Covid-related advice and guidance tells us it’s a good idea to ventilate your house after you have had visitors, who may, after all, have inadvertently brought some coronavirus germs in with them. We do our best to follow this advice, running round opening windows after the visitors, who have almost always been family members since this pandemic started, depart. It’s harder to do when the weather is cold and damp and gloomy and on Sunday after our daughter and offspring left we forgot about until it was really too late in the evening.
At some point yesterday we remembered but still put off the task of running round opening windows. And then, as I was getting our evening meal ready, I decided to revive a couple of rather sad and soggy bread rolls from the previous day by popping them in the microwave. Whether I set the microwave with my eyes shut or something similar I really cannot say. What is certain is that the setting was clearly far too high and suddenly the kitchen was full of smoke. (Note to self: time to buy new smoke alarms as the ones currently in place did not react at all!)
I fought my way through a veritable fog to reach the backdoor and fumble around for the lock to open it as wide as possible. I retrieved and threw away two charred bread rolls from the microwave. We opened windows throughout the house as the smell of smoke permeated everywhere. We repeated the performance this morning as the kitchen mostly but also the living room faintly still smelt rather like to aftermath of a house on fire.
This has been rather a drastic way to go about it but we can now be certain that we have a well ventilated house.
Our smaller grandchildren go back to school and nursery this week. The two little girls in primary school seem very happy at the prospect of being with their friends again. This is especially so for our son’s little girl who has been unable to have small friends visiting for the last week as Daddy tested positive for Covid. Fortunately this mostly took the form of a heavy cold accompanied by a bad headache - more annoying than anything else according to our suffering son! The rest of the family tested negative but the advice and guidance does say all the family should isolate!
Throughout the country it seems that schools are having problems re-opening though. The head of one large secondary said he has tested positive and can’t be there for the start of term and that 26 of his staff are in the same position. He doesn’t see how the school can operate!
Secondary school pupils are going to have to wear masks during lessons. That’s going to make for uncomfortable classrooms. One young man interviewed for a news programme seemed to find mask wearing acceptable but declared that what he dislikes most is having to stay in one room all day and have subject teachers come to that room, rather than pupils moving from subject area to subject area. He missed the social interaction of moving around school. Everything happens on the corridors apparently!
I had not thought about that aspect of creating safe class bubbles. In my experience subject teachers become territorial. Your classroom is YOUR territory, decorated with YOUR subject-related displays and visual aids. Making such displays is part of your job. Who is responsible for displays in a multi-subject classroom? And then there’s equipment and teaching materials. Teachers must need trolleys to carry their stuff rom room to room. I don’t think I’ll be volunteering to come out of retirement to go and help out any day soon.
Is our government truly aware of how much more difficult life has become for teachers? And everyone else, of course.
So, to cheer us up, here are a couple more of Michael Rosen’s “asides”:
“Dear Sajid,
What are we doing? Be buggered if I know. I think it's time we did a press co and put up a graph. The GBP love a graph. I could point to it and say, 'We're led by the science.' That's always fun.
Principia mathematica panicattaccica
Boris”
“Dear Mogg,
I note that the old and new year round-ups are singularly lacking in paeans to me. Could you pen a tribute and lean on media wimps to put it out? ‘Utterly trustworthy...tremendously hard-working...great decision-maker...’ that sort of stuff.
Inebrio necessitate
Boris”
And still Michael Rosen but in a different mode:
“Worrying pattern emerging on social media: people posting pictures of famous people hanging out with Epstein. If this goes on, people will stop respecting our betters.”
And finally, here’s a little something which, as the wife of a chess player, I just felt I had to include.
My chessplayer says it’s fake news, by the way; young Samuel did not lose every game!
Here’s a link to more info.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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