How Not to Do Christmas

Listening to all the media prattle about how to do Christmas this year (now rendered meaningless thanks to Johnson the Incompetent) I was reminded of one of our attempts to travel the length of the country to meet up with family which was pretty fraught even without a pandemic to contend with. Our usual Christmas routine at this time was to visit my mother-in-law in Bristol for a long weekend in mid-December to do some Christmas shopping and to meet up with my family, who travelled up from Devon for a meal and present exchange before we all headed home for Christmas itself. 
 
This post is adapted from an old Facebook Note (remember them?) I wrote 10 years ago. It was, if you remember, the year where we got unusually heavy snowfall in December. 
 
Friday: Due to an adverse weather forecast, we completely changed our plans for the pre-Christmas trip to Bristol, travelling Friday straight after school (last day of term) rather than the more civilised Saturday morning. This turned out to be a good decision, as the journey only took 4 hours, including rush hour through Birmingham (this was before the era of the smart motorway). 

Saturday: We woke up to about 1" snow. My mother in law's house (as with a lot of places in Bristol) was at the top of steep hill, so this was not encouraging. 

Also, Kid#1 was now unwell so I had to stay at home with the children instead of all of us heading out into Bristol to shop. With no internet and only basic TV channels, it was lucky we packed the Wii! The weather wasn’t too bad in Bristol, but if anyone remembers that huge weather system which dumped snow over south east England, closing airports, etc? We saw it moving west to east across the country from the comfort of my mother-in-law's living room...

 

 (That's the moon showing above the clouds)

Sunday: Kid#1 a little better, but Kid#2 now unwell. Stayed at home again while Other Half headed into town to shop (and buy emergency Calpol). Kids rallied enough for the planned meal with my sister and niece that evening, so headed into an ice-cold city centre for a meal in a virtually deserted Pizza Express. 
 
 
Monday: Kids still poorly. Got up early to take mother-in-law for a planned blood test. While in Bedminster (at the bottom of the hill from her house), more snow came on very rapidly and so we struggled through semi-stationary traffic all the way home on untreated roads. 45 mins to do the 10-minute drive home.  

While this was going on, my sister was trying to arrange to meet up for the present-swap, and eventually opted to drive to mother-in-law’s house (getting lost and stuck on black ice in the process). With the weather worsening all the time, she had to make a decision whether to head back to Devon or stay in Bristol with us (which would have meant seven of us in a small house usually occupied by one, with no additional food in the house). She decided to risk the trip home and got lucky with roads.  

The state of the roads precluded me getting into the city to shop for presents for Other Half, but even if this wasn't the case, the fuel leak I'd discovered on the car meant a call to AA (we were warned it could take up to 24 hrs for them to come) so I was stuck in house anyway, waiting for them. Hasty revision of plans to take mother-in-law to BRI for her op on Tuesday morning (which might be cancelled anyway, due to weather). In fact, the AA came within 90 mins of logging the call and a very, very nice man fixed the problem, but by then Other Half had gone into town on the bus and the kids were still not up to travelling. OH did his hunter-gatherer bit by buying M&S food for tea, and at least we had hospital transport again. 
 
Tuesday: Mother-in -law delivered to hospital and I went back to the house to pack the car, which involved carrying all luggage down 20 snow-covered steps from the house. MIL’s op fine, but our reserve plan to stay overnight to make sure she was fully OK scuppered by a weather forecast for heavy snow through Midlands on Wednesday. 
 
An indication of health of the kids - neither of them showed any desire to play in the snow all weekend. 
 
The journey home was fine, as there was little traffic on the road, but a drop in temperature froze the windscreen washer, so I was unable to clear screen properly. At one point the screen was nothing but an emulsion of salt and oil, making it virtually opaque (pretty scary), a bit like covering your windscreen with vinaigrette! Thank goodness for congestion at M5/M6 interchange (not often you can say that!) which enabled me to spray de-icer on the screen as a temporary measure until we could stop at Hilton Park. 

Once home, all I had to do was all the planned Christmas food shopping and an attempt at last-minute present buying with two poorly/bored kids in tow! Still at least I wasn't stuck at Heathrow bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t get to Bali! 

As ever, though, Christmas (just the four of us) came and went as normal, regardless of preparation or panic, and we’ll be doing much the same this year except for meeting up with family – Manchester and Bristol are both Tier 3 and my sister’s bit of Devon is Tier 2. That way, hopefully, we’ll all still be around to meet up next year. 
 

Dettol be the Day...

This morning the Campaign to Get the Serfs Back in the Workplace to Save Capitalism was bolstered by the appearance on the London Underground (and shortly thereafter on social media) of this piece of inanity from a well-known manufacturer of disinfectant:

I'd put good money on the people who created this not having worked in a typical office in some years. Or, like the "creatives" on the floor above us in one of my previous workplaces, have spent their time lounging on beanbags, playing ping-pong and setting the fire alarms off because they don't know how to use a toaster.

Let's take their points one by one...

Hearing an alarm  

Nope, haven't missed that. Having ditched the Today programme after more than 40 years, I wake up in a far better mood. And you know what? I'm never late for work - I now wake up naturally at the right time. 

Putting on a tie

Pah! Ties are a 19/20th century anachronism which should have been ditched years ago. If open necks and rolled-up shirt sleeves are good enough for the G8, they're good enough for an office in Slough. As with school uniform, they're all about petty control and damping down individuality.

Carrying a handbag

There you go again with your gender stereotypes. Hate handbags, always have done. Although my backpack's looking a little unloved of late, give me something practical.

Receptionists

Ours are lovely, but I don't go to work because of them...

Caffeine-filled air

Fine if you like the smell of coffee, I suppose... my partner, who dislikes the smell of coffee used to find his office unbearable at times. And does caffeine even have a small?

Taking a lift

The stairs at home are better for you.

Seeing your second family

Second family?! Who makes this s**t up? I mean, I like my colleagues but if you think of them in this way you probably need to seek help. Just because we used to see more of them than our own families due to Britain's long hours culture, doesn't mean they actually are family.

Watercooler conversations

We're in sitcom territory here, aren't we? I mean, do you know anyone in real life who stands around the big bottle of water chatting about last night's TV (especially now that we don't all watch the same few channels live). I'm usually a good 6 months-10 years behind the viewing public...

Proper bants

Anyone using "bants" should be fired immediately.

The boss's jokes

...can still be heard via Zoom, if that's your thing.

Plastic plants

Or a summer of home-grown potatoes, courgettes, raspberries, blackcurrants and apples...

Office gossip

Probably sour grapes as I'm the world's worst for picking up gossip, but not sure spreading rumours and sniggering about colleagues is really what we go to work for (unless you work at Labour HQ, I suppose).

Those weird carpets

Do you spend your day staring at the furnishings?! You need a better job.

Face to Face meetings

As we've discovered, in all but a few cases we don't need them. And as someone whose working life used to revolve around trying to arrange meetings for busy people, trying to get them all in the same place at one time, my (and their) lives have been made immeasurably easier through the use of virtual meetings. Of course without face to face meetings there's little justification for spending all that money on HS2 to cut 20 mins off journey times to London...

Not having to make lunch

Actually, mate, I now stop and have lunch (something I was very bad at in the office). Not an over-chilled, over-priced sandwich, either. Proper food instead of the bag of crisps I was likely to snaffle on the go. Better all round.

cc-ing, bcc-ing

These things can be done from any computer, anywhere in the world. Amazing, isn't it?

Accidentally Replying All

Ditto. But not recommended in any setting.

Hearing buzzwords

See "bants" above. Home working offers some level of protection from both.

Leaving early for a cheeky afternoon in the sun.

So much to unravel here - 

If you can leave early for no reason without it affect you or your colleagues, you probably don't have enough to do. Your boss needs to take a look at that.

A "cheeky" afternoon in the sun (in the UK. In September?) sounds like skiving to me.

Millions of us have been working flat out - from  home - since March. I probably have more additional hours built up than the PM has put in to COBRA meetings since the start of the pandemic. We didn't "leave early" for any reason, because there was a load of work to be done (that's what happens when you're in care sector). Making sense of the government guidance that changed overnight; trying to source enough PPE; making provision for keeping staff safe while still providing vital services; our teachers providing virtual lessons and pastoral care to our students. We haven't been at home doing nothing - we've been working as usual. Nothing changed but the location. So I'm getting a bit fed up with the presumption that we haven't been doing anything for 6 months. I mean, who's had the time to make sourdough? 

I love my work and I have brilliant colleagues, but home working has been really beneficial to my wellbeing. There is only one thing I really miss about being away from the office, and that can't be replicated at home - the wonderful young people from our training kitchen coming round with the trolley; they make the best scones and cakes!

Yes, there are people who need to get back to a workplace because of their home circumstances, and they should have priority. If we're going to reduce emissions, we need to cut down on commuting. Employers are seeing benefits, too, so HM Govt may find that the ship has already sailed. There are already reports of local independent retailers and food outlets experiencing increased activity in the suburban localities where people live - if the big sandwich chains don't want to fold, they need to invest in some bikes and go out and look for custom, just like Norman Tebbitt told us all to do in the 80s.The world of work has moved on.

To be honest, when I first saw this ad I assumed it was a passive-aggressive GOV.UK thing rather than an advert from a commercial company. I think that says quite a bit about the state of HM Govt these days. 

Here's an alternative view:

Having time for breakfast. Not having a commute that can take anything from 20-70 minutes for a 5 mile journey. Having a proper window with light and ventilation. Not falling asleep in your armchair at 9pm. The prospect of seeing daylight during the week in the winter months. Being able to make a "cheeky" trip to an appointment for a young person with a disability, knowing you can just make the time up later on. Keeping up to date with colleagues via online meetings (and getting to know them better than you did when you were at work with them all the time).

I've always preferred Savlon anyway.