Things are getting back 'to normal'. Unless you live in Ukraine where they're not.

The pandemic is apparently over. The vaccinations did the trick, along with a seemingly less deadly variant. Now the folk who took against the Covid vaccination are saying there's an increase in healthy people dying, usually at the football. Not the rugby, or tennis, just the football. 'It never happened before' they say. It clearly did, the husband has had to do CPR at least twice at matches pre pandemic, and there's #12aweek too. It may be on the up or it may be that it wasn't on people's radar before but as the parent of a child with CHD it's always on your radar. 

The thing that's irritated me throughout the whole debacle is people posting data with no context and lauding it as fact when most often it doesn't mean what they think it means but it fits the agenda. Post your opinion by all means but stop sending prayers for the bloke who collapsed at the Accrington Stanley game (who are they?) when he's just fell asleep because he's had too many pints and the match is boring as hell. He didn't have a Covid vax related cardiac arrest, as much as you'd like him to.

Which brings me to Ukraine. Putin, God love him (someone has to), thinks the whole world will believe his 'military operations' line if he repeats it often enough. We won't. You're a war monger-er Vlad and a war criminal too. The whole world knows it.

Three weeks

Three weeks, that's what they said. To flatten the curve. It's been a year. I'm not going to bang on about it, I'm fed up of the whole thing to be fair, along with most of the population. There's a feeling of disgruntlement I think, not just Covid related but generally. We've Brexited amongst the chaos, women are sick of being the subject of male violence, it's illegal to travel abroad, the nurses aren't getting a decent payrise and the Tories want to limit our right to protest. Not daft are they? I see a summer of discontent.

Here's some photos to cheer you up. I've walked rather a lot this year - not done a huge amount to counteract lockdown weight gain but hey ho.

 

It's been almost a year

Back in February 2020 I was on countdown to our trip to Australia. February 2021 I'm on countdown to a trip to Portsmouth. It's not even a proper trip; it's us vacating our house, exchanging keys with The Prince somewhere along the M40 so they can live here for a few days and daughter in law can see her parents in the middle of a field somewhere in Cheshire. August. That's when she last saw them. We won't actually be 'allowed' to be under the same roof until sometime in May. May be able to head off to meet No1 son outdoors soon which will be nice. The small things.

But we're all still alive, no-ones knowingly had Covid. Now there's a blessing which others can't count sadly. 120,000 plus families have lost a loved one. And there'll be more.

Though things are more hopeful. Vaccination is going on apace, schools are reopening to all students in the next couple of weeks. There's an inkling of Spring on the horizon. 

Littlest is doing OK - they're free of restrictions at the moment and their cases and death stats are tiny compared to ours. She's on the vaccine list. Maybe we'll get to Australia after all. In 2022.

I can't think of a title for this post that doesn't include a shedload of expletives so I'm not bothering.

So things got better - then got worse again. This year has been a rollercoaster, but one that's mainly in freefall with little in the way of climbs.

Christmas plans just got decimated. We were having the Prince and his wife and dog stay over Christmas and the first born was coming Boxing Day. That can't now happen due to Boris Johnson's last minute decisions and his total bloody ineptitude. Absolutely gutted for us and for the wider family. We've stuck to the rules, bent with the wind, adapted and now this. It's so disappointing.

We did get to see the family in the summer, we had a week in the Cotswolds around the Prince's birthday. My daughter in law managed to see her parents too but sadly at her nan's funeral so a memorable meeting but for the wrong reasons. My original plans were to go see my sister in Spain for Christmas but of course that fell by the wayside too.

There's a new variant apparently. I'll withhold judgment here but if this turns out to be a smokescreen for the looming no deal Brexit I'll be unsurprised. And I fully expect him to resign in January and go live in France just as a final two-fingered salute to the rest of the country. 

A brief History of time, 2012 to the present day.

I doubt it will be brief. It may well take a few posts to catch up.

Scratch that. I started but there's too much. Suffice to say all three offspring achieved fantastically well in their studies - a First, two Masters and a best in subject award. All of them settled, working, two married, one local, one down South and one on the other side of the world. Guess which one? They've not all had easy journeys to get here but such is life. There has been travel to far flung places, study abroad, each have had multiple house moves, new jobs, dogs, and recently lost dogs. We've also had semi retirement, unemployment, self employment.

We've had losses too, my mother in law and my dad. I miss my dad.

2018 deserves a special mention. It started badly, my dad died suddenly on the morning of the 3rd January. He was the King of Dads; a quiet, unassuming man, he would have been shocked at how many people loved and admired him. The messages to my mum were full of lovely words. He taught me a certain independence, gave me knowledge and life skills, love. He is irreplaceable in my life.

One of my dad's life lessons was the value of a 'sod it' fund. A small pot of cash that mean't you were free to act if things weren't going to plan. Thanks dad.

When he died I was working in a lovely school for a head that was, lets say, difficult. She was, is, a bully and a narcissist. Up to that point I wasn't on her radar and was fairly adept at grey-rocking any attention; don't feed it, don't engage. I loved my work so it was a compromise. But it changed after my dad. I couldn't ignore the bullying of a hardworking colleague, the lies, the gas-lighting. My emotional strength was on the wane, I was angry with everything, so I raised my head above the parapet and got shot at. I'm not going into detail. It wasn't pretty and to be honest unless you've worked for a person like that, secondhand explanations of the abuse, because that's what it is, just don't do it justice.

So I took my sod it fund, put it to good use and walked away, along with other colleagues, two of which remain firmly in my life and are the best, strongest women I'll probably ever meet.

For every negative, there is a positive.

Another strand to 2018 was a worry about the youngest. A routine echo combined with some dodgy blood results brought back some long buried concerns. Months passed before we got to the bottom of it and my initial fears were unsubstantiated but it was another reminder of the fragility of her health and added a further stress to my emotional and mental health.

I was glad to see the back of that year.

2019 brought the two aforementioned weddings, Eldest and The Prince  (seems I missed a trick here - this post should be entitled A Funeral and Two Weddings) Both were fabulous days, so memorable, so different to each other. Youngest, not to be outdone, had her own way of marking 2019 - by moving to the other side of the world! She's currently residing in Melbourne with her boyfriend who has a sponsored post until 2021. Covid-19 put a halt on our plans to visit and is continuing to keep us apart. I miss her so much; I'm reminded of one of my first ever blog posts about her when she was in hospital and the physical ache when you can't hold your sick child. It feels akin to that at the moment.

Bastard pandemic.

The 4th of July

This weekend marked the 4th of July. American Independence under normal circumstances - normal? will there ever be a 'normal'? There's been an attempt at it - this 4th of July was designated #SuperSaturday by our esteemed Prime Minister. The day the pubs reopened. Typical Brit mentality; you can't get a face-to-face appointment with a hospital consultant to discuss your chronic or even acute health condition but you can go sup a pint at your local. Priorities people!

Whether you think opening the pubs was a good idea or the equivalent of throwing typhoid Mary into the crowd at a Take That concert I can't help but baulk at the method. Why open on a Saturday, why not a wet Tuesday afternoon? Big on announcements, shy with the detail is the order of the day again. Schools will open in September, risk assessment to follow. And today, blaming care homes for the many, many deaths because they didn't follow the correct procedure; the one that was hastily written on the back of a beer mat by the health secretary two weeks after dispatching Covid positive patients home from hospital. Oh, those 'correct procedures'.

You don't have to look far to find other countries doing better; locked down sooner, harder, good supported the less well off, for business, for the arts, lifted restrictions more thoughtfully. 15 weeks and still we're lurching from impending doom to full on Armageddon.

Feeling very pissed off today.

I miss my kids, I miss my dad, just popping to the shop for a bloody cucumber is more anxiety inducing and requires more organisation than getting three under fives out of the door in a morning, and I'm sick of services using Covid as a reason to keep hold of cash that they have no right to.

Feel like staying in bed til it's all over.

13 weeks and counting

How naive we were to think it would be over. Every week seems to bring new revelations about the Government's response to Covid 19. I'm trying to think of a single word to describe it. I don't think there is one. It's been disastrous but that's not the word, someone will need to invent one.

There's been other stuff too, we're still attempting to Brexit (that's one of the things I'll come back to eventually) and more importantly  #BlackLivesMatter, which has, or should have, brought to the fore the systemic racism that exists in our so-called civilised society. The shocking murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis has made us look at ourselves and recognise that black and minority ethnic people continue to battle against racism every single moment of each day and remain largely unprotected by law enforcement in the US and indeed in many countries around the world, our own included. The backlash against protests that #BlackLivesMatter by white people who feel somehow demeaned by the suggestion that the majority of us are racist whether purposely, by ignorance or just by not speaking up, not standing up, has been depressing to see.

I will do better.

What Fresh Hell is This?

So it's been a while. Almost 8 years to be precise. Lots has happened but not much more important than the current global situation which has brought me back here to offload my thoughts. They're multitude and muddled.

It's the 75th Anniversary of VE day too, which shouldn't pass without comment. It's an odd state of affairs; a celebration of our freedom from war and the recognition of the heroes of the time juxtaposition-ed against the current fight, captivity and a celebration of a different kind of hero. #NHSHeroes. Not sure we were using hashtags when I was last here in 2012. A new language has evolved and with more recently added vocabulary; elbow-bump (that came and went within the space of about 2 weeks) replaced by social -distancing, track and trace, lockdown and acronyms now in everyday use; PPE, wfh. WtAF? (not new, seemed appropriate).

Life has settled into a routine of daily exercise (100 miles walked in March & April), food shopping, eating and otherwise trying to fill the hours. New pressures and anxieties; the weekly trip to the supermarket, being judged on whether your lockdown is productive enough or if your trip out of the house is deemed essential, or if you're risking your loved one's life handing over a pint of milk. And loo roll, flour, pasta are restricted purchases. Should we clap for the NHS or, preferably just not vote Tory next time?

Holidays have been cancelled - I'll get to that later, Mother's Day was a wave and a chat from the driveway, running with friends is a distant memory as is a drink at the pub or browsing the shops or going to the library.

Schools have been effectively closed for 7 weeks up to today, so I've been wfh mainly and only going in a couple of mornings a fortnight, to provide for the children of keyworkers. It's a risky business. The children haven't yet learned the meaning of the new vocab and can't reliably judge two metres. Attempting to social distance is like herding cats.

We've had it easy in our household, I've no doubt. We have a garden, I can still check on mum, I'm not trying to home-school three small children, I'm not shielding a medically vulnerable person, she's on the other side of the world. It's wearing though. It's boring and most of us have had enough. But it's the new normal and we have to put up with it. Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives. and we're luckier than many countries from a lockdown point of view, it's less strict here, but we may pay the price for our freedom later. We're already paying to be fair with a death rate second only to the US globally and the elderly apparently deemed collateral damage to an ineffective government. At the outset, when Wuhan was in lockdown almost overnight and residents were arrested for being on the street it was happening in a distant city with an oppressive government and most of us thought; 'that won't happen here'.

How easily we gave up our freedoms.

Summer

Sorry. I've been neglectful of the blog. There is no excuse. I'm back now, having been inspired by The Coffee Lady to think about my summer.

It was a new type of summer, one which didn't have water fights, or trips to theme parks or calls of 'I'm bored mum'. It had A-level and driving test angst, (she passed and failed in that order) it had solo runs along the canal, afternoons in the garden with wine and The Child Free Holiday. I can hear your enthusiasm now. But don't be rushing on ahead of time. It was nice, I'm not complaining, but it will take some getting used to. I sort of missed the madness of it all  and realised that we've moved on to the next stage. A couple more years and I'll have to get a dog or something.

Easter week turned out nice again so it was time to dust off the walking boots and head for the hills.

The weather was so nice infact that shorts were donned as opposed to walking trousers and we remembered to take the sunblock. No burned faces this time around!

We headed for Castleton and Mam Tor. Castleton is often packed on a sunny day but as it was midweek and we got there early it wasn't so bad. After a quick detour for the loo we headed off up the hill (the female anatomy is so inconveniently designed when it comes to outdoor pursuits).

We did Mam Tor and along the ridge, down into Hope then back across the fields to Castleton where the obligatory Magner's was downed. About 8 miles by my reckoning. And no blisters!

Yes -those are my legs!



Mam Tor from the road.



Is it a bird?



The ridge path



The path from Edale

Cold Hot Cross Buns - good walking food.

The KeepCalm Family hit New York!

As a means of combining a holiday and a meet up with the Prince* we decided to grace NewYork with our presence. Long flight, £££ lighter and lbs heavier we're back! A fantastic time was had by all. The photos speak for themselves.


*See previous post.

The Prince and the PPP*

Number 2 son, affectionately known by his siblings as The Prince** is still languishing in his university digs in Canada. This is due to a sudden (but well forecast) snowfall and PPP. The planning or lack of is the reponsibility of BAA and Heathrow who frankly couldn't organise a bunfight in a cakeshop. Cue many frantic phonecalls and websearching, a rebooked flight, a further cancellation, another rebooked flight and [breathe] a long lonely (for no2 son) wait until Tuesday. Cross your fingers for him.

It's all the more frustrating when the airport he's flying from remains open despite far more snow and temperatures remaining below -5 all day everyday.

* - piss poor planning
** - this is possibly because I have a tendency to overcompensate in an attempt to avert middle child syndrome. They say I spoil him. That can't be true, can it?

We went to the Gower Penninsula at half term; it was both gorgeous and grim in more ways than one.

The weather when we arrived was lovely, sunny and warm for October. However the next day when we had no choice but to walk in excess of 16 miles, there was wind and horizontal rain. More grimness followed as wet boots mean't I ended up with blisters the size of Wales itself, the showers at the YH were tepid, the drying room didn't live up to its name and there was no hot water in the kitchen.

The following morning with two packs of Compeed covering my blisters and dosed up on Ibuprofen we continued with the walk. This should have been all the way to Landland Bay but by the middle of the afternoon it was apparent that my feet would take no more and we had to bus the last couple of miles. The upside of the day was the fab weather and the most excellent B&B (Glenview at Mumbles - go tis great). The last straw though was me waking up in the middle of the night with a vomiting bug (probably due to the lack of hot water and hence less than hygenic conditions at the YH).


So I didn't get to eat my breakfast.

Whiteford Point

View back from Rhossili

Onwards

We are going the right way then?


Sunny morning over Oxwich Bay


From the headland back towards Oxwich


Three Cliffs