure. She's under her sun lamp asleep now, buried in her fresh hay. Bet she shits in there as well!

Oh dear curlygirl ! Do tortoises have terrible twos?

Can tortoises have upset stomaches? I know dogs can but don't know very much about reptiles. I used to have a friend who had pet snakes and when he took them to the vet, they had to go into a freezer bag with a hot water bottle. But I think snakes only eat about once a month.

We've had one week back at school and it's been deliciously nice and normal.

I've decided that I need to get my ears tested and, if necessary, get some hearing aids. I'd never realised how much I lipread until people started wearing masks (perhaps the masks muffle speech to some extent as well).

@CruCru

I've decided that I need to get my ears tested and, if necessary, get some hearing aids. I'd never realised how much I lipread until people started wearing masks (perhaps the masks muffle speech to some extent as well).

There's a website on your phone. Son tested me the other night. I was okay

@CruCru

Can tortoises have upset stomaches? I know dogs can but don't know very much about reptiles. I used to have a friend who had pet snakes and when he took them to the vet, they had to go into a freezer bag with a hot water bottle. But I think snakes only eat about once a month.

We've had one week back at school and it's been deliciously nice and normal.

Oh yes they can have upset tummies and diarrhoea but this was definitely revenge poo.

a dirty protest.

What is tortoise poo like? Does it smell?

Hello everyone! This was on page 2 and had disappeared off of my threads I'm on list...I am very pleased to see that vaccine passports have been shelved in England. I hope that they are for Scotland and Wales too, afraid I don't know if Northern Ireland had even considered them. It's been lovely seeing live music and festivals etc happening, not that I am able to go to any!!

@CruCru

What is tortoise poo like? Does it smell?

A bit like play-doh, long and thin, about the same thickness as a piece of brown parcel string and about an inch or so long. Obviously bigger tortoises have bigger "bits " so I should imagine the poo is larger in girth. (What a lovely subject!) Yes it does smell when she's just done it but when it's dry it doesn't really, bit like a cow pat is as their diet is similar, vegetarian mostly. Although I did catch my previous tortoise eating a slug, apparently that's normal!

@CruCru I thought I had a problem with my hearing, I had a test and it was fine.

I honestly think it is masks, interacting on Zoom and also finding social interactions in person difficult and not being used to hearing unfamiliar voices regularly. I have also been diagnosed with fibromyalgia recently and so for me I think there is sensory stuff going on too. I often have to put the subtitles on the television when I am tired.

Tortoise revenge poo

I'm pleasantly relieved if vaccine passpprts are off the agenda. It's not healthy for society to make personal health choices so divisive. There may be some devil in the detail... I am more cynical than I was a year ago!

I have an event every March. Most years it's my only child-free weekend of the year. It was due to happen on the first weekend of the first lockdown, so I've missed two now. I was pretty much resigned to it being vaccine passport managed to happen in 2022, but the reality is that the sector of the population it appeals to would have high take-up anyway. Mind you if it's masky, it would make that very hard to navigate. I already had taken up using ear plugs to manage the noise there.

My hearing felt terrible in lockdown #1 and I think it was the stress plus constant family background noise and not having my own space to manage my environment. DS2 having regular tooth fairy visits did not help either so his speech was distorted.

Part of my mask issues are losing the lip reading and then the distorted speech and it just messes up my normal method of auditory processing. My hearing often feels like it has a delay while I mentally fill the gaps that I didn't catch. I learned years ago not to bother with "pardon" but to reframe what I heard to hone in on the gaps.

Well, DD has definitely developed a position on the subject of masks (still mandatory in Wales). Spent church yesterday having my mask pulled off every time I put it on until I decided there wasn't much point and left it off.

Sensible girl !

I heard defiant singing in the church up the road from my house last weekend and it gave me courage for the tube journey.

Went to a music festival at the weekend. It was amazing, felt really normal. The only covid evidence was hand sanitizer by the loos.

Normal is great!!!

Vaccine passports start here (Scotland) from 1 October, apparently. For 'large events' so I'm assuming football matches, arena gigs and so on.

I would much rather they didn't, I don't see the point and I don't like the idea of having to prove health status to non-medical people to be let in somewhere.

Plus I think mission creep will be a big risk; today it's passports for Lionel Richie at the Hydro, tomorrow it's flash your badge to meet your pals in the pub for lunch.

DB is fretting about similar starting to happen for HIV which would be a dark day indeed.

What has happened to our society that so many people have become so reliant on government interventions to keep them quote-unquote 'safe'?

I just read that vaccine passports are still on the table for England. Our usual incompetent government disagreeing with each other and announcing policy via the tabloids.

It’s absolutely sickening and yet many are positively salivating at the thought of being able to show their absolute compliance and model citizenship.

These people make me angry nauseous and worried in equal measure.

@BIoodyStupidJohnson

Vaccine passports start here (Scotland) from 1 October, apparently. For 'large events' so I'm assuming football matches, arena gigs and so on.

I would much rather they didn't, I don't see the point and I don't like the idea of having to prove health status to non-medical people to be let in somewhere.

Plus I think mission creep will be a big risk; today it's passports for Lionel Richie at the Hydro, tomorrow it's flash your badge to meet your pals in the pub for lunch.

DB is fretting about similar starting to happen for HIV which would be a dark day indeed.

What has happened to our society that so many people have become so reliant on government interventions to keep them quote-unquote 'safe'?

Considering that the vast majority of people living with HIV in the U.K. are no risk to anyone due to having an undetectable viral load and it’s well known how HIV is transmitted (ie it’s nor airborne) this really wouldn’t happen.

It is the regular cycle of creep that concerns me and has made me much more cynical in the past 12m.

With jabs for 12-15 yos, I don't object to parental choice... but how long will it actually be a genuine medically based choice for...
DS1 will be 11 soonish. I'm on a "not yet" stance. Based on the way our government has repeatedly behaved and the situation in several other European countries, how long is it before it's actually a social compulsion rather than a medical choice?
With family abroad including a very elderly and fragile relative, international travel is an essential part of our right to a family life and we are easily coerceable for political reasons over marginal medical benefit.
I've consented to this year's flu vaccine as usual because the medical benefit is clearer and it was a much better established vaccine before it was rolled out to children.

Looks like vaccines for 12-15 year olds is going ahead.
Ds1 is 14. I don't believe they are necessary. I think putting our non-vulnerable teenagers above countries where they haven't got enough vaccines to jab the elderly is wrong, but he'll still be getting the jab as it will probably make the difference between being able to see family abroad next year and not. I feel like there isn't a choice at all really.

@Taswama if you are only having it for travel then you could leave it until the last possible moment. Who knows what the rules will be next year!