Family visiting rights

Family visiting rights for prisoners and custodial parents …. But family visiting rights during a pandemic? Whoever thought we’d be in the midst of a pandemic in 2020 and not have visiting rights to family anymore.  It’s been two long months since the restrictions were put in place. And now, finally the Government made the announcement that on Tuesday 12 May at 11.59 pm those restrictions would be lifted. Woohoo! This means hugs, cuddles and visits to and from the grand kiddies are allowed again.

But all this has left me wondering ….

I’ve got to ask those people out there in Covid -19 land who are going about their business as normal (and not normal) – visiting this one and that one, having the mob over for drinks, inviting elderly aunties for lunch, having the grandies for sleep-overs, driving aimlessly around in their cars, aimlessly because where can you go when nothing’s open, oh – there’s the beach of course,  sneezing all over things, playing with your balls in the parks in big groups, going to the supermarket to buy toilet paper, going back to the supermarket to buy more toilet paper because you couldn’t fit enough in the truck the first time, driving around all the supermarkets to clean up all the toilet paper stock, going back to the supermarket again because you forgot to stock up on pasta, rice, UHT milk, hand sanitiser, everything in cans ….

How do you feel?

You’ll never understand

• the stress of realising you can’t buy toilet paper anywhere in this country when you’ve run out the stuff
• the satisfaction of coming up with innovative ideas to keep your hindquarters clean and fresh sans toilet paper
• having to do without your staples such as pasta, rice, milk, meat …. because it’s all stock piled in your spare room, shed, freezer …..
• watching and waiting for the clock to tick over to 8pm for Saturday night’s Zoom quiz
• the amount of fun you can have at a virtual birthday party – you can stick your real time parties
• the joy of discovering great new things you can learn on Zoom, Skype and Youtube  such as finger whistling, moon walking, picking a lock, twirling a pen or any other virtual course you can think of
• the pleasure of catching up on things that were once mundane like getting rid of spider webs and out of control nose hairs, cutting overgrown toe nails, cleaning the house ….

But most of all

• the excitement of reconnecting with family after two months of lockdown because you never disconnected in the first place.

Today I hugged two of my little grandchildren for the first time in eight weeks. It was beautiful. But I should fess up that I’m not a complete hero. I broke the restriction rules by about six hours. I couldn’t wait until 11.59 pm because they go to bed at 7pm. No way was I going to wait until the next day.  And I’ve still got another little grandchild to see yet. Can’t wait. Now that’s true bliss.

But even more

If you didn’t give a toss about the restrictions and resumed life as normal what are you going to say to the next gen people when they ask;

What was it like during the Covid-19 pandemic Pop, Nan, Donald, Boris, Jair? Or whatever your name might be.

Oh that thing. That was just a load of bollocks. People stayed at home and sat on their couches for a couple of months.  Didn’t affect us.

Selfish gits.