To think this is not really in the spirit of things?

[tinkywinkyshandbag]

So my in-laws who are both in their 80s live about 20 minutes walk from our house. Pre-lockdown we would often get together with them on a Friday evening for a gin and tonic or glass of wine.

Since lockdown we haven't seen them apart from briefly to drop off some shopping et cetera and we have been strict about maintaining social distance.

I know my mother-in-law has found a lockdown down hard as she is very sociable and it took us a few weeks to convince her that she had to take it seriously.

Anyway, this evening my DH and our 15-year-old daughter went off for a walk for their daily exercise, fair enough. At the same time or 18-year-old daughter took yourself out for a run, again fair enough.

About half an hour later the phone rang and it was my mother-in-law. It seems that my husband and daughter had magically just arrived at their house, our other daughter was on her way, and the plan was for them all to stand out in the street and have a drink and a chat. By drink I mean bottle of wine et cetera.

I was invited over to join them. mulled it over and then called back to say that I wouldn't join them, to a somewhat frosty reception, They clearly thought I was being a bit of a killjoy.

However I don't think this is really in the spirit of the lockdown. We live in a very touristy area and there has been a lot of publicity about keeping the tourists away and everybody staying at home. I think that I was all standing out in the street drinking wine and having a laugh is not really the thing to do in this situation. Even if social distance is maintained, it still doesn't sit right with me.

I am now expecting that when they eventually get home I will get stick from DH about being antisocial. However I think I am in the right. AIBU?

More people getting sick quicker makes the lockdown shorter, actually.

Eh? How on earth do you work that out?

And Matt Hancock has said there is spare capacity in intensive care and enough ventilators.

I'll believe what a politician says when I see the pigs flying over my garden. He's hardly going to tell us they are at full capacity and short of ventilators is he?

So a little cautious relaxation of the rules is probably fine.

Oh Boris, I never knew you were on MN. You should be taking it easy and resting you naughty boy you.

There are places, I don't know exactly where, that drinking alcohol in streets, parks etc is against some law. I hope on top of all the other risks that they don't get caught by the cops for each and every infringement of so many laws

More people getting sick quicker makes the lockdown shorter, actually.

What do you mean @WakeAndBake? How? I can't make out what you're getting at.

OP Yanbu. I'm so sick of this shit. We must stay home. The reasons we can leave home are very clear. None of them are to socialise.

If we all went out and about and spread it around then yes lockdown probably would be over quicker because the peak would come quicker and the number of immune people would increase. However loads of people would also die because the NHS wouldn't be able to treat them all. All the lockdown does is spreads infections over a period that the NHS can cope with. Ultimately most of us will get this.

This type of behaviour is not acceptable. They obviously planned this. Can you imagine if every person living beside them decided to do the exact same thing? There would be many people about. I don't understand why some people feel the rules don't apply to them. How are they passing the wine and glasses? How are glasses being topped up? Because no one is that good, that they can carry out these things 2m apart.

My neighbours doing this too out the front. Sat out two metres apart admittedly drinking wine in the sun. One of them has been ill too.

Well they are home and apparently they all sat out on the front garden/drive so not really the street, MIL wore disposable gloves to put the glasses straight in the dishwasher and strict distancing was stuck to, but I'm still cross. I don't like one rule for us and one for everybody else. Im going to talk to DH about it in the morning as we're all tired and hungry now. I understand the girls wanting to see their GPS but we had been doing quite well with FaceTime.

*I'm not perfect so I don't expect other people to be.

I dunno what you want OP, support for your moral highground? If you know you're right what does it matter what MNers think*

Love this. If everyone made sure they're doing the best they can, and stressed less about competitive quarantining we'd be doing just fine.

If your sons in law are in their 80s how old are you?
Maybe practicing some reading comprehension might be worthwhile too?

I'd be mad as hell that my husband got together with our children to cook this up, thinking that if they presented me with it all done, I'd simply head over there.

If they are maintaining distancing and not having any contact, I can't see an issue.

The government model was based on only 50% of the population complying with the rules. In reality it's more than that, plus some who are partially complying
So it's not actually going to do any harm, especially since they were out anyway and keeping their distance

Oh - well that's all right then. after all - that leaves loads of leeway,. Obviously we should all keep breaking the rules until the 50% obedience level is reached, then the model will be applicable.

Twats.

If your sons in law are in their 80s how old are you?

I did exactly the same thing 😂😂

Had to read it three times before it made sense.

It encourages others to break lockdown too. We aren't in a "social distancing period" we are in "lockdown period", They are very different things.

What people aren't getting is that our hospitals are usually full without Covid19. We have black alerts throughout the year without this pandemic.

There are also people who don't have C19 who are likely to die or experience life changing disabilities because there are no free beds for them on the right ward and they are unable to access the usual onsite MDT treatments and services that they could have before if hospitals are over capacity.

Other Illnesses and trauma don't stop because of a pandemic.

So ... I beg you all please stay home in lockdown as you were told to.

In the same way that people who don't have their kids vaccinated rely on the rest of us getting our kids done to protect theirs, people who "bend' the lockdown rules rely on everybody else keeping them for their protection.

Both groups are total wankers who think that they are more special than anyone else, and put vulnerable members of society at risk by their selfish twittery.

Yanbu, EVERYONE needs to take this seriously, there are no exceptions! My neighbours have people round in the garden for drinks, two other couples and some kids, it just beggars belief.

@Littleposh but the government projections aren’t based on 100% compliance.
However, assuming that many people fudgesa little bit it’s a big risk to assume that others can find huge loopholes and still remain above that number.
The number of ventilators available today is irrelevant to OPs family. It’s the number of ventilators available in about 3 weeks that should concern them.

@GirlCalledJames the thinking behind the original statement makes perfect sense. The thinking behind posting something, on a public forum, that basically gives people carte blanche to do as they please despite quite strict restrictions for a very valid reason is what I consider out of order

My cousin has done something similar, inviting his elderly father in law ( who was in hospital for several weeks over Christmas ) to come and sit in the garden. This is the same cousin who a couple of weeks ago was passing on messages from Spain about how we need to learn from their experience.
Unbelievable!

We live at the bottom of a cul de sac. Two lots of neighbours, this afternoon for three hours we six of us sat on our own drives 12 feet apart with our own bottles of wine, own crisps, nuts, got through two bottles of fizz and a bottle of red between us in the sunshine. Was lovely to catch up. I am sure here will be some pursed lips on here at our action. To me it was safe, harmless and good for our mental health. Whereas doing the weekly shop in Tesco last night I got the heebie jeebies at some customers idea of a six foot gap. I felt quite hemmed in at times, could not wait to escape.

YABU OP, don't you know that during lockdown everyone must ensure not to have any fun or socialise in any way, even if they do it in a totally safe and sensible fashion? Smiling, chatting and drinking all cause fairies to get corona virus or something.

I hope everyone who is going on about not bending the rules never ever goes one single mile over the speed limit when driving. Because breaking the speed limit, along with everyone else who also breaks the speed limit, even by one or two miles, creates an overall risk, that, depending on how you calculate it, is in the order of millions of times higher than sitting safely apart from another person drinking some wine.

What is happening to people at the moment?

Matt Hancock has said there is spare capacity in intensive care and enough ventilators

So quick, let's fill them up as fast as possible and stop those lazy NHS staff loafing around with nothing to do.

Jeez.

These people are directly responsible for the deaths of our wonderful NHS staff and frontline workers. #SerialKillers

This is utter and complete bollocks and, if I didn’t have a personal policy of never reporting, this post definitely would be.

@Gutteron your post is truly crazy.