THERE are very few benefits that come from your child being sent home from school and told to self-isolate. But as that is the position we now find ourselves in, I was determined to try and identify one.
Not having to do the school run is a bonus, I suppose. But the trade-off there is that I now have to entertain a gallus seven-year-old and also comply with her frequent demands for snacks during what should be a working day.
I don’t need to remember to pack fruit, water, reading books, playtime snacks and the kitchen sink in her bag each day, but I do have to order an emergency big food shop. If I run out of wine or she runs out of cheese and overpriced wee packets of raisins then we’re in for a bumpy time.
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But this is not my first rodeo. We’ve done months of lockdown and survived home schooling - 10 days of confinement should be a breeze in comparison to that.
But today, when I had to gently remind her that it was time to switch off Horrid Henry and switch on FMQs, I was met with immediate resistance and cries of "that’s not FAIR!"
"They just say words about politics and that is quite BORING for me."
Welcome to my world, kid.
Unaware of the trouble this whole exercise was causing me personally, questions to the First Minister got underway.
Anas Sarwar led on a report published by Audit Scotland which he said "laid out the truth" about PPE provision during the pandemic.
"It confirms that the Scottish Government was not prepared. I accept the specific challenges posed by Covid-19 may have been unique but a major pandemic was not unexpected."
He pointed to the three pandemic planning exercises undertaken since 2015 which made recommendations around PPE provision and he accused the Scottish Government of ignoring those recommendations.
Nicola Sturgeon said her government had done no such thing.
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"We acted on all of these reports but I’ve said before and I will say again: whether it’s on PPE or the response to previous exercises or any aspect of the pandemic, this government – in common with other governments all over the world - did not get everything right.
"At no point did we run out of PPE. Central stock, at times, were very low as they would have been in many countries, given the intense global demand."
At this point, my daughter began to sing passive-aggressively. Never before has Taylor Swift’s "Look What You Made Me Do" sounded quite so menacing.
I knew it was only a matter of time before she asked for something to eat. To be fair, it had been a whole 14 minutes since her last snack.
Sarwar shot back: "First Minister, you may not have run out of PPE on your spreadsheet but it ran out in our hospitals and our care settings. Ask the healthcare workers and they’ll tell you the truth."
Nicola Sturgeon said that if Anas Sarwar didn’t want to take her word for it, he should listen to a quote given by the Auditor General during a radio interview where he stated "we did not run out" of personal protective equipment.
"I’m actually STARVIN’!" bellowed the seven-year-old, right on cue.
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