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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

<strong> England has now officially come out of the one month lockdown</strong> it was in,<strong> but my county (Kent) is in the ‘Tier’ that denotes the highest level of precaution</strong> must still be taken - tier 3. This means that the last week of the semester, which was supposed to be in person classes, has to be online after all. I am going home in one week.<strong> The government has offered a travel window</strong> where university students were preferred to go home between the 3rd-9th of December but I am not going until the 11th as<strong> I had already booked a ticket that was non refundable</strong> and anyway if I had had to buy a ticket within this window of dates it would be £130 rather than £30 which is just too much of a difference. But even though I am going home a little bit after the window, it still leaves me<strong> two weeks to quarantine at home and then hopefully I will be fine to see my grandparents on Christmas</strong> as the one other family you can spend it with. Technically up to three households can unite for Christmas but<strong> this year for the first time in a decade we are keeping it small</strong> with just my parents, brother, me and my grandparents (who my parents are the carers for anyway). I am looking forward to a small Christmas. Last year we had a big one including a family friend who brought her very excitable and non-litter trained poodles. It nearly caused a big fight because my dad doesn’t like dogs and was furious the friend wouldn’t take them out enough to stop them excreting inside.<strong> Maybe it sounds bad but lockdown measures have been a convenient excuse to not be able to invite lots of people to Christmas as we would normally feel pressured to do.</strong> I think my dad in particular will have a lot happier of a time this year and get the Christmas he really wants.