visiting family during lockdown

I know 2 mtrs is the advised distance and some have no idea of what that looks like but as the scientists have told us the virus travels way further than that before dropping to the floor and that's without a sneeze or a cough! Would I want to visit or socialise at a distance, no, at least not at this stage. Just too easy to relax and misjudge the distance. I have missed GDs 8th birthday, lst anniversary of daughter's death, her wedding anniversary, all with no contact with family apart from skype/zoom. I have survived so far, consider myself fortunate to have stayed clear as have my family. Everyone will have their own view and it is hard when looking to the future trying to see when we will have physical contract with our loved ones again.

I used a 2 metre bamboo cane, covered in silver foil then selotape and gold tinsel on the end. when I met my son and young GG on the common I called it my magic germ wand. worked brilliantly as a visual distance marker. Actually 2 metres is quite long!

Still in lockdown in scotland but I hade dropped shopping off at all of my grandchildren’s houses. The older ones have come to the door and the littlest ones stay behind their windows (they can’t understand we can’t have a cuddle). I’ve sobbed when I’ve seen them but it was worth it. Just play by the rules and wait this out. For you grans in England how do you pick which one member of your family you want to see and meet up with? Torture.

I am sorry Samatomo but I completely disagree. It IS enormously frustrating to see my daughter and her children through the French windows in my garden (and YES I really do understand that we are lucky to have that option) but air hugs and hearing the new born gurgle and watching that first smile and smelling the happy change (yes ok a bit weird but you know what I mean) was SO much better than the tiny thing on the phone screen

It was so nice after many weeks of not seeing my son and his family to see them in person at the weekend. We all sat in the garden social distanced, and chatted and drank tea and ate cake together! My nearly 3 year old granddaughter was very good at keeping distance and while she was playing I could see her again. It was lovely. She understood we couldn't cuddle because of the "naughty virus". Can't wait for them to come back …

I have been coping with it by pretending my son, daughter law and 3 grandchildren are working abroad temporarily, but will be back soon. I can talk to them on Skype in the meantime. Its difficult as my youngest granddaughter has just started walking. I have another son who emigrated to Canada 5 years ago, he has 3 children. I fly out once a year, and we raj weekly on Skype. That was hard at first but I got used to it and it's lovely when I do go over.
It's hard but we have to just put up with this situation a bit longer. I'm so lucky to have 2 sobs and 6 beautiful grandchildren. I'm 69 with asthma so will have to remain isolated from them, till theres a vaccine. Better then them having no grandma. Many grandparents have lost their lives during this epidemic . We should not put ourselves at risk or the lives of our families, (middle aged people are dying too.), just for the sake of a hug.
It will be all the sweeter when we get the all clear and can hug our families. Just have patience.

Sorry, typo I missed "we talk on Skype" not raj

Great idea !

We have larger than average front and back gardens both with big expanse of lawns. In all honesty, I can see no logic in being able legally to meet my family in the open space of a local park or common and not in my own spacious front or back garden. For a start, the legal meeting means I would have to venture into the outside world where there are likely to be hundreds of others in that same ‘open space’. No-one has been inside our house since mid-March and do not need to in order to access our gardens. Most of the family live within a radius of 15 miles. I see absolutely nothing wrong in entertaining them - at a social and safer distance - in our garden. So there, Boris!

Nannal23 I would say no, I wouldn’t expect that to be advised. It’s one thing, a member of the staff doing their job and quite another, family stepping in. I think if that took place, lockdown would be well and truly over from a social distancing point of view. I suspect you’ll have to wait a bit....And back to my previous comments, to Samaromo, I agree with the above reply...the garden wouldn’t be ok-it would need to a public space. Why? Because you’d be less likely to manage to stay apart in the garden! Not saying I agree with it,,,but it’s how it is,,,

NotAGran55 you have not missed nor misinterpreted anything, it is other people who interpret things exactly how they please and break the rules.

Just go you will be surprised how it will make you feel. I’m with lucky girl on this one.

My daughter and two granddaughters live 20mins drive from me. I have not seen them in person since a couple of weeks before lockdown. My daughter works in a care home and the girls have had the option to go into school, but my daughter has chosen not to send them in up to now. Her partner has been able to work at home on her days off, so they have shared the home schooling. He has to go back into work this week, so they have no option but to send them both back to school on the days she will be working, opening up the family to a whole lot more contact. Not seeing them at Easter or on the younger one's birthday were particularly hard, but everyone understood why it had to be that way. I would love to meet up with them now that we are allowed to have contact, albeit at 2 metres distance. My daughter thinks it wise to still not see each other as she works in a care home and I work in social care. It hurts that she isn't keen to see me, but I think she is being very sensible and cautious and accept her wishes. It would be very hard to see them and not be able to hug them, probably more painful than not seeing them at all, so we will continue with our daily messaging to check each other and other family members are well and our weekly video calls. Hard but shows we love each other enough to keep each other safe

I thought the no garden rule was if you had to access the house to get to the garden.

Whilst the ability to travel for socially distance visits to other places or the see family is helping many people with their mental health, as mentioned by others, the fact that public toilets are still closed means that for most people journeys will be relatively short. Now is not the time to be disappearing behind a bush. If the Government and National Parks and other popular beauty spots wish to deter large numbers of longer journeys,, keeping loos closed is a good way of doing so especially if this is publicised more.

2 metres in the garden versus 2 metres in a public space what's the difference. Same air particularly if you dont have to go through the house. Thought Boris said he was relying on common sense!

I certainly would, in fact we have.
Ours all live within a few miles of us and we have seen them all, separately, over the past few weeks, but even if they lived 60 miles away we still would.

Ours have come here occasionally as our garden is large and we can sit separately.

They come round the side of the house so don’t have to come indoors.
Strong bladders mean they don’t even have to use the loo!

We didn’t hug of course but it was SO much nicer to see them in person rather than chatting on FaceTime.

Obviously none of us wants to become ill so we are sensible and careful, but I do think it’s important to put this flu type virus in perspective.

Did you go in the end?

No- I would rather see them. When this first started my elder son brought the 3 older DGC over & we walked round the aerodrome opposite our road. It was lovely & gave the kids some exercise too. He said last night he will bring them again next weekend & we can do the same thing. Plenty of room there so no problem keeping a safe distance apart.
I have not seen the younger 3 since all this started & I miss them so much but younger son is busy decorating etc & they live a bit further away.
Hopefully very soon they will say things are improving & we can all get together.

We’re in Scotland and I haven’t been able to see my parents or my youngest son. He is at university in another county and we know that the police are stopping folk and sending them home plus fining them too if their journeys are deemed unnecessary. We are just biding our time, till we can all meet up again. One of my colleagues died a few weeks into lockdown, I had been sitting beside him just before we closed, so I am well aware exactly how awful this illness is. Stay safe and keep your bairns safe too (no matter how big they are!)

I have fully complied and agreed with lockdown but last week they lost my support. How can it be that I can go to the park and sunbathe/ picnic etc socially distanced from complete strangers but if I did exactly the same with my family I could be fined? Can’t believe the science they claim to be following shows that the virus jumps six foot if you are related but not if you are strangers. Or that the science shows it is safer to allow me to travel on crowded public transport, work in an indoor environment with people from countless family units, than see my daughter with my grandchildren outside socially distanced. There is no logic to it. Oh, or that I am at more risk doing that that having hoards of day trippers that are now allowed to invade our beautiful village, and travel any distance to do it.

It's not really the spirit of the law is it, even standing in the garden unless you are taking supplies to the vulnerable. It would be nice of course, cuddles or not, but if everyone does it, it's a slippery slope. Still, people do what they can I suppose. I missed my grand son's birthday last month and my granddaughters will have their 1st and 13th in a few weeks. I won't go unless I'm allowed though...

Just to say my son pops round occasionally and we chat with him stood in the driveway. Well Sunday he and family popped by and it is worth seeing the gc in the flesh esp with the 5yo. 15 minutes and they were off back home but we all enjoyed the interaction. We are over 70 shielded with various medical conditions as is my 27yo son.

Toilets are open in motorway services and in petrol stations as of course delivery drivers and other workers will need them.

We went to the fruit and veg market at a large Surrey town on Saturday and the two town centre ones were open as well and perfectly clean!

Yes, notagran. You can only see one child or parent at a time if you keep to the guidelines. One of you could meet a dc or dgc socially distancing and then you could swap and the other meet up with them. Groups (over 2 are not allowed)

3 nanny 6 what your daughter is planning is illegal and she could get a visit from the police. I have heard of something similar being done local to me and the person was fined. Right too as it is what many of us would love to do but don’t as it is not allowed. If we all disregarded the advice then there would be even worse statistics. Why do some people just think that rules don’t apply to them ? Your daughter sounds really selfish and arrogant.