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.

When I go for a solitary walk around my winter-drab suburb I come home feeling considerably more miserable than when I started.

Thanks Sootess and Max normal.

Sometimes I enjoy a walk, but I think for me it's more about getting away from the kids and DH. If I lived alone and wouldn't be surrounded by people nearly 24/7 I think a walk would have limited appeal.

@Groovee

So I'm home. I'm back to normal next week. But colleagues with P6's have no breakfast club and can't drop off before 8.50, but we start at 8am 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ then after school clubs are not open... so we finish at 4 and they are expected to collect their children at 3.15. So how can you staff nursery if they staff have no one?

It's bollocks isn't it. Technically the osc can take them if they're open as they're keyworker kids. But most aren't open

Officially the SG have provided grants for providers to open for keyworker care but
A) they're not enough to cover costs for most clubs
B) they have to be claimed retrospectively- anyone want to take a guess at the current bank account status of most OSC? The soscn did a survey and the results could be summarised this "fucked"
C) that assumes you're not needing one of the many which have already gone bust.

@StatisticallyChallenged I can't believe the grants are retrospective. Super helpful when you have been closed down for the best part of a year. Christ sake why is the FM not being questioned on this stuff.

@StatisticallyChallenged this is another scandal. Proper wraparound childcare is key to the economy as well as for children’s well-being

@IsurviveonCoffeeandWinein2021 yup, they've only just been opened for january claims and expected to take a couple of weeks to process. So 6 weeks out of pocket basically - you can see why many aren't opening even before you consider the amount

@StatisticallyChallenged that is disgusting! Oh I'm so angry tonight. What's the point in working hard for our own businesses to put up with this shit 😡

Absolutely sucks ststisticallly

Our School run its own breakfast club and we did offer it but parents said no. We have 4 who come 20 minutes early, and help set up the hub really.

But how can my colleagues get to work with no breakfast club? I've emailed my MSP asking him to ask Nicola this!

[quote WouldBeGood]@StatisticallyChallenged this is another scandal. Proper wraparound childcare is key to the economy as well as for children’s well-being[/quote]
As an industry it has been badly screwed, even more so than nurseries and they've not exactly had an easy time by any stretch. Most of the time they forget to even include us in announcements, we have to wait to find out like an afterthought.

All the recent guidance updates have just been stuck on the website for us to find - they're not being pushed out to us. The most recent closure and the fact we (unusually) aren't allowed to return with the schools we found out via fucking twitter. Unless I've missed it they haven't actually emailed us yet. They managed to send out the "childcare is safe" email though. So that's nice.

Is it wraparound care that's run externally that can't go back or even the school based ones? What happens with key worker kids? Presumably they get more than 9 to 3?

I was thinking of joining the placard wavers at the border only to take my moment and sneak across.

(The only family that matter to me are across the border and we can even get there and back in a day.)

I'm absolutely fed up tonight. My DH keeps saying it's not gonna happen but he seemed a bit less sure of himself today.

@Callisto1

Is it wraparound care that's run externally that can't go back or even the school based ones? What happens with key worker kids? Presumably they get more than 9 to 3?

We already have keyworker children going to aftercare.

• Not based in the school

All wraparound is allowed to open, but only for keyworker and vulnerable kids. For many (most actually) this isn't enough to allow them to operate

Schools here are operating normal hours

@Callisto1

Is it wraparound care that's run externally that can't go back or even the school based ones? What happens with key worker kids? Presumably they get more than 9 to 3?

We have some who come earlier but there is no after school provision for us.

@FredUpNow

I was thinking of joining the placard wavers at the border only to take my moment and sneak across.

(The only family that matter to me are across the border and we can even get there and back in a day.)

I'm absolutely fed up tonight. My DH keeps saying it's not gonna happen but he seemed a bit less sure of himself today.

I have lots in England, including one medically frail grandparent who may not be with us for hugely longer and one new baby we've never met. But who needs to travel when everything you want is right here in Scotland where we keep everybody safe! Feel like if we ever do manage to break out we'll be chased down the Northumbrian coastline by a giant floating blob like Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner.

Also feeling really down tonight, even though my kids can go back to school/nursery, thank God. I do not understand the emphasis on being so much 'more cautious' than releasing last lockdown when we've already got over a quarter of the population vaccinated. It feels like they see this as an opportunity to redo 2020 the way they wish they'd done it at the time, actual circumstances be damned.

Plus I am fed UP to ETERNITY of the idea that everything that makes life worth living can be delivered digitally. No offence to my DC's teachers, who have been absolutely brilliant, but 'remote learning' is not an equivalent to school. And Zoom is not an equivalent to meeting people, and ParentClub helpful tips are not an equivalent to children having a life outside their own homes, and little fun cartoon animations about the joys of getting out for a walk are not an equivalent to anything. People maintain mental health by having a world outside their own four walls; you can't replace that with a 'digital offering' and then wipe your hands of it like the job's done.

and ParentClub helpful tips are not an equivalent to children having a life outside their own homes remotely fucking useful for anything except making you want to throw things at the screen

FTFY!

Zoom etc doesn't work for me personally, I've stopped using it and just telephone one to one where possible!

I feel my mental health failing me and I'm usually pretty good after a wobbly adolescence taught me a lot about self care.

I think I need to focus less on rules now and more on surviving intact. And getting both me and my teenager off the flipping screens!

(Thanks for the space to rail OP!)

I miss my exercise classes. They were great for my mental health and social aspect. its just not the same now that they've gone online and I'm meant to be doing the classes myself, on my own. Hence why I've put weight on! As for the office, fuck that, I'm happy to WFH

I can’t do zoom either @FredUpNow. Makes me very stressed.

I was proper mental last time and can feel it happening again.

I’d got into proper serious exercise afterwards to try to help physical and mental health and am struggling with that being taken away with no prospect of returning. It makes no sense, as I’ve gone from a chubby but fit 50 year old to a fat unfit 50 year old. It’s like they’re trying to kill me!

It’s like they’re trying to kill me

Doesn't count if it's not from Covid!

I've got fat and unfit too. Even more so than in spring lockdown. Starting to question the public health benefit of indefinitely being shut in houses in incredibly stressful work/homeschooling situations and no available stress relief except shovelling Vienetta down my throat.

I got in trouble with a facetime get together the other night. Too much sodding effort to have to get ipad and me into a position where I just look moderately hideous rather than gorgonesque.
Made some excuse about making dinner and they only offer to postpone or reschedule for me . Thankfully everyone else could make original time so I escaped having to make up a new lie.