Friday, January 22, 2021

Snow and virus - double joy...

Nothing different is happening. There's home-schooling, which is rather fun, really. Some of it happens with pencil and paper,

and some of it on the computer. Everyone's doing their best: the school teachers are sending stuff and the home teachers and the children are doing at least some of it. The little ones are being amazingly cooperative, really, considering that they get no outings apart from a walk after school and see no one but their parents and us (mainly me), and it's been so cold recently that even our walks aren't lasting very long.  

In what seems like an unreasonable extra trial, the snow's back. This is quite stressful where we live, since it's a dead-end street, which never gets gritted, at the bottom of a hill. The only way out of our street - the street at right angles to ours, which is also on a hill - never gets gritted either. We don't normally get much snow so we tend to think - oh, it'll melt. And then if it doesn't, various people's cars have by that time squashed the snow into ice, which makes it much harder to shovel away and also much more slippery to drive on. At the moment it's passable, which is good, since on most weekdays I drive to get to Daughter 1's house to help with the children. I could get two buses there and two back, which would probably be perfectly safe, since buses have hardly any passengers at the moment, but it would take an hour each way and really one would prefer to keep off public transport at the moment. 

Still, Son-in-Law 1 brought the children round today and they enjoyed playing outside, so that was lovely. 

But we haven't seen Daughter 2 or Son, or their little ones, since September and October. And all our lives are ticking away.

The vaccine is slowly being administered, though - my brother and sister-in-law in the south of England have both had the first dose, for example. Here, however, it's much slower (why??) and lots of over-80s are still unvaccinated. As for us... I think it'll be a while. 


7 comments:

  1. Snow and cold can be fun, but NOT to drive in or when we have to be outside to get together. Hoping that we can all get vaccinated soon! I would like to get a bit of normality back.

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  2. It's rare for us not to have snow and ice to deal with all winter. I have icetrax for my boots, so I do walk outside, wearing layers. It's nice you are able to see some of your grandchildren. It was a year at Christmas since I've seen the two I have, with the third due in April. I've had lots of tears, but I want everyone to stay healthy. I have one daughter here at least. I know we all miss the ones we can't see. It's very slow with the vaccine here too.

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  3. I think the emphasis in Scotland has been on vaccinating care homes regardless of age whereas in England it has been on vaccinating by age regardless of where you live. You pays your money.....

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  4. Hi Pam, it's your old student (emphasis on 'old'!) Clarissa here. I haven't been able to keep up with your blog for over a year because of computer problems but I hope to be catching up over the next couple of weeks. I thought of you today because I've just started doing a little bit of writing again, poems this time, and I wanted to share my latest with you. When it's finished I'll attempt to post it on my old blog page (if I can find it!) All the very best to you and yours! ��

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    1. Oh, wow, Clarissa, you're a voice from the past! It must be... 20 years, nearly??? How are you doing? Not sure if I still have a note of your old blog name. I hope things are good for you. x

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  5. Ugh! All sorts of problems, my blog has disappeared and blogger isn't playing ball! Time for plan B, as soon as I think of it.

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  6. Our children are in school here, but they wear masks all day, every day. And they go outdoors for fresh air 3x during the school day... in any weather until it is 0F ( that's -17C). Takes the edge off of them and helps them concentrate better. Try letting your grands outdoors to play in the snow for 15 min. and come back to "school". It might take them a few minutes to settle in, but their brains will be refreshed! (and you can have a cuppa ;-)

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