The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

euronorris

Well, I'm livid with the PM. Closing the schools is absolutely the right thing to do, but once again he's been a last minute nelly. So, we had to send our daughter in yesterday for one poxy day, mingling unnecessarily when he could have just made this announcement at the weekend. Instead, he went on live TV on Saturday and said "send your children to school", and then did a u turn less than 48 hours later. And again, he's given teachers and parents virtually no notice!! Arghhh Even if he had made this announcement on Sunday afternoon, it would have been better. And there is no way that the data changed so materially in 24 hours.

Sorry, I'm ranting.

Good luck with home schooling everyone. Orchard Toys are releasing activity sheets on their Facebook page each day, for primary aged children, twinkl is good for resources to print also, and Joe Wicks is starting up his kids exercise stuff again.

annieb64

You are quite right to rant. Primary schools went back here yesterday  and now they are shut again.
DD is a key worker  but doesn't  know if she can send DGS in today. We are 200 miles away so can't  help.

3secondmemory

euronorris said:

Well, I'm livid with the PM. Closing the schools is absolutely the right thing to do, but once again he's been a last minute nelly. So, we had to send our daughter in yesterday for one poxy day, mingling unnecessarily when he could have just made this announcement at the weekend. Instead, he went on live TV on Saturday and said "send your children to school", and then did a u turn less than 48 hours later. And again, he's given teachers and parents virtually no notice!! Arghhh Even if he had made this announcement on Sunday afternoon, it would have been better. And there is no way that the data changed so materially in 24 hours.

Sorry, I'm ranting.

Good luck with home schooling everyone. Orchard Toys are releasing activity sheets on their Facebook page each day, for primary aged children, twinkl is good for resources to print also, and Joe Wicks is starting up his kids exercise stuff again.

He leaves everything to the last minute – almost as if it has to come down to being no other option before he takes action and commits. He is a weak leader. 

With no clue of personal responsibility towards his own children, he just threw workers with children under the bus last night. This is the man who complains his salary is not big enough to employ a nanny for a baby not yet a year old. He has no clue what it is like arrange childcare at the last minute. 

littlemoney

The leader of Basildon council in Essex, was asking to close schools 2 weeks early for Christmas as 40% of the covid cases were in secondary school age children. The warning signs were there then. It took a month for the government to admit that school spread the virus. Perhaps if they had listened to the warnings a month ago we might not be in the current situation.

greenbee

littlemoney said:

The leader of Basildon council in Essex, was asking to close schools 2 weeks early for Christmas as 40% of the covid cases were in secondary school age children. The warning signs were there then. It took a month for the government to admit that school spread the virus. Perhaps if they had listened to the warnings a month ago we might not be in the current situation.

I think a lot of medics were saying the same. What the government don’t seem to realise is that it’s their job to make the hard decisions - yes, ‘cancelling Christmas’ was a tough call, but leaving it until the last minute probably made it worse. Closing borders has been hard for those countries that have done it, but it has worked - Australia is managing to close state borders, so the whole thing about NZ being so isolated with a small population doesn't wash. 

I know I keep saying it, but we need to stop thinking about ‘going back’ to normal, and being nostalgic for how things used to be, and start looking at new ways to do things. If we change the way we work, and address the issues with mass transit, we might be able give families and friends more freedom to get together. Maybe our free time will need to be more about outside and activity rather than sitting inside eating/drinking. Maybe school class sizes will need to be addressed (and ventilation, and uniform policy), and blended learning will have to be the norm (so providing access to data networks and equipment also needs thought). Maybe we’ll have to address the shortage of carers, nurses, doctors, teachers and other essential workers now we know that there has to be capacity in the system to deal with what are no longer exceptional circumstances. Letting people work part time or part frontline/part office-based may have a bigger overhead, but means keeping people in the workplace and up to date for longer - which in turn means in an emergency we have more skilled people who may be able to work additional hours, or can be moved from their office roles (which can be more easily back-filled, and we’ve seen this happening, but with the need for retraining) into frontline roles from time to time.

There are lots of things we can do, but it does mean politicians (and the rest of us, including business leaders) accepting that things are going to have to be different, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

MingVase

Euronorris you don't have to do what Boris Johnson says! You are the parent, you are responsible for your child's health - keep her home! Even when he says send her to school. The man's a nutcase.

Doveling

Look up Yes Minister 4 stage strategy on Youtube.
Tried to do a link but couldn't.
Nothing changes.
Mar - what did you use for your hens please? I'm thinking sand & hay in the actual coop and hard wood chips in the run.

euronorris

MingVase said:

Euronorris you don't have to do what Boris Johnson says! You are the parent, you are responsible for your child's health - keep her home! Even when he says send her to school. The man's a nutcase.

Couldn't afford the fine for non attendance, and at that point, had no idea at which point he would decide to do lockdown. Could have been another week or two, for all we knew.

He is a nutcase. I'm just raging at him still.

MingVase

I'd bet you wouldnt get any fine pet, you can plead the health of your child comes first. This shower need taught a lesson, nevermind the school kids!

Meanwhile, for those who have had enough...

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/gallery/outlander-style-cottage-goes-up-19562214

MingVase

Doveling said:

Look up Yes Minister 4 stage strategy on Youtube.
Tried to do a link but couldn't.
Nothing changes.
Mar - what did you use for your hens please? I'm thinking sand & hay in the actual coop and hard wood chips in the run.

Mainly wood shavings in the coop, Doveling but quite deep. And the run in the end I left bare, and dug it over every day. --- got HUGE worms and the hens loved them  I did try sand one very wet autumn but it just went claggy quite fast.