At last! 6 people can meet in a garden!

[BruceAndNosh]

WE can meet family

Granted @Cornettoninja, but my neighbours will see this as confirmation that what they have been doing all along was the right thing (doesn't take much to reassure them they are in the right)!

Good news for many but small communal gardens are going to be rammed with people

In England.

Rest of us have to wait.

Told my parents this and they are saying 'well not yet because'
Sadly some people don't seem to want tk see their family

Well as there's 6 of us in our house we're not seeing family then

Sorry to be a downer, but I’m so disappointed with this. We don’t even have garden and my parents live 4 hours away sad
I’m happy for those who can meet with families in gardens though.

You are allowed to meet in public places as well

@hopingtobedally the virus hasn’t gone away. R is only just under 1. Many people are still worried about getting it.

Won’t make a difference to us then. We are a family of 4 and I’d love to go see my sister but she has 3 children. My Brother and his partner have twins. My in-laws still have dh’s brother living with them so that’s a no no too. The only people I will be able to see are my DM and DF who I don’t have a great relationship with. I know I could go on my own to see people but it’s not the same and my kids miss their cousins terribly.

I’m sorry I’ve kept to the rules but bollocks to this, for my mum and dad to see their kids together they need a bigger group than 6, if it’s safe to see 8 people in Scotland it’s safe in England too! BBQ planned for the weekend, not waiting for Monday either...Coronavirus doesn’t know what date it is!

Does the 6 include children?? Or is it 6 adults?

6 seems like a strange choice, especially since they're still expecting those meeting to socially distance.

If you had the space to socially distance surely 8 or 10 wouldn't be any more risk.

This legitimises what many have already been doing as far as I have seen and heard but good news.

Yeah 8 would have been a better number, as a lot of families are 4. But I think people with 4 and 4 will probably meet up now anyway, what's 2 extra people really?

You are allowed to meet in public places as well
The 4 hour journey is probably the main issue, as you can't use the toilet at your family's home.

Need to find my she-wee then, so I can pee behind the shed!

Assume the wait until Monday is so that half term is over.

Our family are all 3 hours drive away so this isn’t an option for us. Very excited to see friends again though.

Again as with a lot of the guidelines it’s a funny number. Most households are 4 or more. So you can choose two from another household? The others stay at home?

It would have made more sense to say ‘two households can meet in a garden’

Spain allows 10 inside. I understand they are ahead of us but it’s like we pluck figures out of the air and expect us all to believe there’s a scientific rationale behind it....

Nice, I'll see how the numbers are developing before meeting up with anyone, mainly because my kids won't understand social distancing.

I assume many people don’t have a garden big enough for too many people to socially distance. Also on many threads there are people questioning how young children can social distance in school but suddenly everyone is saying they could have a big group of children socially distancing in a garden.

So glad we kept the gardiners toilet now - hubby wanted to demolish it for extra storage space.

Doesnt help us either sadly as GP 4 hours away on a good day but hoping this is a step in that direction. And like a previous poster all of our neighbours have been doing this since the start of lockdown as well

The number of 6 will have been worked out scientifically for risk

@DishingOutDone

I'm confused, my neighbours have been doing this since March - and I'm talking about more than one street. What Boris is saying now is pretty much what our whole village has been doing since March. As long as they are outside or in the garden, they do as they like and friends and family come over. They don't do the 2 metres either; outside is safe as far as they are concerned.

I think a great many people have been doing this all along.

When doing all of the modelling they don't assume a 100% level of compliance, but even with people such as your neighbours not doing it, there will have been less people over the country than if the guidelines hadn't been imposed (if that makes sense). Many people have not been doing it.

Told my parents this and they are saying 'well not yet because'
Sadly some people don't seem to want to see their family

Don't be ridiculous. Many people still see the risks as too high especially those shielding. Just cos the govenment say you can doesnt mean its safe. Its not necessarily about you.

it’s like we pluck figures out of the air and expect us all to believe there’s a scientific rationale behind it....

I agree with this. We're happy to copy other countries when it suits, but for group sizes and social distancing we're way off the mark of what other's have done.

I appreciate different countries will have different challenges, but surely if 1m distance, and groups of 10 social distanced outside are considered safe in one country, they should also be safe here.