Activities
Jul. 5th, 2021 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livBusy week, at least by pandemic standards!
Last weekend we visited my parents for my Dad's birthday, when my brother![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
angrysampoet was also around. We sat in the garden and argued amiably about politics and it was generally lovely. And then we visited OSOs in their new place, and played a rather fun worker placement game Crystal palace and hung out gently. I stayed overnight and worked from my laptop there on Monday, because I'm not confident I can yet manage the ten-mile cycle ride both ways in one day.
Tuesday I got my second jab. There was a bit of a song and dance because the vaccination programme very quietly moved second dose AZ to 8 weeks rather than 12 but this wasn't really announced anywhere. And because I'm following things very closely, and exchanging tips with my friends and connections, I found out that it's possible to cancel your 12 week appointment and rebook for 8 weeks after your first jab. So I wish communication had been clearer, and I wish you didn't have to take the risk of cancelling and rebooking, but I did in fact get a convenient slot at the same convenient centre where I had jab one. Very minor side-effects, as before I'm not sure it wasn't just nocebo effect.
That evening I attended my first meet people outside the pub social. In fact it was some friends ofjack's I hadn't previously met. We ended up at the Carpenters Arms, which was a new pub to me too. It's not ideal if you're nervous about Covid exposure; you have to go through the rather crowded indoor part to check in and get to the beer garden. But the beer garden is properly open and you can order food by app and there is table service by masked waiters. A lot of people have said that they hope app + table service is a habit we keep post-pandemic; infection concern aside it's pleasant not to have to shoulder your way through the crowd and compete for the bar staff's attention. But the bad thing about beer gardens is that we've returned to the early 2000s in terms of having to socialize and eat around smokers. Anyway, we had a lovely conversation, I liked the couple a lot, and we were all slightly nervy but basically remembered our before times social skills.
I did, however, forget that if you socialize in a place in the evening, you have to make plans to get yourself home after dark. Luckily we are practically at the summer solstice, and panicking at around 8:45 realizing that I hadn't bought bike lights gave us just enough time to dash home before it was really dark.
Saturday we went on an exciting trip, organized byghoti_mhic_uait to Diggerland. Diggerland is a theme park created by someone with the genius idea of providing construction equipment to ride on and play with, which I would never have known about but when I did hear of it, it's obviously brilliant. Most of it is actual real machines with minor modifications, and a surprising amount is suitable for under-fives who are usually the biggest digger fans. The children are not really the right age for it; 9-12 is too old though the older kids were willing to throw themselves into it, and one is really too young; G didn't quite meet the height cut-off for most of the rides, though she was extremely into the ones she could go on. I skipped most of the more fairground-type rides, a giant digger which spins round with seats in the bucket at about first storey height, and a merry-go-round constructed out of digger parts. I was excited to play on the ones where you get to experience actual machinery, a big digger fixed in place so you can scoop up and deposit earth, and some trucks that you can drive. It was quite impressive going round a track with gravel and ruts and mud and deep puddles and the tractor didn't seem to notice any of the terrain. jack drove a big JCB round a dirt track, under supervision from one of the staff, with me and ghoti_mhic_uait as passengers.
Covid-wise, well, it's mostly outside so I wasn't too worried. They were pretty good at insisting on masks for any adults in proximity with others, and made some attempt at social distancing and keeping bubbles partly separate, though honestly it's fairly crowded and full of pre-schoolers so the distancing wasn't that rigorous. They also did a lot of sanitizing surfaces, which made the queues slightly longer but otoh it's probably good for not catching stomach bugs from all the small people, even if likely irrelevant to Covid. You have to go through a building to get into the main park, and we went inside the cafe to order the food which we ate at picnic tables in light rain. I'm starting to get twitchy about even brief inside mixing like that, but it was really very brief.
Then yesterday was the online ordination service for this year's European Reform and Liberal rabbis. It was simultaneously broadcast from the four communities the ordinands come from, and the only British one is a member of my shul, so there was an actual service in my synagogue for the first time since Purim last year. OK, so it was just R' Tali and her sponsor and a couple of senior college people and the tech crew in person, the rest online, but it was quite emotional to watch prayers broadcast from the actual sanctuary, not just someone's living room.
Last weekend we visited my parents for my Dad's birthday, when my brother
Tuesday I got my second jab. There was a bit of a song and dance because the vaccination programme very quietly moved second dose AZ to 8 weeks rather than 12 but this wasn't really announced anywhere. And because I'm following things very closely, and exchanging tips with my friends and connections, I found out that it's possible to cancel your 12 week appointment and rebook for 8 weeks after your first jab. So I wish communication had been clearer, and I wish you didn't have to take the risk of cancelling and rebooking, but I did in fact get a convenient slot at the same convenient centre where I had jab one. Very minor side-effects, as before I'm not sure it wasn't just nocebo effect.
That evening I attended my first meet people outside the pub social. In fact it was some friends of
jack's I hadn't previously met. We ended up at the Carpenters Arms, which was a new pub to me too. It's not ideal if you're nervous about Covid exposure; you have to go through the rather crowded indoor part to check in and get to the beer garden. But the beer garden is properly open and you can order food by app and there is table service by masked waiters. A lot of people have said that they hope app + table service is a habit we keep post-pandemic; infection concern aside it's pleasant not to have to shoulder your way through the crowd and compete for the bar staff's attention. But the bad thing about beer gardens is that we've returned to the early 2000s in terms of having to socialize and eat around smokers. Anyway, we had a lovely conversation, I liked the couple a lot, and we were all slightly nervy but basically remembered our before times social skills. I did, however, forget that if you socialize in a place in the evening, you have to make plans to get yourself home after dark. Luckily we are practically at the summer solstice, and panicking at around 8:45 realizing that I hadn't bought bike lights gave us just enough time to dash home before it was really dark.
Saturday we went on an exciting trip, organized by
ghoti_mhic_uait to Diggerland. Diggerland is a theme park created by someone with the genius idea of providing construction equipment to ride on and play with, which I would never have known about but when I did hear of it, it's obviously brilliant. Most of it is actual real machines with minor modifications, and a surprising amount is suitable for under-fives who are usually the biggest digger fans. The children are not really the right age for it; 9-12 is too old though the older kids were willing to throw themselves into it, and one is really too young; G didn't quite meet the height cut-off for most of the rides, though she was extremely into the ones she could go on. I skipped most of the more fairground-type rides, a giant digger which spins round with seats in the bucket at about first storey height, and a merry-go-round constructed out of digger parts. I was excited to play on the ones where you get to experience actual machinery, a big digger fixed in place so you can scoop up and deposit earth, and some trucks that you can drive. It was quite impressive going round a track with gravel and ruts and mud and deep puddles and the tractor didn't seem to notice any of the terrain. jack drove a big JCB round a dirt track, under supervision from one of the staff, with me and ghoti_mhic_uait as passengers. Covid-wise, well, it's mostly outside so I wasn't too worried. They were pretty good at insisting on masks for any adults in proximity with others, and made some attempt at social distancing and keeping bubbles partly separate, though honestly it's fairly crowded and full of pre-schoolers so the distancing wasn't that rigorous. They also did a lot of sanitizing surfaces, which made the queues slightly longer but otoh it's probably good for not catching stomach bugs from all the small people, even if likely irrelevant to Covid. You have to go through a building to get into the main park, and we went inside the cafe to order the food which we ate at picnic tables in light rain. I'm starting to get twitchy about even brief inside mixing like that, but it was really very brief.
Then yesterday was the online ordination service for this year's European Reform and Liberal rabbis. It was simultaneously broadcast from the four communities the ordinands come from, and the only British one is a member of my shul, so there was an actual service in my synagogue for the first time since Purim last year. OK, so it was just R' Tali and her sponsor and a couple of senior college people and the tech crew in person, the rest online, but it was quite emotional to watch prayers broadcast from the actual sanctuary, not just someone's living room.
