* Driving Home for Christmas * - It's the 2021 Christmas Chatter Thread!

3forholidays

Welcome to the thread DaffyDaisies. Hopefully the slipper boots will come back into stock and you will be able to grab a pair. Best wishes for completing your thesis.

princesskitty29

Hi all, things have been calmer here since I’ve stopped stressing about the schoolwork. Although Wiggle has had toilet issues for over 2 years (I won’t go into detail!) which now means he’s on a plan where he has to sit on the toilet for 15 mins every hour and a quarter which ends up taking up quite a lot of the day! He can be on there for 2-3 hours. This is our priority at the moment as we’d like to get him better before he gets much older. His teacher is supportive and knows we can’t do it all. I’m now going to focus on the core things like reading and writing and some maths. They’ve been doing a lot of work about castles which just isn’t a priority now, we can talk to him all about castles!

 

No snow here either, just rain. We’d dearly love some as the boys would love it and it would be some great entertainment for them! It did say it was going to snow today so we shall see. I do hope everyone is ok and not affected by the storms recently. We saw some places flooded when we went out recently, they had fire engines out and everything and it must be so awful to deal with on top of everything else going on.

 

Peppa yes I do hear ‘turn it up Dave, I love Chis Rea’ every time!! I also say it EVERY time the song comes on, I must drive my family mad!

 

Spendless thank you, it sounds like your DD is doing well despite everything, good for her. There is a certain amount everyone needs to learn but I wish there was more practical learning in school aswell, so many children suffer because they struggle with the academic side of it and I don’t understand why it’s not addressed. Wiggle is very good practically but struggles academically. Still, he’s only 6 so it could all change.

 

Treasurequeen thank you. I love fairy lights! I have kept mine up in my kitchen too. The Zoom book club sounds like a great idea.

 

mandco I hope you’re doing a little better today? Oh your Butlins break sounds fab! We love going to Butlins, what a bargain! I might have to have a look. A lot of our friends wouldn’t dream of going to Butlins but we find it brilliant for the children, I love the fact that there is something to entertain them all day long and that we don’t have to really think about it.

 

Hello and welcome DaffyDaisies! It’s good to have you here! I agree, the sales haven’t been very good this year. Good luck with your thesis, what are you doing your PhD about? Amazing!

DaffyDaisies

Aww thanks for the welcome! @princesskitty29, thank you! I'm in the history of literature - I look at women's popular writing between the 1790s and the 1860s, and why certain genres of novels were immensely popular with readers but completely trashed by critics, and why they're not part of the literary canon we know today. Kinda how like when you go into W@terstones and there's the A-Z of fiction, but then they have separate sections for sci-fi, romance, crime etc. Why isn't it all in an A-Z?

Redredrobin

Can anyone recommend an online florist as I assume the physical shops aren’t open , my mums in hospital with pneumonia, she’s been unwell since before Christmas but has never managed to see a Dr just had antibiotics prescribed by a nurse ! Well she took a turn for the worse this morning and was taken by ambulance to hospital. 

  One of our local charity shops are doing collections while they are shut so perfect opportunity to have a massive clear out ! So far I’ve eight bin bags and two hoovers . 

   I didn’t bother with the sales as they were rubbish , I have however started buying for Dds  advent . So far I have 5/24 I am determined not to spend as much on it this year because I leave it too late and panic buy . 

  Hubby is over his COVID but has lost a lot of weight , he had his first vaccine injection on Friday and although not unwell with it his arm is hurting. A lot of his colleagues have been really unwell with flu like symptoms. 

 Welcome to the newbies . 

kerri_gt

Sorry to hear about your mum RR. i think our local florists are open for telephone orders and click and collect so might be worth giving yours a call? Failing that, I've used this company before, check out the cashback sites as i think they're on there too. https://www.appleyardflowers.com/?channel=ppc&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIy7mDi5217gIVAtPtCh3jggCbEAAYASAAEgLo_vD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

vulpix

Sorry to hear about your Mum RR. Check if you can send flowers to a hospital, not sure you can these days. I sent some last week for a Birthday. Very reasonable and they were apparently lovely.https://www.lovelyfloraworld.com/basket/

princesskitty29

DaffyDaisies wow that sounds really interesting, I love literature. I think if I had gone to uni when I left school I would definitely have studied English literature. Good question about the A-Z, I’ve never thought about that before! I hope it’s all going well for you.

 

Redrobin so sorry to hear about your mum, I do hope she’s responding well to being in hospital? That’s the problem at the moment with not being able to see doctors, things unfortunately are going to get missed. I’m glad your DH is doing better now.

nic2075

Hope your mum is on the mend Redrobin x

very quiet here. I’ve been cooking more and baking. I’d love to find some motivation to lose weight, but it’s hard when we don’t have a lot to do. I’ve been getting out for walks when I can. But then coming home and eating a scone and having a cup of tea 😆

We’ve had snow on and off. So the kids have managed to get out sledging when they are finished their school work. It’s helped keep them occupied. We usually only get a little snow this time of year. So it’s been a novelty to have it lying for so long. 

I’m sitting here in pain trying to break in my new Doc Martens 😂 I bought them in the sales. My other pair are well broken in, but these black patent ones seem much stiffer. I can’t feel my right foot! 

Spendless

Sorry to hear about your Mum Redredrobin. Ill parents are as much of a worry as ill children.

My own aren't good. Mum had a mole removed from her shin last week because it had changed appearance and had been hurting too, which is a concern. She is meant to be on a 2 week bedrest now. She'd no sooner had it done then my Dad's arthritis he only started with last summer started playing up. This meant the pair of them could barely walk. I rang on Monday and discovered this. Asked how they'd managed to eat and they'd hobbled to the kitchen and ordered a pizza. I live 3 streets away from them, less than 10 mins walk away and our household has 2 cars, 2 adults and a teen who could all help out - had they thought to ring, nope! Since then I have been making their  evening meals and dropping it off at theirs.

We also got the news that my 96yo Nan has tested positive for covid in her Nursing home. Several of the residents became unwell a few days after their vaccine, were tested and found they had covid. So don't know quite what has happened, if they came into contact with it around the time of the jabs and this has made it less severe or what. None are bad with it fortunately and they've all been put together. Staff are all negative. This is the first outbreak the home has had. They locked down early on, before the nation went into lockdown1 and the owner had sourced his staff plenty of PPE in advance. At Christmas they didn't allow any residents out and their methods had worked up till now.

We've started to tentatively think about DD's 18th at the end of March and what if anything we can do for it. Though my husband and my sister think I'm being pessimistic, I don't see us being out of the current situation. I've given up on hope we will be. Since it falls in the Easter hols though, what might be a possibility is that DS and housemates can return if students come under the same sort of criteria that they did at Christmas. That at least would give us something 'different' again and give DD some bithday 'guests' even if her brother and his mates wouldn't be her first choice to celebrate her becoming an adult - hahaha    

StokieBecks

Spendless funny you say about the nursing home residents testing positive after their jab as the one where my mum works had similar situation. Positive results after the jabs. I'm wondering if the residents had the Oxford vaccine (which contains a weakened version of the common cold virus [but isn't supposed to make you ill] ) and that is causing positive results?  My mum had her first dose of the pfizer jab and has continued to test negative every day (they are testing staff every day at the moment there)  - I'm just really hoping for everyone that the roll out continues to get done effectively and that the increased wait between doses doesn't come back to bite them

As for your daughter's 18th it's tricky to plan anything - if we do end up in lockdown still then maybe consider finding a local company who delivers afternoon teas? Also know some of the eateries locally have started doing cocktail deliveries. Maybe that would be something she would like too even if she has to celebrate  at home