Guilt free railing

[WouldBeGood]

The place to vent, moan, rail, cheer: whatever you’re feeling about Covid, and the rules, and life and the universe.

I’ve started this as I’m feeling scared and fed up with increasing restrictions despite vaccines. I feel that what should be a more positive time is instead bringing more and more doom.

I want the simple pleasures of life back, as well as all the big stuff.

Anyone else wishing today would just f&vk off?

Nothing major but the constant drip drip drip of negativity is really weighing me down today.

There’s no evidence of more deaths or serious illness though, with the vaccines, variants or not. Vaccines will need to be updated like the flu ones, but life can go on.

And yes, I’m really scunnered of it all today. DP now really low too: I think everyone is.

In a cheerier note, DS had to make pancakes (scotch, of course) as his Home Ec practical for pancake day, so we get pancakes twice 😃

@Callisto1

When you listen to the scientific advisers they seem adamant that we won't be going back to normal even with the vaccines. And I don't think it's a scare tactic.

I hope we will get more freedoms but given the lack of control of borders and the prevalence of disease here we could easily end up with a variant that the vaccines don't work against. Just far too much horrible uncertainty. Sometimes I just want to bury my head in the sand and pretend none of this is real!

This is always what the SG have been proposing though. Tier 0 in the old tiers still had serious limitations in terms of mass gatherings (no more than 50 at weddings, for example), numbers of people allowed to meet inside and outside, still no nightclubs, still needing face coverings in shops and public transport etc. I had hoped that was "this is what we'll do until the vaccine, and then we won't have any need for any restrictions" but I don't assume that's the case now . I don't want to think about that to be honest.

I'm not convinced about the lack of effectiveness of the vaccines. I think they just don't have the data so can't say "yes, it's exactly the same" so the manufacturers are urging caution . And as you say, the vaccines can be tweaked, and various boosters given as needed. I understand them wanting to go slow on relaxations this year while they do that, and get the data and we see some lessened transmission caused by the vaccines (making further variants less likely) but I just can't really tolerate them saying (tier 0, for example) is really as good as we're going to get, ever.

Oh yes! Pancakes! That will cheer me up. not thinking my plan of giving up booze and chocolate for lent this year is the way forward, though

I'd be delighted at a bit of underpromising and over delivering, frankly. If NS says tomorrow, actually, all children can go back on the 22nd because we're doing really well and realise that children need to be in school and its not fair on them, I will send her all my booze and chocolates and maybe even consider voting for her in may.

@NotAnActualSheep if she says that I’ll vote for her too!

And I’ll make Scotch pancakes again tomorrow instead of my quarantine listed French crepes

ahhh for the halcyon days of ranting that tier 0 wasn't very normal - seems positively rose tinted compared to teetering on the knife edge of when oh when will our kids be allowed to go to school and why are we still talking about elimination strategies and border control a year later and when the hell we might see some freedoms back.

Pancakes? I want a bloody time machine. 1997 would do.

I’d like 2018, please 😃

I don't want to think about that to be honest.

Me neither. Currently watching Soviet cartoons in Russian with dc1 and feeling depressessingly dystopian. He's obsessed with Baba Yaga and her chicken legged house at the moment.

Not sure how much longer I can cope with this pathetic half life. My ptsd symptoms are so bad I can't sleep without a light on, can't get any help from the NHS because I'm "resilient" and I just want my life back. Ds is struggling despite us keeping everything as light as possible because he knows what he's missing out on including a proper birthday party next week. He keeps asking for an end date and we can't give him that.

Praying for good news tomorrow, my eldest 2 are p2 and p3 so would hopefully be going back on Monday. We’re on half term here today, tomorrow and Wednesday is in service day. So really only two days of homeschooling, all going well.
This lockdown has been really tough particularly on my eldest. He’s become extremely low (only just turned 7) and behaviour so difficult. Really anxious about being out and about, and previously a very social happy kid. I just don’t know what to do to help him.
I wonder when toddler groups will go back. My youngest isn’t even 2 yet and this last month has become almost addicted to the iPad which is sad.

And oh if we could have a time machine I’d go back to 2008 ish. Mid twenties, good job, out every weekend. I’d hate to be a young, single person at the moment. Nothing to look forward to, when holidays and nights out are life at the stage of your life.

the little ones want to be like their siblings don't they, they think watching the iPad makes them grown ups. I hate the live lessons for the under 8s, they're so unnatural.

dinosaur sorry to hear things are so bad on the PTSD front.

I just want to drink coffee with a friend in their garden - just sit, not walk.
I can endure the rest but not this ☹️

@Heffapotamus I should have supermodel legs the amount I'm walking right now. It's too bloody cold to be huddling outside- I want to be indoors with my friend and not at a cafe or restaurant- in our own house.

Callisto1 the scientific advisors that have the ear of government are, in my opinion, quite ideologically driven and in particular Devi Sridhar, who certainly also finds a lot of time to keep her media profile high.

Their aim is Zero Covid, and given that Scotland is not a country with complete control over either it's border or it's finances I have absolutely no idea how they think that will work.

Dinosauratemydaffodils I'm really sorry to hear how badly you're struggling just now. I can't even suggest anything, but just wanted to acknowledge it.

I've just measured my living room and dining room. I will redecorate before Easter!

Me too @Groovee can't look at the same walls any longer!

COMPLETELY OT, but can you pre make pancake batter, say the night before?! I know the kids will want tomorrow morning, but mornings are always a bit crazy and it would save time to have them ready (or at least almost) to pour into the pan. I know it works for Yorkshire puddings...

@Cocacola12 yes absolutely. We often make it in the morning for use in the evening.
I've had to hide the third jar purchased of Nutella from teenage DSs night maraudings so we have some for tomorrow.

[quote rookiemere]@Heffapotamus I should have supermodel legs the amount I'm walking right now. It's too bloody cold to be huddling outside- I want to be indoors with my friend and not at a cafe or restaurant- in our own house.[/quote]
Supermodel legs sound great 😁 And yes, I so want to have people in my house, go to a pub/coffee shop etc - but I'd settle for a chat bundled up in a deckchair with thermals and a hot water bottle. I'm desperate! 🥶🥶🥶🤣

Cocacola it works fine when I make it the night before.

my dc are pancake fiends - I've even read that it's better to rest the batter overnight in fact/for a period of hours to settle.

Max Issue I have with zerocovid lot is it makes very little sense given we've already had so much death and we are half way through rolling out a vaccine. Makes you wonder how they propose New Zealand ever opens up even with a vaccine.

Dinnafashyersel I even have my doubts re Zero Covid in terms of New Zealand and Australia - a normality that can be whisked away at any point in time and closed borders. I too wonder how the re-opening will go with the vaccines given what will be a very low tolerance for cases, a population with naive immune systems and the limitations of what the vaccines can realistically achieve in that context.

For a European country where the virus is now endemic, where we have the level of reliance on food import that we do, that is a major international transit hub and where the economy relies on all of that.... I don't see how it's possible, or at least possible without some extremely scary changes to our way of life.
For one region of a country to attempt it while the rest follows a different strategy, seems to me to be out and out insane.