girlofprey

So, England's in the midst of a vicious wave of the pandemic, we have potential flooding, and Joe Biden is being inaugurated today. Should be a very interesting day in the news.

Also, less than a month after finally leaving the oversight of the EU, the government are 'looking at' the employment laws we followed as part of them, including the ones that protected workers' rights. A 'select group' of business leaders have been invited to the consultation. I wonder if they've also invited any minimum wage workers? Or say, working mothers? Probably not.

Well, I was going to watch scary movies all tonight, but instead I'm waiting for a press conference to start. Thanks Boris.

If we do have a full lockdown, including non-essential retail, for a month, that will mean I might not be able to go pick up my PS5 when it comes out on 19th November. And I won't really be able to buy another, because I already paid it off in full. The least terrible outcome of this is that I'll have to wait until December - or whenever we come out of lockdown - to pick it up. But I actually called my local games shop this week to ask about it, hypothetically, and I happen to know that the worst case scenario is they go out of business entirely, because they have bought a bunch of PS5s they can't pass on to customers. And if that happens because of government mishandling of this pandemic and it's impacts on local businesses, I will be quite angry.

Happy Halloween though, everyone.

We had a bit of a palaver today. Contact has been getting established again for my nephews and the rest of the family, as I said my parents went through to Cumbria last weekend to see my youngest nephew. They were supposed to see my middle nephew in Lancashire sometime this week - and then got a call on Sunday, I think, asking if they were coming down tomorrow. Which was a surprise to them. In the end they arranged to see him this weekend - then the new restrictions came in. Mum got a call from my MN's home yesterday to say they'd have to cancel the visit. She asked who had said that, whether it was them or Social Services, and they said they had to follow the national guidelines. She pointed out that the national guidelines didn't actually say family couldn't meet up outside, and the guy at the home said he would ask the kids' social worker for a final decision.

They called this morning, before I got up, to say the social worker had okayed it and we could go see him on Saturday. Then - possibly because I was worrying a bit about travelling, using public toilets and going to cafes - mum actually looked up the current guidelines, and realised that the place my MN is in is currently under one of the North-East lockdowns. And it explicitly said, in a regional newspaper article, that people cannot socialise outside their own households in the area, and that people from outside the area shouldn't visit. Which is pretty clear-cut, and since my mum is in one of the more vulnerable groups, she wasn't comfortable going anyway. So then they had to call the home and cancel the trip, after the home had told my MN they would be coming. Which was a real shame. But it feels like they and the social worker should have been a bit more on-the-ball about their own local restrictions. But anyway, it's done now.

And the social worker was possibly busy, because it turns out the hearing for my sister's custody of the kids has been moved up to tomorrow. She currently has 50% custody, as she voluntarily agreed to give them up into care. The court case will determine whether the kids go back to her, or whether Social Services gets 100% custody, for I don't know how long. We can't really see the kids going back to her, so we're expecting a very particular outcome for the case. The hearing was supposed to be held in August, and then the lockdown meant it was pushed back to October, and then my mum heard it might have been pushed back again to December, and then today we found out it was tomorrow. Straightforward.

Still nothing from my boss, but train journeys have now appeared online for me, at pretty much exactly the same times and schedules as before. I went through an interesting period last night of trying to look at different train journeys, just in case they were somehow just cancelling mine. I found a couple of others, but then realised they were with different train companies than Northern Rail. I told my parents about it though, and mum started doing some research of her own, and found that there was a schedule up for w/c 8th June, just not this week. But that week also had a note saying that new timetables were coming in, and none of the journeys they were showing were guaranteed. Which is also what every journey with trains other than Northern Rail was saying. It was very confusing, is my point. But now things seem to be up and confirmed, and I can still get from my local station to Leeds, if they confirm they want me to come in. But they haven't confirmed they want me to come in so far.

This whole re-opening thing looks pretty shaky, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, my parents (and I) are still pretty devastated about what's happening with my YN, but we got a call a few days ago about my MN, and when mum called back she found out that the centre he's at had asked to terminate his placement there in February - which they haven't mentioned on any of the calls my dad's been making to them since then - but they're now moving him to a place in Barnsley. Which is still not super close to our house, but much much closer than Birmingham. So the lord giveth and the lord taketh away, I guess?

Playstation have announced a showcase of games coming to the Playstation 5 for this Thursday, which is something I've been waiting for for a very long time. The new Sims expansion is out on Thursday night, also, and I'll definitely be able to play it by Friday. And on the 1st of June there'll be new bugs and fish to catch in Animal Crossing, which I'll be able to look for day 1 if I'm not required to go into work, and who knows whether I will be. So I am excite.

I don't begrudge Captain Tom Moore his knighthood, but I do think it would be more meaningful to award the Victoria Cross to every health worker who's died during the crisis.

I went on a walk yesterday in the blistering, painful sunshine, and I saw a fox, and heard an odd birdsong in the trees, which I think might have come from a great tit. I don't think I ever saw great tits (ha ha) before except at bird sanctuaries. And in the last few months I've seen them at least once on walks near my house. And goldfinches in the garden, which I remember I used to think I only saw on trips to Leeds and things like that. Nature is beautiful.

I thought I'd mentioned my dad's colleague who was in hospital, but looking back through my entries I don't think I did. He did have the coronavirus, or at least all the symptoms. And he was in hospital for a while before he died. And now apparently one of the nurses at our district hospital has died. Which is making everything much more immediate and scary.

But you try to get by, don't you? So far lockdown has been very odd for me, because it's pretty similar to how things were when I was depressed and not working. Except without the constant mental anguish. More justified anxiety, though. But I'm still mostly watching Youtube videos and playing video games, and staring at my four walls. Honestly wish I could do something more fulfilling with my time, but it also feels weird to no longer give views to the Youtube channel I rely on pretty heavily for entertainment when we're not in a crisis, who will also be struggling right now. They are also based in Texas, so who knows what their lives will turn into shortly. I know I don't owe them anything, but it still feels weirdly guilt-inducing when they're still there putting out videos everyday, livestreaming for hours. Also you just get into a rut. Honestly, the daily walk makes things slightly more upbeat than when I was more or less housebound from depression. And the weather is genuinely lovely. I must have a fairly specific form of SADS, because just looking at sunshine genuinely makes me feel happier.

Things are crazy in America. I am sorry for everyone on my flist who lives in America.

Mum has talked about quitting her job, or speaking to occupational health about what she can and can't tolerate in the role at the moment, but she hasn't done either, just continues to go into work. To be fair, where she works is not likely to turn into the epicentre, and she seems very definite about refusing to go to our district hospital if they ask her to go work there. So we'll just see how things go. I think we were all feeling very positive about how things are going with the pandemic, but then mum saw a news piece about how things are in Italy at the moment, who are supposed to be two weeks ahead of us, and it doesn't make things look hopeful for two weeks from now. Plus the fact that we've been running out of PPE since the pandemic started, and even critical places like hospitals are on track to run out very shortly. Things may well be going okay in the health service at the moment, but if we run out of PPE, supplies, equipment and - to be fair - staff, then maybe things won't be so okay.

But you try to get through it, like I say.

So here we are.

I just showered, and the plughole was blocked as it often is, and when I looked down the water had gotten to above the footwell. I checked the kitchen ceiling for any water damage if it ran down the sides, I couldn't see any, don't tell my dad, I have to live with him. And I sense that we really really couldn't get a plumber at the moment.

People are letting off fireworks, I am genuinely embarassed.

Well, it's been quite a week. I don't really know how I feel about the election results. Well, devastated obviously, but I don't know what else I would have wanted. I voted Labour in the end - turns out there was no Change UK candidate in my area, only the Brexit party playing silly bastards, so in the end I just voted tactically against for the candidate most likely to beat the Tory. I didn't want Jeremy Corbyn to win, given the anti-semitism thing and the fact winning would have probably just made him double-down on everything he was doing, a lot of which I thought was wrong. He wasn't a very good leader. But I knew if he didn't, it would mean a new Labour leader but also five more years of Tories, and five years of Boris Johnson. But now...I guess I was hoping for a hung parliament, and none of the people I was dismayed by to be completely in charge. And not this huge massacre. By very, very hardline Tories. But here we are. I have three nephews now in the social care system, and a government that is not that interested in supporting the social care system. So that's...yeah. Pretty devastating.

One of the post room guys from work - a fairly nasty so-and-so, deaf, and who scowls or doesn't even acknowledge us when ever we try to ask him something - didn't turn up to work on Friday morning, then showed up at 11am drunk, shouting "the country's saved!". And had to be sent home. Yesterday, I was on the bus, and I overheard a little old lady talking to a man near her, saying something was good, and it would be even better next month when we were out of the EU, then talking about how her daughter had had to move because of abuse she received, but her daughter was a 'traitor', 'she was a traitor', 'she betrayed me'. It's very odd living in Yorkshire.

And I know Corbyn was weird, and that was probably a lot of the reason Labour voters didn't vote for him this time. But I also remember that people didn't vote for Gordon Brown when he was running, or David Milliband. And I remember that Gordon Brown's campaign went quite downhill after he wasn't too polite about the woman asking him "what are you going to do about these Poles?". And it makes me worry a little bit what it will take to get people to vote for Labour again, if anything.

But for now we just have to deal with the Tories. And Boris Johnson. And the fact the UK voted for Boris Johnson like the US voted for Trump. But at least he wasn't up against Hillary Clinton, I guess.

Anyway. Last week was rough for other reasons. We really didn't know what was happening with my YN's birthday until the night before, and I didn't get to see him because the foster mum could only come in between the times I was working for. And some stuff has been happening with my MN, although I'm hoping that's calmed down now. So yeah, I got to Thursday evening, was suddenly paralysed by fear that I'd somehow voted wrong for a while, and then realised on Friday I was completely wiped out. Had basically used my energy to get that point. And I'm still tired now. Also I checked my bank balance on Friday and found I had less money than I thought I did, which makes some of the Christmas stuff I wanted to do slightly less possible. Or I'll have to be more careful about it, at least, and careful isn't really what I want to be doing right now. But, I do have some time off. I've booked Tuesday to Friday off at work this week, so I only have to go in tomorrow, and then I have the Friday after Boxing Day off. So it's only one day of work this week, then only two next week. And I've done all my Christmas shopping, pretty much. And I get paid the Friday after Boxing Day, so if there's anything I want to do or get I can do some of it more easily after then. So yeah. I think I will be resting a lot. But I will be able to relax, at least a little. So I'm very much looking forward to that.