Go here for details of the Just Jot it January challenge.
This pandemic has caused so much grief and upset but honestly, Hubby and I've come off lightly so far. Yes we aren't able to see family members as we would like and our social lives have been severely curtailed but we're well and working family members still have jobs.
I'm lucky in that I'm no longer working. If I was I think I would be hanging on by my fingertips.
As a school business manager I had responsibility for the health and safety of the school. During this pandemic that would have been a nightmare.
Teachers (and the wider school staff) have come in for some (in my opinion) very unfair criticism during the pandemic. Very often schools have been referred to as closed but in actual fact they have remained open the whole time providing on site teaching for vulnerable children and children of key workers while having to grapple with new technology etc to enable them to remotely teach pupils who have been "home schooled".
The suggestion that with schools "closed" teachers have had an easy time of things is farcical.
What is even more farcical, not to mention dangerous, is that they have been expected to put theirselves in danger by continuing to work without the benefit of PPE, social distancing or other measures being put in place to protect them.
As an employer there is a duty of care to your staff to provide a safe working environment for them. That's why we've seen screens going up in shops etc, PPE being provided and distance markings appearing on the ground.
I'm not sure I could have signed off on a risk assessment that left school staff inadequately protected. I probably wouldn't still have my job because of that.
As I'm preparing this post there are rumours beginning to circulate that our Government is meeting today to consider a national lockdown until possibly April.
If the science backs up that this is needed then we have to accept it. Yes it will be hard but with vaccines being rolled out there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Most of us have no life experience that compares to this situation. We're too young to have lived through a war that directly impacted our lives. Maybe anyone who's been imprisioned might have known what the loss of liberty would feel like.
I think my fingertips will be getting a lot of exercise on my computer keyboard and on my phone. I'm very glad of the touch typing course I did way back when life was simpler.
The priority has to be staying safe and virus free until the vaccine programme does its job and we can defeat this invisible enemy. Let's hope 2021 is the year that it will happen.
