Venting a little.
Wednesday, September 16th, 2020 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanI’ve deliberately avoided discussing the pandemic in any great detail as in years to come, I don’t want to look back at my posts and see nothing but that. It was the same with Brexit. It’s easy to forget that there is good stuff happening as well, and that’s what we need to remember.
That said, I’m going to grumble about the pandemic now briefly, largely because of the frustration and annoyance it’s causing for what should be the simplest of things.
Next month my eldest niece is getting married. We’ve known the place, time and date for close on two years, and I booked the hotel at the beginning of March just, as it turned out, before lockdown. Even then, we were naively hopeful that it would all have died down by then. October was reassuringly distant.
But it’s not over. Their forty guests have had to be pared back to thirty, and that might now be too many, depending upon how you interpret the current guidelines. Weddings are exempt from the ‘maximum of six persons’ rule, but it’s not clear whether or not that includes the reception. Even if that’s all sorted out satisfactorily, there are other problems. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Shrewsbury and Wem, in Shropshire.
We have recently sold the car as it would have taken more to bring up to spec than it was worth (plus we didn’t need it during lockdown). So that means several hours on a variety of trains and other public transport, whilst wearing masks and hoping to Grudd that other people behave similarly. And recent experience suggests that a significant number won’t.
I’ve spoken to the hotel and not unreasonably in the circumstances, their restaurant is not open. It will be open for the wedding reception, but not before or after. They are not getting enough custom to justify the costs. That means no evening meal when we arrive on Friday, and no evening meal (or more likely evening snack) on the Saturday. We will need something as the wedding is at noon and the reception in the early afternoon.
My sister and niece are trying to salvage something out of all this. The latest plan is that my sister will pick us up from Shrewsbury station on the Friday, ferry us to the hotel where we can check in and dump our bags, before driving us back into town where we can get dinner. Then she’ll ferry us back. I assume that Saturday will include similar levels of dependence on our part, and then there’s getting back to Shrewsbury station on the Sunday morning. Happily at least the breakfasts will still be provided.
When I first booked the hotel, I wasn’t bothered that it was relatively remote. We could take walks in the countryside, inhabit the bar, relax and read. But if everything is closed, it becomes a different proposition.
Oh, and the cherry on the icing: Redbridge, of which Ilford is a part, currently has the highest Covid-19 infection rate in London and they are contemplating a local lockdown.
So far we have come out of this all relatively unscathed. In some ways it’s been better than usual, but now it is frustrating and irritating and spoiling what should be a happy event.
That said, I’m going to grumble about the pandemic now briefly, largely because of the frustration and annoyance it’s causing for what should be the simplest of things.
Next month my eldest niece is getting married. We’ve known the place, time and date for close on two years, and I booked the hotel at the beginning of March just, as it turned out, before lockdown. Even then, we were naively hopeful that it would all have died down by then. October was reassuringly distant.
But it’s not over. Their forty guests have had to be pared back to thirty, and that might now be too many, depending upon how you interpret the current guidelines. Weddings are exempt from the ‘maximum of six persons’ rule, but it’s not clear whether or not that includes the reception. Even if that’s all sorted out satisfactorily, there are other problems. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Shrewsbury and Wem, in Shropshire.
We have recently sold the car as it would have taken more to bring up to spec than it was worth (plus we didn’t need it during lockdown). So that means several hours on a variety of trains and other public transport, whilst wearing masks and hoping to Grudd that other people behave similarly. And recent experience suggests that a significant number won’t.
I’ve spoken to the hotel and not unreasonably in the circumstances, their restaurant is not open. It will be open for the wedding reception, but not before or after. They are not getting enough custom to justify the costs. That means no evening meal when we arrive on Friday, and no evening meal (or more likely evening snack) on the Saturday. We will need something as the wedding is at noon and the reception in the early afternoon.
My sister and niece are trying to salvage something out of all this. The latest plan is that my sister will pick us up from Shrewsbury station on the Friday, ferry us to the hotel where we can check in and dump our bags, before driving us back into town where we can get dinner. Then she’ll ferry us back. I assume that Saturday will include similar levels of dependence on our part, and then there’s getting back to Shrewsbury station on the Sunday morning. Happily at least the breakfasts will still be provided.
When I first booked the hotel, I wasn’t bothered that it was relatively remote. We could take walks in the countryside, inhabit the bar, relax and read. But if everything is closed, it becomes a different proposition.
Oh, and the cherry on the icing: Redbridge, of which Ilford is a part, currently has the highest Covid-19 infection rate in London and they are contemplating a local lockdown.
So far we have come out of this all relatively unscathed. In some ways it’s been better than usual, but now it is frustrating and irritating and spoiling what should be a happy event.
