Pass the mince pies- Christmas Chat Thread Part Deux

PaulT21

kitten_k wrote: »

Our company would normally be planning our Christmas party - doubt things like that will happen.

Please God we will all be swinging out of the rafters come Christmas:D and this misery will be a memory which will eventually fade.

Unfortunately for many though, Christmas will never be the same again without lost loved ones:mad:

New Home

We were told today that, with the exception of absolutely vital jobs that have to be carried out on site, we won't be seeing the inside of our offices until 2021 at least. Can't say I'm upset about it, my colleagues are nice, but I don't miss the commute and I love my kitchen. And I can spend quality time with the cat. :P

CheerLouth

I think that after this, a lot of companies who had never previously considered allowing staff to WFH will be a lot more open to it. There's a lot of management out there who think staff have to be present to be actually getting through work. Hopefully this will change people's perspective and companies might be a bit more flexible to their employees.

DvB

CheerLouth wrote: »

I think that after this, a lot of companies who had never previously considered allowing staff to WFH will be a lot more open to it. There's a lot of management out there who think staff have to be present to be actually getting through work. Hopefully this will change people's perspective and companies might be a bit more flexible to their employees.

Well going forward I'll certainly be looking to WFH 2 days a week minimum. Never would have entertained the thought of it before but the time saved with no trains to catch is a godsend both morning and evening, it's a far more relaxed start and end to the day.

TRS30

Been told I most likely wouldn't be back in the office till October at the earliest. Not sure how even that is going to work as no way we have enough space to do proper social distancing if everyone is back!

Will be a big change going back whenever it is, have become very use to working from home now.

DvB

TRS30 wrote: »

Been told I most likely wouldn't be back in the office till October at the earliest. Not sure how even that is going to work as no way we have enough space to do proper social distancing if everyone is back!

Will be a big change going back whenever it is, have become very use to working from home now.

TBH I have good days & bad days WFH. Some days I find it a real chore motivating myself (browsing here excessively for example), but suspect that's more to do with the general situation out in the world than my actual work one.

I'd be interested to see how it would affect my quality of life if I was able to maintain 2 days WFH & got the rest of my life more or less back to normal, I suspect it would be a positive change though & as I said in my earlier post will be looking to maintain that if I can.

We're currently preparing our plan to return to our new office (we were on the verge of moving offices when the lockdown was introduced) as its much larger & could accommodate social distancing far easier than our old office, but the requirements are difficult to achieve so we'll probably be looking to accommodate 50% of the staff WFH until social distancing restrictions are lifted.

New Home

Do you remember those jars of mincemeat I bought the other day? Well, one has just been put to good use, I had a soft Polish roll which I cut in half and toasted, the mincemeat replaced the jam. YUM!

DvB

On the subject of cakes/treats etc.
We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday, couldn't do much to celebrate as such but my Mrs did bake an absolutely gorgeous lemon drizzle cake of which I've just polished off there now with a coffee... that obese man inside is definitely banging on the door to get out again

kitten_k

DvB wrote: »

On the subject of cakes/treats etc.
We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday, couldn't do much to celebrate as such but my Mrs did bake an absolutely gorgeous lemon drizzle cake of which I've just polished off there now with a coffee... that obese man inside is definitely banging on the door to get out again

DvB

kitten_k wrote: »

Love it!!

TRS30

DvB wrote: »

On the subject of cakes/treats etc.
We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday, couldn't do much to celebrate as such but my Mrs did bake an absolutely gorgeous lemon drizzle cake of which I've just polished off there now with a coffee... that obese man inside is definitely banging on the door to get out again

Con'grats

I hope she cooked it in an aluminium tin!!

freshpopcorn

Happy Anniversary DvB.

Loughc

TRS30 wrote: »

Been told I most likely wouldn't be back in the office till October at the earliest. Not sure how even that is going to work as no way we have enough space to do proper social distancing if everyone is back!

Will be a big change going back whenever it is, have become very use to working from home now.

We had a similar phone call from work this morning. They’re asking us all to continue to work from home, the top bosses are meeting next week to discuss how they can get the office reopen but they’re not sure yet as there’s no way to ensure social distancing in the current layout.

Loughc

DvB wrote: »

On the subject of cakes/treats etc.
We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday, couldn't do much to celebrate as such but my Mrs did bake an absolutely gorgeous lemon drizzle cake of which I've just polished off there now with a coffee... that obese man inside is definitely banging on the door to get out again

Congrats my friend. 10 years is a fantastic milestone.

DvB

Loughc wrote: »

Congrats my friend. 10 years is a fantastic milestone.

Cheers man! Cant believe how fast it's gone... bit like that indian we ordered last night, gone in the blink of an eye!

Littlehorny

kitten_k wrote: »

Our company would normally be planning our Christmas party - doubt things like that will happen.

As I posted on a different Christmas thread, we have our Christmas party booked in the Guinness storehouse since January.
Hope it will go ahead , fingers crossed

CheerLouth

DvB wrote: »

I'd be interested to see how it would affect my quality of life if I was able to maintain 2 days WFH & got the rest of my life more or less back to normal, I suspect it would be a positive change though & as I said in my earlier post will be looking to maintain that if I can.

When not on Mat Leave, I work up to 4 days a week from home & it's been a game changer. Honestly, it's the only reason that I have been able to stay in full time work with small children. My office is based in South Dublin so to commute there would be roughly a 4 hour round trip, given normal traffic volumes. With WFH, I can get up at a normal hour, get the kids ready for school/creche, drop them & be at my desk with my cuppa for 9am. I finish at 5 and have the kids collected from creche by 5.10. During the day, I get through so much work & I get a few jobs done around the house - washes on, dishwasher empty, dinner on at lunchtime etc. I also get out for a walk if I time my day correctly. It also takes the pressure off massively if one of the kids are sick etc.

That said, WFH takes a lot of discipline - it's very easy to get distracted. I have my office set up in the spare room and I'm officially at work when in there. And there is the social aspect too of sitting by yourself in relative silence all day - it gets lonely. But I would never trade it in to go back to being in the office 5 days a week!


Also...congrats on the wedding anniversary! Great milestone!

Jude13

Congrats on the anniversary DvB. I am up in the air about holidays. Our firms have implemented that all staff must use half their leave by the end of June. I have a flight booked the 6th of July home, as the client asked for it to be changed. No the client is contemplating canceling all our leave until September/October. If he does so and we can't fly anyway then its great as I won't have to use up my leave, but if we can fly it will be a pain.

Went for a run on Thursday and injured my foot so Im hobbling around.

Had a very heavy Friday, boozing in the sun all day to celebrate an exam result, then a full day course yesterday. Still hanging today, so as a pick me up I threw on my christmas boxers.

DvB

Lit the fire out the back garden yesterday evening and stayed out to have 2 or 3 Guinness, went for a run then this morning and struggled through 7k. My time was decent enough ( for me anyway) but the sweat was dripping of me afterwards... determined now to get my diet back on track and finally start getting rid of some of my spare tyre, that'll need to start with the alcohol, a few beers every weekend now is not helping so that and chips are being taken off the table for a bit.

Jude13

I really need to look at my diet, I have spots like a teen. Its driven by having an auto immune disorder and not being strict at all in relation to cross contamination. That plus the stress of work/lay-offs/having to move house this month, plus booze (not a lot but frequent) and chocolate. No amount of training can help. Sadly I have let it go to such a degree that I am pretty much on a very strict diet as of today. I can never eat wheat/gluten, so that was gone anyway, now its egg and dairy too. So its rabbit food an meat for me.

We looked at another house last night and it has two big trees in the back and a a nice balcony. My OH was saying we could do so much with it. I agreed, inflatable sleigh on the balcony with Christmas lights strung to the trees. She said reading nook.

Loughc

DvB wrote: »

Cheers man! Cant believe how fast it's gone... bit like that indian we ordered last night, gone in the blink of an eye!

Indian is my go to date night meal too, feels like it's the fanciest takeaway you can get and goes down with a bottle of wine great though.

Miserable morning out there this morning weather wise, but it did make me think I must catch up on some Christmassy podcasts, so it's certainly helping to put me in the Christmas mood

DvB

Loughc wrote: »

Indian is my go to date night meal too, feels like it's the fanciest takeaway you can get and goes down with a bottle of wine great though.

Miserable morning out there this morning weather wise, but it did make me think I must catch up on some Chrsitmassy podcasts, so it's certainly helping to put me in the Christmas mood

Ooh Love Indian, its definitely the priciest too... we dont really get takeaways that often anyway but Indian is definitely the 'treat' one!

Yeah, weather is a bit miserable alright, looks like our really good run may be coming to an end.

TRS30

Ordered a take out last Friday, first one since lockdown and went down a treat. There is an Asia place near us that does a bit of everything so got a variety of starters and shared them rather then just 2 mains. Mainly healthy enough stuff with a few treats thrown in.

Missing go to restaurants much more than pubs!

DvB

TRS30 wrote: »

Missing go to restaurants much more than pubs!

Wouldn't have thought that would be the case for me but I actually agree. We like to get out as a family once a month on a Friday or Saturday as a treat (the kids love it) even if just across to the local pub who have a fantastic meals menu & I really miss that.

Jude13

Ditto, due to the elves we would venture to restaurants more often, I would only find myself in a pub due to work.

We have had our lock down put back on. 6am to 8pm. Fines for almost everything, including not wearing a mask at work. The cases have soared during Ramadan.

Gave our notice to the landlord so we will have to decide on a new location for the tree this year.

TRS30

Jude13 wrote: »

Ditto, due to the elves we would venture to restaurants more often, I would only find myself in a pub due to work.

We have had our lock down put back on. 6am to 8pm. Fines for almost everything, including not wearing a mask at work. The cases have soared during Ramadan.

Gave our notice to the landlord so we will have to decide on a new location for the tree this year.

Have heard a few stories like that now, with countries who have opened things up a bit having a rise in cases and having to reintroduce some restrictions.

That is my fear for here Really hope I'm wrong though.

I can see you house hunting Jude.....'Na, this place wouldn't do, not big enough for the tree..'

Loughc

TRS30 wrote: »

Have heard a few stories like that now, with countries who have opened things up a bit having a rise in cases and having to reintroduce some restrictions.

That is my fear for here Really hope I'm wrong though.

Judging my local park yesterday at lunchtime social distancing and lockdown has ended, I saw a group of 20 kids and 6 parents setting up 2 temporary GAA Goals so they could have a 10 on 10 game of hurling.

It's moments like this will cause us to go backwards. People think cause the number of cases are low and we are re-opening things that it's time to go back to normal.

DvB

Have seen people have parties & BBQ's with friends and family in houses around here over the last few weeks when the weather was good, even our neighbor has had her friends (with their kids) around for coffee/play dates etc. Makes a mockery of the whole thing.
Myself and the Mrs felt like we were the only idiots doing what we were meant to do at one stage as we watched restrictions being ignored left, right & centre.
What bugs is me is that even out running I've gone to great lengths to avoid people & maintain excessive (not just 2m) social distancing etc. and then theres folk all around carrying on more or less as normal.
Only for the fact the community figures are so low I'd be fully expecting a sharp increase in cases, I just hope it doesnt come to that as I genuinely fear the appetite for compliance has diminished considerably with the general public.

Loughc

DvB wrote: »

What bugs is me is that even out running I've gone to great lengths to avoid people & maintain excessive (not just 2m) social distancing etc. and then theres folk all around carrying on more or less as normal.
Only for the fact the community figures are so low I'd be fully expecting a sharp increase in cases, I just hope it doesnt come to that as I genuinely fear the appetite for compliance has diminished considerably with the general public.

DVB once again this is a post I could have written word for word, I bit the bullet and went for a run instead of a walk yesterday and I was trying to remain 2m away from everyone, even to the point I veered off into uneven surfaces and almost done my ankle in, only to see groups of 6 people walking 6 abreast.

And these weren't kids either, people that should have known better.

I've been equally frustrated, I've seen neighbours have massive birthday parties and BBQs over the past week, one neighbor turned 30 last week and she had a pool party in her house/back garden, (a small inflatable tub thing) she was inviting everyone she knew and was putting pictures up where there was loads of people crammed in a tiny pool.

I was listening to a podcast yesterday and the guy on it hit the nail on the head, look I can put up with not seeing anyone now but if people don't cop on and this ends up ruining Christmas because people are too selfish I will go postal.

DvB

Loughc wrote: »

I was listening to a podcast yesterday and the guy on it hit the nail on the head, look I can put up with not seeing anyone now but if people don't cop on and this ends up ruining Christmas because people are too selfish I will go postal.

I don't even want to contemplate Christmas being ruined by this and at one stage was confident we'd act & react accordingly to ensure we'd get through this as quickly as possible. Unfortunately the general malaise around the whole thing has me genuinely concerned the heavier restrictions could end up being reintroduced later in the year to combat a spike in cases/deaths, all of which could have been avoided if people just copped on for a few more weeks.

I appreciate its hard for a lot of people, I've not been a beacon of positivity myself the last 8 weeks, have a haircut a peaky blinder would be proud of and havent seen friends or family in over 8 weeks, missing a communion, confirmation, a 50th, 70th & 75th birthday parties & countless other social occasions and am likely to lose 1000's on a sun holiday we cant go on, but c'mon... do we really want this dragged on & on & on putting even more of our lives on hold? & whilst I dont 100% agree with the way its being handled here we still need to at least maintain the basics IMO & get through this as quickly & painlessly as possible.