Guilt Free Railing 10

[WouldBeGood]

Is the end nigh?

St James Quarter in Edinburgh might be a novelty for a visit. Bit of shopping and variety of food options.

Jings crivens - can't believe we're on railing thread 10.

Am not enjoying work after our super UK break - commiserations for those who aren't getting good weather for theirs, it's annoying how mercurial it is.

I'm beyond caring about the announcement tomorrow- genuinely no one I've spoken to can remember how many people are allowed to meet inside and out. England is pretty much a free for all now. It's too late to put the brakes on now. Either the vaccine strategy works or if not we just get on with it - too late to pull back now.

I don't think I'll watch the announcement tomorrow - I get far too wound up listening to Sturgeon speak, and if she does anything less than match England in terms of freedoms I'll want to throw things out the window. With things actually looking really good in England after ditching all restrictions bar isolating, I really can't see any justification for us not to do the same - it clearly isn't going to lead to the apocalypse and we need to start on recovery rather than pissing in the wind trying to control cases. I suspect a lot of people will think the same (in fact, I think a lot of people are already following English rules tbh), and I'm just going to do my own thing as much as possible whatever she decrees.

Agreed @rookiemere

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us yes. Much as I dislike BJ he’s called this one right. I truly hope she sees sense.

I never ever watch her but catch up on here and Twitter etc. She’s too long winded.

No one I know knows or is paying attention to the restrictions anymore. There must have been about 35 people in my garden on Saturday

I just want to do things that are dependent on rules changing. Outings etc.

Defo. There's still so much we can't do even if personally were ignoring the rules. My local library is still closed, all interactive things at the museums are closed. There's actually nothing free I can take the kids too.

Is it just school stuff she is announcing today or some freedoms as well?

I also won’t be watching, I just can’t do it.

It’s the restrictions @runningpink, not sure she's actually mentioned schools

BBC website reporting she will include an update on schools

School update is today. Suspect that will be a major part of it. Well I hope it will be or god knows what happens when we head back to school in less than a fortnight!

I'm scuppered by the rules because of DHs job, I can ignore them and have been getting on with my own thing for a while but he can't break them without risking discipline action. So as a family still held by numbers, limits etc and its especially tough for our friends wedding in a few weeks as its on private property so max is 15 outside currently, with the registrar able to cancel the whole thing if they break it! Bloody hoping that one changes England has been 30 for ages and now no limit outside meeting of people! And yes I am going to make comparisons on that one as its bloody ridiculous given the lowest transmission risk is outside!

We live in a small town where many people know DH and his job!

We've been in England a couple of days now it feels pretty normal. Some people choose to wear masks others don't but no longer any no entry signs without a mask, markers on the floor or one way systems anywhere we have been so far. Definitely enjoying being my own responsibility and the feeling of choice again!

What changes are teachers hoping for?

As a mum with a soon to be P1 I want masks to go. Little kids need to see faces and hear clearly. The mumbling behind masks cannot be helping.

I won’t be able to watch which is probably for the best, I’m feeling so pessimistic about it.

I do hope at least, at the very least, that if she’s going to say any restrictions are staying in place (which I fully expect) she also says what the criteria are for removing them. I’m fed up with masks but, you know, I lump it and I deal with them, it’d just be much easier to do that if I had some even vague idea of when they might be going. “Tomorrow”, “in January”, “when cases go below this number”, “when this many people have been vaccinated”, okay fine, but this “for some time to come” and “for the foreseeable future” is so grindingly endless.

I can’t even bear to think about schools.

😱 I’m scared.

I am expecting social distancing to go to allow businesses, institutions and higher education to operate normally
Limits on numbers indoors and outdoors to be massively increased ( basically as many people as I can fit in my house!)
Face masks to go except crowded places with people unknown to each other like transport and shops
Would love schools to stop all the isolation bubbles but I really don't know if that's going to happen since no kids are vaccinated

Am I going to be disappointed today?

Be interesting to see what they say about schools. We still didn't know what our starting and finishing times would be.

Oh and I wonder what it will be called?
Since some numpty already called this one Tier zero
Answers on a postcard

@latissimusdorsi my biggest fear as DS starts S4 is they maintain these ridiculous isolation bubbles and/or dont confirm what the exam diet is.

Unfortunately unless there's a fairy dust farting unicorn in the sky, I can't see either of those things happening today.

I have this horrible vision that despite not going to Majorca DS will end up missing school due to isolation anyway.

Perhaps they might allow a move to daily lateral flow testing instead which would be a reasonable compromise < if enough LF tests exist >

I hope they go for daily testing @rookiemere
Isolation has been so disruptive but it's also caused massive anxiety all the time "who's going to be next?"
This can't go on
And yes the exam years have been a nightmare

I don’t think there’s any need for either daily testing nor isolations now.

Don’t expect she will agree 😂

Fingers crossed for as much normality as possible for schools.

The anxiety in schools cannot carry on. Everyday there is that anxiety around whether we have yet more cases, do we have enough staff and is the phone ringing because someone else needs to go home urgently. It has at points been almost impossible to plan for learning for the next day, never mind further ahead than that. There needs to be clarity. We know we are going back for week one to the exact same protocols as we had at the end of June but this is to allow us to get back in and started. All changes from today will then kick in from the start of week 2. I would imagine this will not please everyone but it lets us actual focus on learning and teaching in the inservice days, not Covid protocols.

@latissimusdorsi

Oh and I wonder what it will be called? Since some numpty already called this one Tier zero Answers on a postcard

Teir M, sort of middle of the alphabet so she can go in multiple steps in both directions

@latissimusdorsi

Oh and I wonder what it will be called? Since some numpty already called this one Tier zero Answers on a postcard

It's on our calendar as 'Tier -1' 🤣. It did make me chuckle when NS was having to clarify that Tier zero, which happened to coincide with England's freedom day as it worked out, was not, in fact, completely normal. Maybe they shouldn't have called it tier zero then?? I suppose moving into negative numbers fits the 'dragging it out as much as possible' agenda because technically speaking you could have an infinite number of negative tiers, each with a few minor changes, and you might never have to return to normal at all! That way she can milk the 'there's a pandemic on you know' go to excuse for all the SNP's failures, AND put off that pesky referendum she's promised but would almost certainly lose right now for years!