Ireland's Calling for Normal Life to Return, thread number 5

[eggandonion]

Unlinked because I can't remember how to do it, and can't find Help thing.

Just had a lovely walk, now watching the way we were on the player. I find it very interesting. I am also listening to Stephen Fry's Victorian secrets on Audible. Again so interesting.

[quote LifeInAHamsterWheel]@Radyward how are you so opinionated on the Irish covid crisis/political system/education system if you aren't Irish and don't live here???[/quote]
Wouldn't bother to engage with that one tbh.

Snowing here too and finally sticking! Took it long enough. My class will be raging that there's no possibility of a snow day tomorrow I'm sure 😛

iblinkedandiamold, I enjoyed that series too ('The Way We Were').

@IsFuzzyBeagMise it's fascinating to watch. I am too young to remember most of it but I do remember school tours to Mosney, I don't think they were doing over nights at that stage. I did stay in trabolgan when I was though. Couldnt afford that now.
I also remember queuing for Santa at Switzers on our culchie Christmas day out in Dublin.
Getting up when it was still dark and heading off on the train. And the trains were filthy.

I thought it was an excellent programme, really well made. I thought the segment on women and work was very interesting. There were so few women in management or in the armed forces, they stood out. Some of the commentary was awful; 'do you feel any less of a woman?' or 'at first they treated her like a woman' (?!?)

I was laughing at the ads, the one from Superquinn with Maurice Pratt; it took me right back.

I didn't relate to some of it, for example the shops such as Switzer's or the popular pound shop as we didn't go to Dublin for shopping, not even on the 8th of December. I used to go on the train to Co. Dublin to visit relatives during the summer.

The Way We Were is really good. I could have done without the abattoir scenes though! The side eye of the knife sharpening woman was hilarious.

@JaneJeffer that was hilarious. I had no idea we had women to thank for our 2 week hols entitlement. It was very good.

I had posh Dublin relatives. My auntie took me for lunch in Switzers, it had a dessert trolley. Stuff of dreams. There was Black Forest gateau.
We got the train from Belfast, if you got the right train you got proper tea and scones around Newry, in the mountains. I relive this by stopping off at the hotel in Ballymascanlon.
Just now I'd settle for a tea and scone in the village, with fuzzy.

My mum was from Dublin so she loved going back. She used to leave us in line for Santa and pop across the road to the shops. I just to get anxiety incase we got to the top and she wasn't back. In reality when she came back we had barely moved at all.
Ah the memories.
When my son was young I used to bring him to Santa in Arnotts. He was the best Santa in Dublin.
That was back when my son loved me.

Ah, eggandonion, a dessert trolley, I'm drooling!!
There are a few places in the village that do a nice cup of coffee, if we ever get back to normality :)

Iblinkedandiamold, your post made me smile; I remember that anxiety as a child. I hope you are doing okay. As someone said up thread, it's hard doing the right thing. I hope he will come round in time.

I live near london and am from wales

So - not Irish and no links to Ireland at all?

I'm sure he remembers his trips to Santa fondly. We took our kids to Santa in Clerys, 23 years ago. Dh arranged for fil to meet us there.
They still think he just happened to be passing.
Dd1 is currently cross with me. Brat.

I have very fond memories of Switzers, @eggandonion. I had a lot of dental treatment as a child at the Dental Hospital attached to Trinity. My mouth featured almost every dental issue known to science, and every visit included groups of dental students who gazed in astonishment at my 'before' and 'in the pipeline' x-rays, then poked around with their little mirrors inside my mouth. My mum used to bring knitting to the waiting room.

After each visit we used to walk al the way along Nassau Street by Trinity railings to Switzers and up to the cafe where I always had a big sticky meringue and mum had a cuppa. It was a self serve cafe with trays that you slid along rails past all the goodies and sandwiches and bowls of soup and paid at the cash register at the end. Then home on the bus.

Mum was a stickler for going to school regardless, so we were all sent off with dad even on the rare occasions when there was actual snow. We would be corralled with other unfortunate children of parents who didn't pay any attention to the weather forecast or had a bee in their bonnets about mind over matter until the nuns could get in touch with parents to take us home again. Dad would get to his office in Dublin to find a phone message waiting for him to come back and pick us up. We would get home to find all the snow trampled on, snowmen and snow forts everywhere, and our friends who had sensible parents inside warming up after a great morning.
Grrrrr.

I remember once in a storm a tree was blocking the road and our school bus couldn't get through. I have no idea how we got around it or how it was moved but I remember arriving in school, late and the teacher sitting us beside the radiator to warm up.
When I think back now to how word got around even though there was no phones.
When an important match was won by the local team someone would run to a phone box and ring the local shop who would have bonfires lit on the arrival back home.

I had a stickler mother too. School was uphill from our house, up we trudged. Beyond it was a council estate, worse hills. Kids from there didn't slither in, very sensible.

@mathanixety God l remember going to the dental hospital too, l've memories of it being 1 long hall with lots of dental chairs next to each other, like something out of Soviet Russia... l was nervous going in so my mum promised to get me a My Little Pony afterwards, l still have Cherry Blossom to this day. And the Switzers Christmas windows were the best, moth eaten puppets that actually moved were the highlight for me.

What exactly is going on in our country.... you would think that at 5 million people ( lots of which will probably not get vaccinations anyway eg. Kids etc) it would be not easy but v achievable!!!
Uk has vaccinated 6.5 million so far and have kept schools open for those who need it. We get news that vaccine rollout will be v slow here due to shortage? schools totally closed for everyone not even open for key workers dcs , children with sn or vulnerable dcs. We are the only country in Europe to have this (Germany has provision for keyworkers) Why is everything always so much harder for us to sort out and organise, we have a tiny population. So , so fuming with all those plp who came back from abroad for Christmas, absolutely insane we had 50,000 plp here from UK.

I had a long rant written saying same thing and my phone died.no plan/no clue. Im so waiting for NI to open up and we will be a laughing stock down here. So inept

Can you clarify where you are?

Conas atá an aimsir i Londain inniu? An bhfuil sneachta agaibh?

@Notthis2

What exactly is going on in our country.... you would think that at 5 million people ( lots of which will probably not get vaccinations anyway eg. Kids etc) it would be not easy but v achievable!!! Uk has vaccinated 6.5 million so far and have kept schools open for those who need it. We get news that vaccine rollout will be v slow here due to shortage? schools totally closed for everyone not even open for key workers dcs , children with sn or vulnerable dcs. We are the only country in Europe to have this (Germany has provision for keyworkers) Why is everything always so much harder for us to sort out and organise, we have a tiny population. So , so fuming with all those plp who came back from abroad for Christmas, absolutely insane we had 50,000 plp here from UK.

The UK has 3 months between doses.

But the reason they are spacing out the dosages is so they can have a high number having had first vaccine. I don't think it's clear if that makes it less effective, but a lot of medical staff aren't too pleased with it.

Saying that, I do agree more people in ireland could be vaccinated by now. It's every stalled roll out.

I thought that the first dose offers enough protection for plp to not get seriously ill if they still contract the virus after just the first dose. So a case of better than nothing and resulting in less people in hospitals which is what this whole thing is about.

Yes, CherryValanc you wouldn't want them to mess it up.
There are production issues which is delaying the supply of the Astra Zeneca vaccine.

@Notthis2

I thought that the first dose offers enough protection for plp to not get seriously ill if they still contract the virus after just the first dose. So a case of better than nothing and resulting in less people in hospitals which is what this whole thing is about.

There's emerging evidence that the first dose of Pfizer is about 33% efficient (of over 60s) not the 50 odd% claimed. There's no evidence that support a 12 week gap between doses is effective.

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n217

I know we are told to follow instructions when we get prescribed medication, I'm currently following vet instructions for our dog. So I can't understand why vaccine is different, and doses can be altered. But I'm not a medical person.
I want to know what is going on with the roll out figures, where is the important Irish person who developed az?