Bonny lasses assemble for the North East support thread 2!

[PennyDreadfuI]

Shiny new thread for all your north east needs.

Hello 👋

Fingers crossed so far our schools are okay, in regards no confirmed atleast. Get the feeling it's only a matter of time though as schools surrounding ours are announcing cases daily at the moment, some of the siblings attend ours.

DD's gone back to school today after 2 weeks of isolation. She missed her flu vaccination whilst she was off so we are off to Jarrow on Saturday to get that done. Fingers crossed we make it to half term before anyone else at school tests positive. I'm tempted to go out for dinner at the weekend in case restaurants are closed from next week.

Oh dear. It all seems to be crumbling a little doesn't it? @snoringferret so sorry you might have to close your business again. I used to own a food business. It would have been a difficult time for me now. As it is, I'm now a Sports Therapist and still haven't gone back to it as it's pretty high risk. So for the last few months, I've made my living by doing all sorts of bits and Bob's.

I've just been for a trawl around Whitley Bay town centre (sniffing out some last Christmas bargains - I've had to get sorted really early this year) It was weird. Obviously there's very little interaction with other shoppers. And I noticed a couple more businesses had gone since the last time I was there.

Told DD about Fenwicks window and rooftop thingy this morning. Pray, pray, pray nothing fucks that up. We usually go to Northern Stage. I'm sure they said they were going to announce 'something special' soon, but wonder if plans are just totally scuppered there.

Currently trying to book for said Fenwick rooftop doo dah... surprise surprise, there's a bit of a queue!!

@FrolickingLemon did you manage to get booked. Out of my 7 school mam friends only 2 managed to get tickets.

My DD is scared of Santa so we can rarely do Xmassy type things. I did manage to talk her into the train to Xmas town last year, she only agreed to that as it involved a hotel stay!

So is the restaurant closures the whole of the north east or just certain areas? Because I wasn’t expecting Durham to be included in the first local lockdown!

This is going to be a long hard winter.

I don't think anyone knows yet florentine apparently the northern mps are just being briefed about it now

Gutted about the impending closures. Just think it’s a step back and feel so sorry for the poor employees and business owners. I’ll be eating out all weekend to give them some custom. Our hospital (UHND) has been extremely busy this week with long waits for beds but this is just usual winter pressures and we haven’t actually got that many covid patients in. I was really saddened to hear of the students that have died of the drug overdoses over the weekend, if we weren’t in lockdown and they were able to go out and join the usual freshers events would this have happened, I think probably not. Poor families.

Looks as if the breakfast with Santa thing at Dobbies may be off. Makes sense if hospitality is closing. Unfortunately it might also mean DD won't have the job she was banking on, too - her third job loss this year due to covid, but the first she hadn't even started before it went. Hopefully the grotto will be open in some form so she'll have something for a few weeks at least, but given it's due to open in about 3 weeks it doesn't seem likely. I feel so sorry for her - this time last year she had two jobs and a plan to do her master's this year. She's not in a good way at all. And she's by no means alone in it. Heartbreaking.

@FrolickingLemon you're quite right, it does feel like the wheels have completely fallen off this week. Usually this is my favourite time of year - me and DH always go to Scotland for our anniversary mid October, then when we get back Christmas planning begins in earnest. I love autumn usually.

I wonder if non essential shops will be affected by the tighter restrictions? The idea of Christmas with no shopping/pubs/theatres/cinemas/restaurants is pretty dire.

Well no I don't manage to get tickets for Santa on the rooftop sadly. Completely sold out. To be honest, it all sounds totally pie in the sky right now anyway.

I'm going to go to B&Q and buy a shed some lights and an outdoor light up reindeer and just do stuff at home I think.

💐for everyone finding this week tough. It does all seem a bit fruitless. Also failed to get Santa on the Rooftop tickets.

@FrolickingLemon has the right idea. Lots of twinkly lights at home this year and mammoth Christmas film extravaganzas may be as good as it gets this year

Just seen a suggestion that the leaked BBC doc means no support bubble at Tier 3.

Fuck. They're going to throw us into Tier 3 and leave us there, aren't they? We'll be lucky if we get out before Christmas.

I was doing ok, now I feel like I need a little cry.

No support bubble?
Great. Just great. So it might actually be a while before I'm allowed to see another grown up? I love my DC, I really do. But fuck me they're hard work sometimes & sometimes I like to have a conversation that isn't with them usually about their dead beat father

The only good thing is at least the DC shouldn't be affected any more than they already are, if schools stay open. I'm in 2 minds as to whether that is a good thing though, especially for the vulnerable & the staff.

downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/english/covid-19_proposed_social_distancing_framework_briefing_aid.pdf

I can cope with most things but losing my bubble I didn't expect and just.. ow.

@swg1

Just seen a suggestion that the leaked BBC doc means no support bubble at Tier 3.

Fuck. They're going to throw us into Tier 3 and leave us there, aren't they? We'll be lucky if we get out before Christmas.

I was doing ok, now I feel like I need a little cry.

This is too far imo. We all know we need to make sacrifices, protect others and the NHS and all that jazz but this would be sheer cruelty for so many people.

Also raises informal childcare issues again.

I might join you in that little cry

Our school has it's first case. DS's year but not a close contact. Creeping closer 😪

I'm at my Mum's now - I'm in a support bubble with her as I'm a single person. We are just discussing what things are looking like going forward. I honestly don't know how the fuck we are going to do this. I'm also her carer (though not in an 'official' capacity) as she has cancer.

Well my DC2 teacher already said, if they do away with informal childcare then she won't be able to work. She looked in to childcare when it was unclear for those couple of days & she was quoted £280 a week! That will be repeated through out the schools & ours would really struggle to staff the school if that was the case.

Tier/level 3 of that framework has totally got rid of the words 'support bubble'.

Any chance she could move in with you temporarily, @FrolickingLemon?

@FrolickingLemon according to this there are still tickets left but demand has pretty much crashed the site. Hope you can get some!

It's one of those things where I can see completely why they would do it but just.. God. I need my bubble :(

And if they don't also close schools and universities I don't see how cases come down. I could deal with complete hard lockdown better than this. At least then it feels like an end could come in time.

Has anyone seen The Sage is reopening for live performances? I'm intrigued to see how they're going to manage that and keep RNS safe?

The latest positive cases have been published from the Universities in Newcastle.
619 positive cases among students for Northumbria (not sure of exact number previous week but reported in media as 750)
1003 (up from 94 previous 7 days) for Newcastle.

Not surprising, but quite shocking.

Can someone answer me something I don't understand about the Northumbria University outbreak?

So out of 770 only 70 have symptoms, so why were the others tested??? I thought you were only supposed to be tested if you had symptoms even if you were a close contact? I thought if you were a close contact you needed to isolate but only get a test if you had symptoms?

Why are they testing asymptomatic people? And is it a case that they're finding more because they're testing more?

I'm starting to feel like Trump saying that you can't have an outbreak if you don't test that's not what I mean though, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on.

They want to scapegoat students?

Test that many of any sector and youd get a similar outcome.

I suspect testing availability is reduced in those areas they want to appear cases are lower.