The Mock Turtle

smalex wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2020 8:55 am I said yesterday but my sister is going to chop nursery unless they offer to radically reduce fees while the kids can't attend. It's £1500 a month. It's a HUGE amount of money. She feels sad about it, and shes hoping they offer some retainer arrangement or something instead, but you just can't wave goodbye to that sort of cash, esp in uncertain times.

My sister (in London) is in the same boat, smal. Her youngest's nursery are insisting on full fees for the foreseeable, even though they've closed. I understand both sides, but honestly, I don't think it's legally enforceable, is it?

Surely it can't be!

smalex wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2020 8:55 am I said yesterday but my sister is going to chop nursery unless they offer to radically reduce fees while the kids can't attend. It's £1500 a month. It's a HUGE amount of money. She feels sad about it, and shes hoping they offer some retainer arrangement or something instead, but you just can't wave goodbye to that sort of cash, esp in uncertain times.

We’re having the exact same dilemma smal. Our nursery has said in no uncertain terms that they’ll still charge the full whack (the better part of £2k in our area for two), and whilst I want staff to continue to be paid, it’s just too much to be paying and receiving no childcare at all. At the moment I’m having to work 7.30-8 to vaguely keep on top of my work, with regular breaks to entertain the children. I’m going to break if this continues much longer (which it will do).

It's incredibly difficult Farty, I don't know what to suggest. We're all going to be frazzled within weeks. I can't imagine that's legally enforceable, no, although I would guess no one thought to cover 'closure in times of pandemic' in the T&Cs... would she just give notice instead?

In a change around, my sister is now saying her husband is a keyworker, because Net. work r.ail have put him on emergency projects/call outs ( without him asking, they've issued him with a letter saying he is) so he could end up anywhere in the country at any point. She's considering putting them in one day a week to cover when she needs to go to court and/or see sex offenders (so, y'know, reasonably crucial I guess) but keep paying the fees. It's still an enormous amount for one day a week, so I think it's fairly generous.

My eldest son just sent me a message:

Marshall* jumped on my laptop this morning and showed his arse to my first conference call this morning

*Marshall is his ginger cat; they also have a black cat Ariel (pronounced in the American way) and a puggle Lulu.

I accidentally went on Mr Squirrel’s conf call earlier . I didn’t realise and was merrily restocking the printer paper. His colleague said “hello Mrs S!” and I did a sort of awkward duck and wave thing

S has basically taken my office (in the long term its probably for the best, but it's a bit galling to lose my work place) and was in a video call earlier and I set off the printer (noisy) and then waltzed in and got it. I'm passed caring really, we're going to have to tolerate a lot for the time being

S was on a long conference call earlier with v v senior people - he’d left his phone on the kitchen island and was was and not talking at the kitchen table. I’d just home from work with a bit of shopping and started to quietly reorganise the cupboards. The (v important) person leading the call said bye and I said loudly wow, so weird then hastily added, you have your phone on mute, right? Nope!

My boss was out of breath on a call earlier and apologized and said she had been chasing her small coworker around*.

*2 year old daughter

Today W went to the loo and sang (to the tune of Everything is Awesome from the lego movie) EVERYTHING IS CANCELLED COS OF CORONA VIRUS

Everything is cancelled

My gym group is apparently a charitable organisation. We got emails saying they have put dd on hold , then another confirming this bit also asking if we would consider continuing to pay. Well worded email and no pressure applied. We had already had a conversation about being happy to continue to pay, because we are in a position where we can.

I was warm to opened the window and all I can hear are shrieking children (it's 6pm so I assume they've all been turfed out in gardens because everyone's had enough...if my two are anything to go by).

I could hear shrieking children the other day. This is a bit concerning as no children live in ear shot (there are only a few houses, then fields or woods), but one of our immediate "neighbours" is a religious retreat place who normally have coach loads of people coming in. I haven't seen any vehicles or seen anyone on the square, so hopefully it was just a family who'd come out here for a walk. One of the earliest hot spots for CV in France was Mulhouse where it spread during a religious retreat :woteva:

@nickheathsport is doing sports-style commentary on daily happenings on twitter, they are very funny.

rosy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 23, 2020 3:38 pm @nickheathsport is doing sports-style commentary on daily happenings on twitter, they are very funny.

Oh yes, we watched quite a few yesterday and had a real good laugh.

The email conversation between me and my vets:

Hi

I appreciate you are currently operating in difficult circumstances, so please do not worry about getting back to me until you are able to do so.

I was advised to bring in a cat urine sample as part of a review of my cat's health. Pixie, [my details, redacted]

Please advise if I should still aim to do this, or if it perhaps better to wait until services are under less pressure. Pixie is in good health, continues to respond well to being on Semintra and is pretty much fine. I do not see the sample as being urgent and am happy to be guided by you.


From them:

Thank you very much for being so thoughtful in contacting us regarding Pixie's urine sample. You are quite correct that in these apocalyptic times, Pixie has a better excuse than most cats for not obliging us with a sample. We look forward to her not being able to escape this task sometime in the future, but for now, she can rest easy knowing that she's not putting you at risk to present us with her urine.

That's nice

I love that.