Oddly, it takes the same amount of time to drive as walk to ShortStuffs school. So we have taken to just walking it regardless of weather. Doesn’t bother us to be fair as there is always a cluster of nuggets who think they own the road. Although, credit to the school, they have staggered start and end times along with different zones for each primary when they enter or exit the school along with a one way system for parents dropping them off and picking them up.

Re masks, she will point out anyone in shops or out and about without a mask or wearing it incorrectly and mention that the police should come and get them for being bad.

I’m up in Scotland at the moment. Some observations.

1) When we were is a touristy part of the world (Balloch), to our surprise there were a load of people in toilets without masks, and using the cubicles marked as not in use to maintain distancing. Annoyingly they were for the most part English tourists 🙁.

No masks worn outside.

2)Further afield in the Trossachs, Fort William, Glen Coe etc people were wearing masks outside in the main. Not something we’ve seen back home.

Most shops asked you to use sanitiser on the way in, people happy to do it.

All positive stuff.

In short, people seem to be a lot more sensible / pragmatic north of the border.

The whole family had been shielding since early March as my daughter is high risk (bad asthma) so this has been a good trip to give us more confidence.

Less so at work. They’ve reopened with booking required and only ⅓ previous capacity (not that big a deal - half staff laid odd in April). Went back into work for a day last Wednesday. Great to see the team, I’ve taken on a new team during lockdown so first time we’ve met face to face as a team. Had a workshop, got done in two hours what would have taken a week online - let’s be honest, there’s only so much you can do on Teams / Slack etc.

Then I got a text on Tuesday night from work saying urgent Covid alert please call HR. Luckily not someone from our company but the building receptionist on duty that day has tested positive. Not good for confidence.

Got to be honest, not looking forward to kids going back next week. Shielding is paused despite Greater Manchester having heightened restrictions in place and we will be fined if we keep our high risk kid at home - because my 4 year old’s education is more important than her health? I call bollocks.

    Kafkaesque That sucks man. I struggle with Lily going into school now, as she has asthma like me. I’m just thankful that she’s got enough wits about her to have wanted to wear a mask even before the gov made it mandatory ( and what were they thinking in the first place?).

    I’d hate to be south of the border right now. My mum lives in Norfolk these days and she’s constantly telling me nightmare stories. She’s 70 this week 🙁

    Stay up here mate. Come visit when it’s all done 🙂

      I do think it’s a matter of when, not if, things go to shit again. I don’t know if it’s my paranoia but I feel like we’re in a storm and right now we’re in the eye of it waiting for shit to hit the fan again.

      2 months later

      So I spotted this yesterday and thought it might be of interest.

      https://www.wired.co.uk/article/best-face-masks

      Wired updated it at the beginning of this month. I like my Umask 2 but I might try the Under Armour one as it looks like you can mold the upper edge to your face which might be the holy grail for glasses wearers.

      The clear ones at the end would be good if it wasn’t becoming apparent now that they’re just Indiegogo scams. 🙄

      Hulk mask ftw! Also this is pretty awesome on a number of levels …

      Well that’s horrifying

      I’ve got a couple of the vistaprint ones and they’re pretty decent. plus the removable filters work well. I’ve yet to find a mask that doesn’t fog my specs somewhat though, even the ones with a ‘nose wire’ - I have come to the conclusion I have an odd shaped nose 😃. I have bought some that looked really good on the page, but were either way too small or made of too rigid fabric, felt like I was wearing a sheet of cardboard. I’d generally avoid masks from any ‘high fashion’ brand you’ve heard of - they uniformly seem to be pretty mediocre and over priced to boot. I did see some Laura Ashley ones that were fifty quid a pop. There really is one born every minute…

      My current day to day style is from Wawwa, they’re decent quality fabric and they fit my face quite well. I’ve been using a couple since March and they’re still good after being washed like maybe once a week. Still do fog my specs a bit mind.

      Also, disposable masks - stop that right now.

      I’ve just ordered an Under Armour one. Mostly excited by the fact they have three sizes. My head is in the Dara O’Briain order of magnitude; which makes the fit of most masks challenging 😄

      Gordon

      Oh here, that’s a great shout. My daughter would go mad for a MacPherson tartan mask. I’ll be ordering one of those!

        MacPherson Hunting ordered for the kid. 🙂

        Hilariously (to me) the kid hates the Clod yellow and purple colour scheme and it turns out one of the MacPherson tartans has yellow and purple threaded through the black and white. So there’s a Clod of War tartan. 😂

        I may order myself one just for that \o/

          Brave Nice 🙂 I should really order a Robertson hunting mask, I just went with whatever they had in stock that wasn’t too garish at the time.

            Oh give.me garish every time. Especially if it winds my kid up.

            She’s a teen-ager so anything that clashes with the desire to look cool is great in my book. 😉

            I think the choose any tartan thing is new so it may not have been there when you first looked.

              Brave Heh 🙂 Mine aren’t old enough to be embarrassed by or ashamed of me yet, when that day comes I’ll go straight for the most garish option every time.

                11 days later

                To paraphrase a once popular beat combo “I got a letter from the government the other day, I opened and read it, it said they were suckers.”

                A letter from the Department of Health today effectively saying ’you should do the same things you were doing when you were shielding back in Spring". So it’s not a lockdown as such but…

                Gammerz You an’t trust them, but you probably can trust the scientists involved.