New Fred. It nearly ended in tiers.

[Cismyfatarse]

Sorry. Lost track of what was proposed. Hope this will do.

I think the pandemic has shown how vital playparks are and that's something I would like improved going forward. In places like Germany, accommodation is built around playparks in cities. We have amazing parks here but could do with more smaller ones so families don't need to travel.

@Dinnafashyersel these people sound like life goals. Fully staffed households? I'm beyond jealous!

I grew up in a concrete jungle, the effect of school trips to green spaces on my growing mind was phenomenal. I had never been in woodland until a school trip. I can see and feel being in that first one to this day.

That said there were patches of wild grasses on our estate and wee patches of overgrown areas that in subsequent decades were landscaped and mown into blandness.
Where there is green land our council sprays and mows like crazy : the pandemic verges in spring this year were a beautiful throwback.

Hello all, waves from across the border - update on my Elderly Relative in England/Irresponsible Younger Relative who went to the Continent but lives in Scotland situation.
The younger relatives didn't come for Christmas and had booked again for Feb but I'm not sure if that was firm. I'm assuming they are hoping to get their quarantine out of the way before schools go back but both DCs are secondary so who knows when that will be.
Now with the announcement of the quarantine hotels the IYR has decided they will stay at ER's house before travelling to Scotland.
I can kind of see why they don't want to pay £1750x4 but honestly they should just wait till restrictions are lifted in that case. They won't be self-isolating within the house (it's tiny) and I bet they will be going out too.
(they are not in Portugal BTW so they don't have to stay in a hotel if they return to England properly).
Of course they haven't looked into getting their test-and-release tests at all either, I bet they are assuming they can just get NHS tests.

think we're all just a bit frayed and frazzled.

Play parks are vital and under invested in, the ones near us have not been well maintained. Yes Edinburgh, and the parks and green spaces have been so busy in lockdown.

We have loads of wild spaces within walking distance. When we are not mid pandemic most of them are too deserted to be safe. Even our playpark usually has safety issues at certain times of day. I suspect this is pretty common.

drspouse these individuals really sound horrible, any decent person would take the quarantine as a strong signal to cancel, not once again consider putting a vulnerable person at risk. Awful you've had this come up again!

So with test positivity below the magic 5%and the r number below 1 and cases coming down

Why are the govt not giving us a road map to recovery.. Why is there no talk at all of lifting restrictions apart from the very young going back to school

What exactly are they waiting for now??

Thanks starry

I was feeling grim yesterday

Snow beautiful today.

True about clothes and drying wet ones on the radiatiors can be just endless
I like a rail then a laugh. Saves me at times

Cos this is grim no getting away from it

Some days are worse than others then I have to put the thoughts away

We're lucky at our school. Nursery has full day outdoor access to an amazing woodland type area. P1/2 have the old nursery garden and a tarmac area. Then P3 upwards can leave the grounds to the woods next to the school. My children had great access at primary too. To outdoors and outdoor learning.

I worked in a nursery where they barely went out. Another nursery nearby bitched about them a lot. So when a supply member of staff got a job there, she moved them to being outside all day. It was fab. But most of our children were from high flats.

We're all just trying our best.

We have a tumble dryer in our school but know most won't. The link on outdoor time and mental health is so strong. It is needed and it doesn't matter if it's tarmac or concrete, you can have loose parts play, water play etc which children enjoy.

We have a tumble dryer in nursery and a washing machine and there was a stand off as to whether other classes could use the washing machine. It's because it wasn't in the risk assessment.

Our nursery had a teeeeeny outdoor space, but they put stuff up to make the side of the building a climbing wall, and made a mud kitchen. Even in the pouring rain the mud kitchen was very popular. And no tumble dryer!

Mud kitchen.

@anon444877

drspouse these individuals really sound horrible, any decent person would take the quarantine as a strong signal to cancel, not once again consider putting a vulnerable person at risk. Awful you've had this come up again!

I know, the ER is a) very clueless (has no idea how to get a test, I suspect if they had any symptoms they'd ignore them) and b) completely unable to say no to the YR.

I see Israel will be letting vaccinated people back into gyms and hotels so this could be the way forward for the UK although we are not at Israel's rate of vaccination yet. I like the sound of their vaccination pass though and I suspect the UK gov will be watching carefully for ideas.

FIL and MIL got jagged today. FIL got told off cause he's too young (think he's 64) but he had an invitation letter so got jagged anyway. It seems they are doing it by street in their part of our LA rather than by age as loads from their street were in the queue, 60s all the way up to 80s.

Hello, not sure if it's ok to jump in here? I know these are long running threads...
I am wondering if anybody has read anything about what happens after lockdown? Do we go back to tier 4 and work our way down again? I'd just got used to the tier rules, it will be annoying if there's a new system invented... but if we do go tier 4 then 3.. we'll still be in our own council areas until we get down to tier 2... goodness knows when that'll be.
we've some kids back at school on 22nd Feb, maybe all before Easter hols? Ours start Fri 2 April as it's quite an early Easter (that's Good Friday).... but if we don't start moving down tiers till all the kids are back at school (which it sounded like from Nicola's 'adults will have to be patient' speech) then that means definitely no leaving the council areas over Easter doesn't it???

@museumum I think the simple answer is that nobody knows. Case numbers are falling which is good news, but still 800 today which is still too high to start much forward planning.

I'm not expecting much to be available at Easter. I've optimistically booked a cancellable cottage in the Borders, but I think for England I heard eating establishments won't open until May so it makes sense that not much would be available at Easter.

I'm still hoping against hope they open up the ski slopes at some stage. All that lovely snow and it can't be skied on .

You know the lawyer who became a cat on his zoom call

Law cats 😀

That is one sad looking cat.

The poor cat was on a zoom call we all feel sad when we are on zoom calls 😂😂

A positive thought for the day. Today’s data showed that 985,000 odd vaccinations had been done which means at some point today person number 1,000,000 was vaccinated. That feels like a massive milestone!

[quote rookiemere]@museumum I think the simple answer is that nobody knows. Case numbers are falling which is good news, but still 800 today which is still too high to start much forward planning.

I'm not expecting much to be available at Easter. I've optimistically booked a cancellable cottage in the Borders, but I think for England I heard eating establishments won't open until May so it makes sense that not much would be available at Easter.

I'm still hoping against hope they open up the ski slopes at some stage. All that lovely snow and it can't be skied on .[/quote]
My DH isn't an emotional man but watching footage of the ski slopes up north has nearly had him in tears. Best snow for a long time. He's gutted

I joked to DH he might have been no 1,000,000 but if he was, nobody noticed.
I'm hearing of more and more people getting jags or appointments for them (l'm still too young ).