Happy Christmas!

 Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Yes, that's what they say here over "Merry Christmas".

Pretty much from the moment we moved into our rental I have started thinking about Christmas 2020, and probably even before that. It wasn't necessarily our FIRST Christmas in the UK as we have spent many Christmases here (In fact, Daniel and I's first Christmas together was in the UK back in 2013). In our travels back to the UK from USA, they have frequently been around Christmas, so doing a quick think, we are tied with spending 4 Christmases in USA and 4 in the UK since we've met. This is all to say, that I was never dreading Christmas here this year by any means. I knew what to expect, I knew what it was usually like, I am familiar with the weather around this time of year. I have found myself missing a few sentimental XMAS THINGS that are packed away in our storage unit in USA, but we brought a carry on of nothing but our favorite and smallest Christmas things with us. I wasn't sentimentally tied to our Xmas tree back home, we gave that to a family member, but I was tied to the ornaments. We packed those, and put them on our new tree which we bought at a reasonable price and we are still not sentimentally connected to.

I was actually quite excited about having another lovely Christmas in the UK as we have had 3 times before. What I did not expect (much like since we have arrived) was the rules that would be imposed by the government because of COVID and how that would affect our holidays. The following is how it unfolded...

I told you before about the rules imposed just after Halloween (Read my Happy Thanksgiving Post first if you don't have a clue what I'm referring to). We stayed in complete lockdown with all non essential businesses closed and only allowed to go outdoors to meet one other person for exercise. The Prime Minister made an announcement sometime late November that from December 2nd, shops could open, gyms could open, and you could meet up in groups of 6 outdoors only. It was still not allowed to go into other people's homes at all. The government shortly after this put out on the government website some "Christmas Rules". We were told that we could bubble with 2 other households along with our own household to make a bubble of 3 families. Daniel's mum is apart of our support bubble as she lives on her own so she and ourselves were counted as one. So we had ourselves, Daniel's brother's family and Daniel's dad and other brother as our bubble. There's no winning when making these decisions as someone is always going to miss seeing their children or grandchildren, so it was quite difficult. They allowed that you could still meet in a group of 6 outdoors to allow people to see other family members as well. The Christmas bubble was really more for meeting indoors and it was set to be from December 23-27.

Naturally, we all planned our holiday festive activities around those dates and trying to see each other as much as possible. Wine night one night, cookie baking the next, Xmas eve Dinner, Xmas, Boxing Day, etc. We had split our time with each other across those days. 

To all of our surprise, the Prime Minister Came on the Television 6 days prior to Xmas. He gave us all the news that there is a new strain/variant to the coronavirus in the UK and it was causing people to be much sicker. Because of this he made certain areas of the country Tier 4. Meaning, everything shut down again in those areas that were not essential, no traveling into or out of those areas, and no Christmas bubbles for those areas at all. This was the Sunday prior to Xmas. A lot of people were in the process of traveling to see family, packing their bags, on their way there. They were all asked to unpack and stay/return home. We were fortunate in the way that our town did not go into Tier 4, very fortunate as a town 1 hour from us did.  The Prime Minister also announced that all Christmas plans that were for Dec 23-27 were cancelled and that you could enter each others homes on Christmas Day only. This was only if you were not in Tier 4 area as well. This was also if your bubbles were also not in Tier 4 areas. 

As we are all in the same town, we did get to proceed with seeing each other on Xmas day only. We quickly had to change plans where instead of seeing each other split across those two days, we needed to make a plan to try to see each other on Xmas. We made the quick decision to gather for buffet food at our home as we just had the most space for it. Thankfully, I had already planned for Xmas night to be a buffet at our home so I was pretty much set up for it. Everyone pitched in to bring food and drink and we all took turns on the oven. It ended up to possibly be the day we all needed. We had so looked forward to finally seeing everyone ever since we moved over. We had a lovely day full of food, laughs, games, and fun!

(I don't want people in the UK reading this to view us as being irresponsible for continuing to gather at our home. The two weeks leading up to Xmas, Daniel and I as well as others in the family went no where non essential. Daniel went to work and the store, didn't meet with friends (insert sad face) nor play football. I, myself, only went to the store and didn't take Emme to any play groups or play places indoors. We knew the risk we were taking by seeing each other and I feel we were all responsible to try to keep each other safe and not going places and doing things unnecessarily. If I had been a person working on the wards at his point, we would have chosen to not see any family members at all.)

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During these last couple weeks I started my new job. For those of you who have made fun of my new work uniform, guess what? This particular position allows for scrubs!!! By scrubs I mean  "surgical scrubs" like we have in USA,  but they're Ceil Blue for my position (rank and pay goes by color, my manager wears Navy Blue Scrubs). The scrubs are only needed if I need to go into the office for any reason, but I am able to work exclusively from home if I would like (which I do). My Trust (the hospital system) is the first one who has started their own Test & Trace system internally. For those in the USA, the Test and Trace is the system that is used here to Test people for COVID but also then tell them they have been around someone who is positive and therefor need to isolate. 

For example, you walk into a coffee shop (back when you were allowed to eat in there) and you order a piece of cake and a coffee. You get to the check out and right next to the card machine is a QRS code that you are to take a photo of and it takes you to your NHS APP on your phone that must be downloaded. It then lets the NHS Test & Trace know that you have been to Costa Coffee on this date at this time. Fast Forward to the end of the week, you get a text from the NHS T&T saying you came in contact with a positive person 6 days ago, and you need to isolate for X amount of days. Another example would be that you work at this Costa Coffee, you become positive, the NHS T&T will contact those that you went on lunch break with that day (unmasked/unventilated area), and tell them they need to isolate as they were around you. 

This is what we do, but we do it for the Trust workers only. We follow the staff within the Trust who are positive or have exposed other staff who then need to isolate/monitor symptoms. This all started with these take home COVID kits that staff get. They are to test themselves twice per week and report the results. The tests have been utilized more so for people who are asymptomatic and are taking their weekly tests and it comes back positive. Normally, those that have it lately, are having symptoms and therefore book in for what we call a PCR, which is the throat swab. We follow both cases. In fact if someone is positive on their home test, they then need to go get a PCR to confirm it as well. In all these people coming back positive, us Nurses on the team are calling them with their results, advising the isolation period, asking if they have been in contact with other staff members, and then calling them as well. It becomes quite a chain at times. We are also here for much needed support. We call these positive cases at 48 hours and at 5 days post positive test to make sure they are doing OK. We also are the ones that send email notification to their managers to confirm they do indeed need to be off. 

I know this isn't to do with my Pediatric back ground but I feel like with this pandemic I am still playing a part and getting to stay home and sort out our lives in this large transitional period. I am really grateful for this position and how much it has helped us in this move. I will likely start to pick up some shifts on the pediatric ward soon to just get some experience in the NHS and keep my skills up to date. 

To end with you, we are in Tier 4 now. We have been since the day after Christmas. I am trying not to let it get to me too much. I am seeing the impact COVID is having on so many people and I am happy to do my part in staying home. We are focusing on a No Spend January and I am planning to pick up a lot of overtime to help with this pandemic. 

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and plan to have a nice and safe New Year!

Vaccines should be happening over on my side of the pond very soon. Don't worry I haven't missed out, I think I know every single one of my Facebook friends who have received the vaccine! Just a question to leave you with, "If you didn't post about it, did it happen?" 

Haha just kidding my friends. I'm happy to see it, and I am happy and hopeful that we can declare science has won by NYE 2021 :)