Tiery Weary & Crackers!

[Bikingbear]

As a carry on from the last thread

I've got friends whose family are unlikely to see another Christmas and they're seeing them even though they're at risk because for some of us, Easter is an uncertain horizon.

That's it exactly nobody knows what is in front of them.
I've 'attended' (in person/ online) 4 funerals this year, 1 was expected last Christmas, 1 wasn't expected but not surprising, 1 road accident, 1 covid. People die from other things too, the families left behind need to be able to get together and find strength in each other.

Thanks folks, I'm still hoping to go.

One additional slight worry factor was that rookiedog is due to go to the dogwalkers - who love him to bits and will spoil them with their own dogs - as SIL has chickens and a cat. Dog walker texted on Thursday to say she wasn't feeling well, which I instantly assumed was coronavirus, but she says she is much recovered now, so hopefully it wasn'tor if it is she isn't getting tested so much like Schrödinger's cat, it's as good as not being iyswim.

Jeez it's like a chess game where you have to work out particularly uninteresting moves about 12 goes in advance ( can you tell I'm nit a chess player). No wonder absolutely everyone else I've spoken to has resigned themselves to a quiet Christmas at home.

Thoughts on Govanhill because it makes me angry and it is where my Dad's family is from. He went to Hutchie which is on the doorstep on a Glasgow teacher scholarship.

The area is bordered by Queen's Park (large parts of the park including the glass houses left to go to ruin, rest of the park privatised by the tennis club etc) and the Tramway (full of the well heeled middle classes with the outreach project for the locals opposite). Gaelic school as well as private provision on the doorstep to aid social exclusion. There are no end of do gooding projects. If ever there was an advert for how not to do socialism that would be it - (very similar to California swimming in money but no-one thinks it a problem that homelessness is out of control).

Govanhill has not always been a mess and there is no reason, other than Council mismanagement enabled by the 3rd sector for it to persist imho.

Biking just had similar conversation with my DM. When I was a student she used to phone and tell me all about the tragic teen road accidents. Now I'm in my 50s it's cancer diagnosis in my friends and heart attacks etc in their parents. Then she complains I never call her.

My motto is to make the most of every day whatever it throws at me because tomorrow never comes.

Dinnafesh I was too sheltered when a friend said "live every day like it's your last" I understood when he died suddenly aged 21. One of his brothers had also died tragically young.

Yes I agree, I was in a team meeting and they were talking about what the company had sent to a little girl facing her first Christmas without her dad, he has cancer.

I don't know how we've gotten so far away from informed consent this year.

And now, I'm off to Christmas shop with the kids :) hohoho!

As we were saying - gaslighting in the extreme - it's all our fault.

Oh God. What's this now? Our Leader Tweets
I was quietly confident we'd at least get through Christmas before any shit- fan interface...

Oh well looks like Christmas at home then .

I'm afraid I'm very ignorant about govanhill specifically, but I assume it is a conglomeration of all the worst parts of poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and so on. DH had to learn about the Gorbals as part of GCSE Geography (he was in Cornwall at the time) and was so scarred by the experience, he had somehow assumed all of Scotland was like that. So when he was offered a post in Edinburgh he was pleasantly surprised when he visited for the first time! But it sounds like these pockets of deprivation haven't improved, and seem to have even worsened. Yes, it is a failure of policy, though that will have been over many years, with a low starting point. I don't know anything about YouTube guy. And yes, he probably does have political motivations, and maybe racist leanings too (some of the language isn't great). But it doesn't take away from the horror that people, including children and young people live in that environment

@rookiemere

Oh well looks like Christmas at home then .

Oh rookiemere. I'm sorry... I wouldn't give up quite yet... BJ is pronouncing something later this afternoon, apparently, and if you are heading to England, it will be their rules you follow?

DPs have had second thoughts about our plans following Wednesday's change in guidance... We were going to head to them for a couple of days, but it would have involved public transport and staying overnight, so they've decided to come here just for a few hours on Christmas day instead. Which would have been fine, except we hadn't planned catering and now can't get a delivery slot, so am going to have to face Xmas Week in Sainsburys which I promised myself I would never do again after having been traumatised a few years ago . Also, I'm going to have to Clean to Parental Standards. Aaaaargh.... It does mean I can plan for 2m cracker, though... I have sourced a second gravy boat so each household can have their own...

Our Sainsburys is staying open until midnight but i've done an evening shop a couple of days before Christmas before and it's been pretty quiet.

I got a clock and collect at ours for the 23rd in the evening just yesterday and there were plenty of available slots, maybe give that a try?

I'm intending ordering the things I really want and if the substitutions aren't great, then just popping into the shop and seeing what else i can get. I've always been cooking though so I have my meat and trimmings sorted, it's just desserts and veg etc that I need. We could survive without though, there is ice-cream and peas and corn and carrots and frozen mash. Wouldn't be perfect but would be fine :)

NotAnActualSheep I hope someone in authority just read your post. There must be loads of people who will have to do unplanned food shops of they change the arrangements last minute. Unintended consequences exacerbating the problem again.

Just to say Govanhill is far from unique. It is not the only area in Glasgow with "issues". Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and most larger towns have similar pockets. What is unique is the way it is weaponised and fetishized by the Great and the Good.

Bloody hell...the shops are rammed btw. Better enjoy our last few days of freedom ahead of yet another announcement.

If there are 300 strains of covid, why is there panic about one more?

Wax I confess to never doing Christmas Dinner properly. MiL is French so DH grew up preferring Christmas Eve party nibbles. I hate having to factor in a long meal around presents and TV etc. We have a small fridge and freezer so have nowhere to store a turkey extravaganza anyway.

If I can't get a decent celebratory beef joint when I get round to it then fish finger chips and peas is fine.

My dh goes out really late or really early the the supermarket on 23rd and he's always managed to get the necessaries.

anon according to Prof Francois it is 250k strains and counting. Good news is all my nurse and careworker contacts (I know loads) tell me vaccination of them is happening apace. Presume the sheer logistics of this will be putting strain on the system. Add in holding onto older people to get them vaccinated before discharge and full stretched hospitals seem entirely likely even without a new strain.

However a bit more honesty rather than smoke and mirrors about superspready new strains would be welcome. I assume once the staff are vaccinated they will announce the "new strain" is so impervious to PPE and SD that the NHS might as well go back to normal (now that thy and all the vulnerable are vaxxed). I'm a glass half full type of person.

I'm just so fed up. My mum is depressed and alone in Fife. My grandmother who adored Christmas and organised the most amazing parties died earlier this year (not of covid) so it's my mum's first Christmas without her mum. My inlaws are in Angus and well aware they don't have many years left (mil's dad was murdered so she's very much live each day as if it's your last). We're in Aberdeenshire and have no food for Christmas. God knows where we're meant to get food from as we're right on the Angus border and our usual supermarkets are Montrose/Aberdeen. We'll probably end up having to visit multiple shops for everything if we're staying at home.

There is no pleasure in anything any more.

I used to think I was a glass half full type @Dinnafashyersel but this year has revealed my underlying Eeyore!

I do proper dinner every year, when DC were little they weren't really into it so they would get whatever they requested and Dh would do a duck or something. Now I do the full shebang. No starters and dessert saved for evening with a movie. I cook the Turkey on Christmas Eve and pop it in the slow cooker with some stock/light gravy just to stop it drying out and to free up the oven for roasties etc. DS2 loves his mammies roasties :o

Dh and i do it between us on Christmas day, he mainly deals with the hob and i do all the oven stuff.

I think when you are all adults the food becomes more of a focus as no-one really has toys to play with.

I think when you are all adults the food becomes more of a focus as no-one really has toys to play with.

DD3 is my secret weapon. Saves us all from having to adult.
She has spent all morning with her teddies filming their version of the school show - dancing, comedy sketches, singing and all.

Super spready new virus strain seems to be a bit of a cover for the omnishambles of putting London into tier 2 and wheeling out the royals to go to the theatre, to show London was open. Coming out of lockdown, my SIL's borough was at 200 per 100,000, it's now at 518.

Anyway the early announcement of the Christmas relaxation will have served it's purpose of making sure Christmas spending occurred. I can't think of any other reason for it to have happened so far beforehand.

They needed to do it in advance to give people a chance to plan, book trains, buses, flights. Give people something to look forward too.
Hope in amongst this gloom a big thing.

My mum has never been confident enough to brave driving the 10 miles to mine. She considering doing it on Christmas Day. That's what Christmas and little kids mean.

@Dinnafashyersel

NotAnActualSheep I hope someone in authority just read your post. There must be loads of people who will have to do unplanned food shops of they change the arrangements last minute. Unintended consequences exacerbating the problem again.

Just to say Govanhill is far from unique. It is not the only area in Glasgow with "issues". Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and most larger towns have similar pockets. What is unique is the way it is weaponised and fetishized by the Great and the Good.

Ha!! I REALLY hope no-one in authority reads anything I write. I don't want to be first up against the wall come the revolution... Anyway, it's looking like even plan B may not be allowed, so I'll hold off with the duster til this evening. You're right though that these last minute changes of plans just make things worse.

Good plan on the click and collect waxon. DH had looked, and there weren't any at reasonable times, but he checked again today and there were.

To be fair, we don't need that much (already have booze) and it'll be vegetarian as DS and I are veggie, so we shouldn't have trouble getting ingredients. (I think DH was looking forward to DPs promised beef, but this is not the year to faff around learning to cook two meals in our tiny oven.

I'm still a bit suspicious about the sudden, convenient emergence of this new strain. I think that makes me a conspiracy theorist, anti mask and antivaxxer though, and I'm not keen on that label. Maybe I'll go all out and vandalise some 5g masts and have done with it.