It was quite a grey and overcast day today – the temperature was actually 2-3° higher than yesterday but there was a slight breeze to make you feel it was actually a bit cooler. We collected our newspapers and sat, as normal, in the park but we it was getting a little chilly so we were not inclined to linger for too long. I knew that the government were speaking about tightening up some of the rules surrounding how people behave in public and the following ‘guidance’ (which probably does not have the force of law) came today.

Mr Zahawi ( the minister in charge of vaccinations) highlighted people failing to wear masks or obey one-way lanes inside supermarkets.“These rules are not boundaries to be pushed at, these are rules that help all of us, hopefully bring down the death rate.” Asked on Times Radio if people should avoid sitting on park benches, he said: “Don’t go out and sit or have that opportunity of social interaction, because you’re helping the virus and that’s what we want to avoid.”

So that puts us in a bit of a dilemma because we are in receipt of some advice, issued in the Spring lockdown, that a sit-down was quite permissible if taken in the context of a long walk (in any case three kilometres) On the other hand, we do not wish to give the impression that we are openly flouting rules and sitting on the park bench each day might give that impression. So we have decided for the next three or four weeks, ur until we get vaccinated, we will stand in the bandstand and a have a quick swig of coffee and perhaps some ‘small eats’ in our hand such as as a banana and a cereal bar. I think we are conscious of the fact that voters may be observing our behaviour and assuming that we are breaking rules although it is not at all clear that we are. This is part of the dilemma of interpreting general regulations and trying to act within the spirit of them if at all possible.

The government are evidently getting seriously concerned about how to deal with the rapidly worsening pandemic. In the spring lockdown, the numbers of people keeping indoors was very much more (and the number of key workers was defined as less than now.) We now have a situation, though, where the new variant of the virus is much more infectious than before, the numbers of key workers seems to have been expanded tremendously, some of the primary schools are about 25% full with vulnerable and key-workers’ children and the population as a whole after 10 months do not seem to be taking things as seriously as they once did. Hence it is no surprise that the number of new infections is rocketing and the hospitals, particularly in London, are on the point of collapse. A vaccine will only give partial protection and is, by no means, a ‘magic bullet’ as the full immunity will not be released until the second dose is administered some 12 weeks later (and then a further 2-3 weeks on top of that) The government is rolling out vaccination centres across several points even including a race course such as Epsom) but I do wonder whether there are sufficient staff, even when assisted by volunteers, to get the jab adminsistered. In my mind, I am writing off ‘the call’ for a vaccination for some 3 weeks from now which is when I reckon the 80’s year olds have been done and they move on to the 75+ into which category I fall. 

The news from America also makes some fairly grim reading. The FBI are warning that there could be fifty armed protests in State capital cities as well as in Washington, DC on inauguration day. The Democrats have drawn up articles of impeachment and that will almostcertainly pass through the House of Wednesday., There would not be enough time for the Senate, who act as jury, to one to a consideration before inauguration day. The Democrats, though, seem to be working on the assumption that Donald Trump’s wings have been clipped in the short term and he may not try anything dramatic in the next 10-12 days – but who knows? The Democrats may well wait for at least ‘100 days in office’ before the papers of impeachment are lodged with the Senate. In any case, President Trump will be the only president who has been impeached twice within his term of office. If the Senate (augmented, of course, by some more Democratic senators from Georgia) might just vote for a conviction, although this is a little unlikely and would debar Trump for running for office again. The thing that is really disturbing after the events in the Capitol last week is the number of Republican legislators (about a hundred) who still support Trump even after the attempted coup – and perhaps some 40% of American republican voters are still loyal to him as well.

So the day 300 of this blog has actually arrived – it will only be a couple of months until we have completed a year of these musings. Today was a fairly typical Sunday in that I went off in the car to collect the Sunday newspapers before returning to get my weekly ration of the Andrew Marr show. Evidently, with the looming crisis in the hospitals and the fact that the pandemic is almost poised to overtake this, this was the major focus of the discussion. I did, however, think they might have spared some 5-10 minutes discussing the developments in America, considering that we claim to have a ‘special relationship’ with the Americans. Actually, although we claim to have a   ‘special relationship’ with the Americans, they never seem to claim the same in reverse. I suppose the last time that the Capital Building was invaded and even set on fire was by the British in 1814. Apparently, the the ensuing fire reduced all but one of the capital city’s major public buildings to smoking rubble, and only a torrential rainstorm saved the Capitol from complete destruction. Also destroyed was their collection of special books and manuscripts from the Library of Congress – the Americans have regarded the Capitol building in which both the House of Representatives and the Senate meet as an almost ‘sacred’ place and hence the sense of violation after the events of last Thursday night were felt only too keenly. I read a most interesting article on the American FiveThirtyEight website which argued, very persuasively, that the storming of the US Capitol was not just a protest against a so-called ‘stolen ‘election or a simple manifestation of the president’s lies about the integrity of his defeat. Rather the whole article argues that like so much of American politics, this insurrection was fundamentally about race, racism, and the white American’s stubborn commitment to white dominance (and hence the Confederacy flags that were borne aloft) no matter what the cost or the consequence. As can be seen from the video footage which is plentiful, the mob of rioters carried Confederate flags, hung nooses, and paraded white supremacist symbols as they violently breached the Capitol. I mention all of this because, strangely, it does not get reported as such in the British media. The British media tend to say things such as ‘Donald Trump’s supporters, emboldened by the words of the President’ etc. etc. and not phrases such as ‘a white supremacist, racist mob invaded the Capitol intent on murdering Speaker Nancy Pelosi if they had happened to come across her‘ It is interesting that the secret service made sure that Vice-President Pence was led away to a place of his safety to protect him from the mob after he refused to accede Trump’s request to nullify the election. It is especially interesting that the members of the British Conservative party who had had snuggled up close to Donald Trump just after his election (but before Brexit) were keeping their mouths firmly shut at the moment. 

In the park, we did not meet any of our usual gaggle of acquaintances but still got approached by all of the local un-leashed dogs, suspecting that a tasty titbit might come their way (although I doubt that oranges and chocolate biscuits would do them any good, even if it was offered). We did get into conversation with a lady who at the time of the initial lockdown in the Spring was actually in Portugal. Her opinion was that the Portuguese police handled their function pretty well being firm whilst polite and it was quite a marked contrast to the British police who’s presence has hardly been felt at all (near to where we live, anyway). We thought we were going to have a special lunch of roast partridge, bought recently from Waitrose. But when we got it out it out of its packaging and were preparing to put into a roaster bag, it did smell somewhat ‘off’. So we immediately threw the whole of it away, not particularly wishing to get a dose of salmonella and being stuck in an A&E department for hours? days? on a trolley whilst the pandemic is at its height. I spent some time this afternoon locating chargers for my trusted air of Nokia 1100 phones. Just out of interest, I looked up some of the specifications and reviews for the Nokia 1100 and its variants. It holds the record for being the biggest selling  phone of all time. having sold some 250 million units – it had a talk time of about 3 hours and a standby time of some 350-400 hours, which is way over a fortnight!

Today has been an interesting day! It started off in a very conventional way as we walked down to collect our newspapers (saved for us behind the counter at our friendly local newsagents!) We then made our way to the park where we met up with our new found friend that we met the other day (an academic who taught OR [Operations Research] at Birmingham University) We had just about finished our chat for the day, social distancing well maintained, when we saw a group entering the park armed with a powerful portable loudspeaker and with a message to spread. This collection of individuals was declaiming that the whole of COVID-19 was a myth, that the vaccine was an abomination against nature, that the lockdown was fundamentally a fraud to deprive us of our liberties and similar scientifically illiterate utterings. If they had come anywhere near me, I would have had a real go at them for being (a) scientifically illiterate and (b) a positive danger to their fellow citizens if they were dissuading them from accepting the vaccine if offered. As it happened, the group turned off at a tangent with a massively amplified message broadcast across the park. We were on the point of leaving but as we did a couple of police cars turned up and two youngish but seemingly well-prepared police officers emerged (not your average ‘plod’) I approached them to report what I had seen and they quickly reassured me that they knew all about the ‘vaccine deniers’ and were on their way to deal with it.

On my way home, I reflected to myself (and to some of our old friends that we met on the way home) whether what we had seen was just the exercise of free speech or whether a threat to public order was in the making. Of course it is often argued that ‘your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins‘ or, to put it another way, given that all freedoms have to be exercised responsibly that one is not free to shout ‘FIRE’ as a member of a theatre audience. I suspect, but do not know, that the group may well have breaking local authority bye-laws particularly as they had been targeting a park. Would they have been equally free to spout the same rubbish up and down Bromsgrove High Street, I asked myself. I did wonder where the motivation of the group came from i.e. was it religious or political? I did a quick Google search and think that I MAY have some of the explanation. It is apparently the case that many climate-change deniers have now turned their attention to the pandemic, arguing in each case that a massive hoax is being perpetrated upon the great British public. This is what I discovered using on a very rapid search of the internet:

In the UK, one of the most prominent voices questioning the science of COVID-19 has been astrophysicist Piers Corbyn (the elder brother of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn). In 2020, Piers Corbyn attended and organised demonstrations across the UK and argued the pandemic is a “pack of lies.” 

Corbyn has long rejected mainstream climate science as “fraud,” and has pushed alternative theories of global warming, based on analysis of the sun’s activity, through his company WeatherAction

Of course, it is possible that I am completely barking up the wrong tree at this point and that a more careful and analytical search might reveal a much more complex story. However, the fact that groups might have switched their attention from ‘climate change’ to something much more current which touches everybody’s life such as the pandemic does have a superficial plausibility to it. If conventional journalism or the Main Street Media pick up on these or similar stories then it would be interesting to know. In particular, is it just a Bromsgrove phenomenon or part of a larger nationally organised protest? I do suspect the latter, by the way.

And now to more prosaic matters. As part of my pre-Christmas rummaging about, I discovered a couple of old Nokia 1100/1101 mobile phones that I have not used for about a year. I always used to take one or both of them away with me on holiday because whilst I was struggling, on occasions, to get my iPhone to recognise the hotel’s Wi-Fi networks and protocols, I used to switch on my little mobile which would show a message ‘Welcome to Spain‘  One of them had about £70 of credit left on it (well worth preserving) whilst in the other the SIM card no longer registered, for whatever reason. So I sent off to Tesco mobile for a free Sim replacement (Tesco tend to have a policy of keeping your sim alive rather than ‘killing it’ after six months of inactivity as some networks do) So I spent the afternoon fitting the SIM card (a few seconds) and then spent some time getting some credit on it of a type that would not expire in a month (which is typically the case) As the technology is so simple (ante-dating smart phones and just monochrome screens with block graphics – but the talk time and charge time lasts for at least a week if not more) My efforts were crowned with success and one of the phones is now destined for the glove compartment of the car as a permanent ‘carry around’.

Today was one of those ‘nothing much happened all day’ type of days. There had been a light scattering of snow overnight but nothing to trouble us on the pavements. Having collected our newspapers and trudging towards the park, though, it started snowing (fairly lightly) so we did not tarry excessively but drank our coffee and headed homewards. Today was the day that our domestic help comes to help so it was great to see her again after the excitement of Christmas and New Year – we chatted away excitedly about the kind of Christmas we had both had but, of course, we have to be particularly careful to keep a fair distance between all of us. We worked out little culinary treats that we are going to do for each other – whenever, I have some curry left over (which is nearly always) a save a bit extra for her and similarly she was to cook for us one of her specialist lasagne which, no doubt, will be streets ahead of anything you can buy or eat in a restaurant.

We had a fish dinner today (some pieces of cod which I found in an obscure part of the freezer that I had forgotten all about). We tart it up a bit by making a specialised little piece of hot sauce (equal elements of Thousand Island dressing, mayonnaise and tomato sauce heated up for a minute in the microwave) and it works a treat. We try the same dressing, incidentally, to make the fishcakes we tend to have once a week slightly more interesting.

Watching the rolling news programmes, it was amazing to see Donald Trump in something like a contrite mood and formally conceding the election as well as promising an orderly transfer of power. It is fairly evident to us what is going on. There is now a real possibility of being drummed out of office either via the 25th Amendment procedure or via another impeachment. It looks as though Trump is now seriously fighting for his political life and hence the strange spectacle of him reading out a statement condemning the rioters (that he had previously egged on) and indicating that the offenders would be prosecuted (but is anyone going to ‘shop’ them to the FBI?) It appears that some 4-5 people have actually lost their lives during this storming of the Capitol building. My son showed me something he had seen on social media that I had not been able to verify concerning how one of the rioters had lost their lives. After being photographed brandishing a couple of rifles in the air, he attempted to steal a picture from one of the walls. In the course of wrenching it off, he had discharged a taser which he was carrying into his own scrotum – in the subsequent distress he had inflicted upon himself, he had suffered a heart attack from which he died.  I do not know if this story is correct but, if it is, it gives an extra twist to the meaning of the German word ‘schadenfreude’ which means malicious delight in another person’s misfortune.

The COVID-19 news tonight is truly frightful. In the last 24 hours, there have been 1325 deaths recorded and 68,000 new infections. Of these statistics, the ‘new infection’ rate is always going to be the most important because a proportion of these are destined to become hospital in-patients – if there is any room left in the hospitals. The hospitals in London are at breaking point and the London Mayor has declared that the state of the London hospitals is now a ‘major incident’. As so many commentators are now saying, it really is a race between trying to get as many of the elderly and vulnerable vaccinated before the middle of February and the fact that the hospitals, already at breaking point, are going to have to cope somehow with an intake that seems to be increasing more than their discharge date day by day. Once the wards are full, the A&E corridor space is full with trollies and the ambulances outside are full, then what is to be done? The government is so worried about the next few weeks that they are going to start a major advertising campaign that members of the population should act as they are already infected by the virus and should keep to social distancing religiously – something that even a casual observation in the streets shows is not happening. Another source of worry is that a recent survey has shown that many people think they once they have been vaccinated, then many restrictions may be eased. It could be that ‘easing of restrictions prematurely’ will exceed the benefits to be derived from the vaccination itself which willingly prolong the misery for all of us.

Today was a very incredibly frosty day with the weather at about -4 degrees and with quite a misty freezing fog over the whole of the area. We had our Waitrose shopping order delivered an hour later than usual which we think will fit our timetables a little better – but by the time we got everything put away, our walk down the hill was delayed somewhat. We made  our way a little gingerly but, in truth, the pavements were not especially icy or slippery. I am tempted to say that the weather was ‘cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey‘ which I always thought was actually a nautical term derived from the old sailing ships. The iron cannon balls were stocked in a pyramid on a brass plate (called a ‘monkey‘) and when the weather was very cold the differential rate of contraction between the iron and the brass was sufficient to give the pyramid a minute nudge and this caused the balls to fall off. However, in all honesty, I did find an internet source that comprehensively rubbished the whole of this explanation, including the fact that iron cannon balls were never even stored on a brass plate in the first place. Nonetheless, I think I will hang onto the first explanation…We collected our newspapers and ate our comestibles on a frozen park bench but the park was practically deserted. We did notice, though, that as the weather conditions seemed extreme, everybody we passed seemed exceptionally jolly. Is just the British tendency to smile in the face of adversity?  Whilst we were in the park, we received the very sad news (via a WhatsApp message) that Don Mariano Baena one of our oldest Spanish friends had died. In his younger days he had helped to frame the Spanish Constitution and then became the Head of the Department of Public Administration at the Complutense University of Madrid which is how we came to know him. Later he returned to the Supreme Court but he was under the constant threat of death from ETA – the Spanish terrorist group. This was not an idle threat as several of his colleagues had been assassinated. As Mariano was aged about 90 and had had a stroke, we did have the inevitable pang of sadness but also a feeling that Mariano might well be in a better place (he was a fervent Catholic)

When we got home, we treated ourself to a nice hot curry – a dish we often prepare on a Thursday but one that seemed to be especially called for. We particularly wanted to settle down in front of the rolling news programmes to see the sequelae of yesterday – no doubt, the American nation as in 9-11 will be full of a period of introspection asking themselves ‘How did we allow this to happen?‘ Three particular things are starting to stand out in the cold light of day. Firstly if this was not a coup, then it surely was an insurrection as Trump had urged his supporters on to virtually occupy the Capitol building. Secondly, many, many contrasts are being made between the way in way in which the Black Lives Matter protest outside the Capitol was handled. On that occasion, the National Guard were all protected to the hilt and several peaceful protestors were violently manhandled and even arrested. Meanwhile, the mob yesterday were allowed to roam over the building and were even escorted out with perhaps many not being even arrested or charged. I think the number of arrests is about 60 out of a crowd which at the preceding rally was numbered in thousands and many of them joined in the storming of the Capitol. The FBI are now appealing for video evidence and anything that might identify them. [Why did the police when reinforced by the National Guard not lock the building, handcuff everybody with plastic ties, put them in a secure location such as an army barracks nearby, try them in a specially convened court this morning and then keep them locked up for about two weeks until the inauguration was over? The suspicion remains that if they black, this would almost certainly have happened) Thirdly, there is now acrive consideration of the ways in which Trump could be removed from office immediately before he could inflict God knows what damage in the few days remaining.One possibility is Amendment 25 to the Constitution (the Vice President and the majority of the Cabinet with a quorum of 8) could declare the President ‘incapable’ and the Vice President could take over. Another possibility is impeachment which requites a two thirds vote in the Senate as as well as a resolution in the House of Representatives. This vote would pass through the lower house and then could pass through the new Senate if all of the Democrats and one sixth of the Republican senators (to give a two thirds majority) voted for it. This could be passed in one day, given the video evidence. I doubt, though, that either will happen but these are are unprecedented times. I always thought that a coup from the right was much more likely in the USA and the UK than a coup from the left and, of course in the UK, Boris Johnson tried to prorogue Parliament to prevent further debate before Brexit.The German government recalled that Hitler had arranged for the Reichstag to be burnt down before coming to power ‘democratically’!

Today was quite a fine bright day but we were somewhat delayed whilst I updated my Waitrose order this morning (a job for every Wednesday morning for the foreseeable future). We collected our newspapers and made our way to one of our two favourite seats overlooking the boating lake? duck pond? which is a feature of our local park. On one of our customary benches, we struck up a conversation with a chap we recognised from our past ventures in the park. We started off our chat with each other by comparing our (very similar) stainless steel thermos flasks – and then the state of our walking boots! One thing led to another and we discovered that we had quite a lot in common as our new found friend had recently retired as a lecturer from the University of Birmingham. As it happened, I had with me in my wallet some details of my email, websites etc. so I handed one of these over so that we could keep in touch by email, if we wanted. We promised ourselves a beer together when the circumstances allow – which may be months off yet but it is always nice to have something to which to look forward. We were a little late home and we had to have a fairly swift midday meal because we had a video call scheduled with one of Meg’s therapists in the early afternoon. We got the video call up and running after an initial hitch and then had an interesting and fruitful conversation which took us up to our afternoon teatime.

In the middle of the night, I was following the election results from the two Senate races in Georgia. These are absolutely critical because were the Democrats to win the two seats, then the Senate would be effectively tied at 50:50. However, in the event of a tie, the Vice President automatically has the casting vote and as the VP elect is Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s VP elect, then ‘de facto’ control of the Senate passes from the Republicans to the Democrats. This has enormous significance because, in the past, the Republican Senate majority had the ability to block any progressive legislation and Biden’s presidency would have been ‘cut off at the knees’ at the start. But with control of the Senate, as well as the House of Representatives, then President-elect Biden has the opportunity to press on with such issues as the fight against the COVID-19 virus, the measures to pursue a green agenda to combat climate change and so on. I was following the election detail by detail as the various counties in Georgia reported and I found the websites of the New York Times and a political website called ‘FiveThirtyEight‘ particularly helpful and informative. These websites not only give up-to-date stats of the counts from the various counties as they are uploaded but also some expert and informed commentary. As I write, the Democrats have certainly won one of the seats and are within an ace of capturing the other one, with 98% of the vote counted and the remaining vote to be delivered from areas that were largely black (in or around Atlanta ) and likely 85%-15% to split for the Democrats.

Tonight, as I started to blog, I got an intimation that Donald Trump’s supporters had stormed the Capital Building in which members of the Congress were trying to officially confirm the results of the election. I have to say never before have I watched TV news so open-mouthed as I saw the events in Washington DC unfold in front of me. Trump supporters had been all but encouraged to go and make their presence felt as they were protesting against what they thought was a stolen election. Donald Trump himself inflamed the crowd by suggesting that he had won by a landslide and the election was stolen from him by ‘false’ media and fraudulent Democrats! The very latest news that I have is that 1100 members of the  National Guard (i.e. the military) have been sent in to support the local police together with an additional 200 members from Virginia. As Trump supporters almost to a man are armed to the teeth and evidently so are the National Guard then as the hours unfold it is possible that we see an armed shootout within the Capitol building. Members of the Trump mob can be seen wandering through the Rotunda and the New York Times have just published a photo of Nancy Pelosi’s (Democrat ‘Speaker’ of the House of Representatives) office being ransacked with a Trump ‘supporter’ replete with Stars and Stripes and his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. The rest of the world is watching in amazement as ‘American democracy effecting the transition from one president to the next’ is beamed throughout the world. Is the end of Trumpism? Or will it completely fracture the Republican Party between Trump supporters and traditional Republicans who are absolutely horrified by what they see?

Today started off with a fairly clear sky which indicated that we might have quite a fine day today. It is going to be interesting to observe how closely the impending 3rd lockdown will be observed today which was only announced by Boris Johnson at 8pm yesterday evening. In law, the lockdown only starts at a minute past midnight on Wednesday morning but we were being encouraged to start the lockdown straight away. As it turned out, the day turned out to be a comparatively ‘normal’ day. The volume and validity of the traffic seemed to be no different to any other day and we made our way to our newspaper shop, wondering whether this was to be classed as an essential service and was therefore going to keep open during the lockdown. We joked with the shopkeepers that the shop was evidently an essential service to the public as it sold both chocolate and wine (as well as newspapers). We then made our way to the park which had slightly more than its normal complement of children – Meg and I surmised that they had probably been informed (by text message) that the school was closed (or at least ‘not open’ for the majority of children) and hence they had come to the park to amuse themselves and/or let off steam. We ate our comestibles but an icy wind developed so we were glad to get going and into some pale winter sunshine. On our way back up the hill, we bumped into some of our oldest friends who were having some problems with the water supply into their property and the water board was there with a ‘gizmo’ which detects the presence of water underground. I have no idea how these detection devices work, by the way, unless it is by the means of some ground-penetrating radar or a similar technology. Whilst we were chatting, I gave them the jar of compôte I had been carrying around with me for a day or so now and I hope that it hasn’t gone ‘off’ before they have a chance to enjoy it.

We had no particular plans for this afternoon and intended to have a fairly easy afternoon. I was pleased to receive my fairly large parcel of address labels which I only order once every few years. I tend to buy them 1,000 at a time and they last for many years but at Christmas time, I tend to use them up in great quantity as I always stick a spare label in each Christmas card I send so that I know that th recipients have our latest contact details. On this occasion, I did take the opportunity of squeezing the lines of text a little so that I could include my mobile access number as well as our landline. However, I find that today there are a variety of other electronic-type addresses that you sometimes wish to convey which will not fit onto a conventional address label. So I am treating myself to an additional set of labels which I shall use sparingly which contains details of my mobile, email, website homepage and a couple of blog addresses (WordPress version and a text-based alternative). This afternoon, I took some time to hunt out our official NHS numbers which I intend to keep easily accessible as I may need them both in the fairly nature future. When we were chatting about the availability of the vaccine which we hope will be offered to us within the next 4-5 weeks, it is quite important that we have our NHS numbers easily available. It is evident (to us) that before we can receive any vaccine, those responsible for the vaccination will have to link onto our NHS records so that our eligibility can be confirmed. At the same time, once we receive our vaccinations, it is evident that our records will have to be updated and presumably the NHS number will act as link between the vaccinator’s own database and the rest of our NHS records. When you go to hospital and hand in a blood or urine sample, the nurse generally runes off a special label with the official patient details which can go onto the sample bottle. I typically ask the nurse if they will run off one or two spares and these ‘official’ labels can then go into my diaries and the like. In my own case, I had a spare label so I was catered for. In Meg’s case, I hunted through some old medical records and discovered a letter inviting her to a radiology appointment some ten years before but this letter contained details of name, address, date of birth and NHS number. These I managed to seal into a self laminating pouch so that means that I now have to hand both my own and Meg’s NHS numbers for when the vaccination call eventually comes. I am anticipating that I may be called in for a vaccine jab within some five or six weeks but we shall have to wait and see.

In the late afternoon, we were going to FaceTime some of our ex-Waitrose friends by prior arrangement but the Prime Minister was due to make a special broadcast so we watched this- complete with the news that something like 2% of the UK population is/has been infected with the COVID-19 virus which is quite a sobering thought. After this, we had a good long hour and a half chat with our friends before we settled down to a light supper of rice pudding plus our own special damson compôte (which was delicious).

Today was somewhat overcast and chilly but no snow was immediately in prospect. The cold spell is going to last a few more days yet but we are relieved not to wake up to a further dump of snow.  So we conducted our normal walk, picking up our newspapers and making our way to the park which was not particularly busy. We had our elevenses and walked home without bumping into anyone although I am carrying a spare bottle of damson gin plus a jar of compôte in case we happened to meet with anyone who might be the recipients of further gifts. After lunch, we read our newspapers and listened to some of the rolling news programmes – the Scots are going for something approaching a full lockdown to cope with the COVID-19 crisis so it is a matter of speculation how far behind we will happen to be.

Earlier in the day we had a message from some of our near neighbours in Hampshire when all of the family were going to be at home and therefore accessible to a FaceTime webinar. We arranged  a time in the late afternoon when we could all coincide – and we are looking forward to that as we have not seen the younger members of the family for about ten years now and with the passage of time they have got their GCSE’s and ‘A’-levels and graduated from their respective universities. But before then, we Skyped some of our Oxfordshire friends and had a good chat about events that had happened to us both over the Christmas period (which we were both glad to have behind us) as well as matters much more philosophical. We parted saying that we should Skype again in a fortnight or so, which we certainly shall. No sooner had this call ended before we repaired to our iPad which is a better technology for us to make and receive FaceTime calls. It was wonderful to chat whilst we were brought up-to-date on what each individual members of the family was doing – principally, their work life after graduation. The son of the family was shortly to leave to go and work in London – the last time we saw him he was actually the first questioner in an edition of Question Time which happened to come from Cardiff University. The daughter of the family was living locally but under a bubble arrangement could come home to work remotely (as though going to the office!). The family had lost their family dog over the years but acquired another, bear-like looking dog which, if my memory serves me correctly was a cockapoodle (or a mixture of a cocker spaniel and a poodle) or a similar mixture.There are not many occasions in which all of the family would be together ‘en famille‘ so we were pleased to seize the opportunity for a FaceTime chat whilst we could.

Tonight there is going to be a broadcast from Bosis Johnson to the nation so it is fairly evident that something approaching a new lockdown is imminent. The important question about which there is speculation before the broadcast is whether schools are to be involved in the lockdown (like last spring) or not. I am continuing the blog  few minutes after the broadcast so now some of the details have been filled in. It now seems that the lockdown will be total i.e. like last spring, but essential and key workers will still travel to work and continue to work, Really significant change, for all of us, is that the lockdown will stay in place until mid-February at the very earliest. The political commentators are suggesting that Boris Johnson did not sound at all confident that even some of the most stringent measures could be lifted after mid-February. In other words, the lockdown will last at six weeks and probably for a fair amount of time after that. The provisions will come into effect from midnight tonight but will become law on Wednesday (presumably after Parliament has approved the emergence legislation). People will be allowed to leave the house for essential shopping and exercise (once per day) but all social contact has to be minimised. In the case of the schools, children in general will be asked not to attend school but to engage in distant leaning whilst they can. But, as we have discovered this evening, the list of ‘essential’ and ‘key’ workers is long and complex and schools are meant to operationalise this sounds like a logistical nightmare. For example, is a parent living on a one room flat turns up with a child and claim a ‘carer’ status, what element of proof will have to be supplied to the school to work out whether a child is eligible to return to school or not? As I write, the senior staff in schools are frantically trying to work out how all of this going to work but it sounds as though the next few days are going to be particularly fraught at the school gates (or when the school is telephoned, if nobody can get through, of course, on over-whelmed phone lines)

Last night there had been a scattering of snow so I wondered how deep it would prove to be this morning. As it happened, the snow was quite thinly scattered on an underlay of slush – I walked down in my ‘old’ boots thinking that a deep covering of snow might not do my new ones any good but in the event I did not need to worry. After I collected my newspapers, I was walking upon along the road (safer than the pavement!) when I got into a conversation with a lady cleaning the snow off her car. As our conversation progressed from one topic to another, it transpired that she was an evangelical christian and so we started to discuss some interesting points of theology e.g. in the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ the phrase ‘Lead us not into temptation’ in the Latin is ‘ne nos inducas in tentationem’ which could be translated as ‘let us not fall into temptation‘ which is subtly different. There is a massive theological debate in all of this in which the present Pope had expressed his view but time and space to do permit us to enter in the the intricacies of this debate just now. This all made me a little late for the Andrew Marr show but I was quite happy to miss a few minutes of Boris Johnson who was on the show this morning (complete with ruffled hair)

Meg and I made our usual trip to the park (the trip being foreshortened as the papers had already been collected) and we sat on a dry park bench to have our elevenses. As always, we were passed as we sat by the normal collection of young children on their scooters and dog walkers with their unleashed dogs (the latter always approach us thinking that some food might be in the offing, which of course, it never is) After we got home, we discovered that the lamb pieces that we had in a kind of stew and cooking throughout the morning was almost burnt to a cinder. However, I managed to resurrect it with some onion gravy and, in the event, we had quite a nice dinner. The afternoon was devoted to a long and lazy reading of the Sunday newspapers in which the two major topics of the day (the worsening COVID-19 crisis and the full implications of our exit from the EU now that we had a minimal trade agreement in place) were well and truly analysed.

In the early evening, we got into contact with our friends in Spain who were now in a happier state of mind as their daughter who is at university in Madrid has tested negative for the virus and subsequently has been allowed to go home to see her parents for ‘Reyes‘. (‘Reyes‘ literally when translated from the Spanish is ‘kings’ and is the day in Spain when children will traditionally receive the presents from their parents and friends). They might have opened a little present on on Christmas Day itself but ‘Reyes‘ which we know as the feast of the Epiphany is that day when major presents are given and received. In small fishing communities, the ‘Kings’ will arrive by fishing boat whilst on some of the islands such as Tenerife they might actually arrive by camel – all of this adds to the sense of veracity to impress the younger children.

The COVID-19 news continues to be terrible with new infections again at 55,000 and the number of deaths 454. Boris Johnson is insisting that schools are safe for pupils (probably true) and for teachers (probably untrue). Some teachers at the suggestion of their union are sending in letters indicating that they are not prepared to work unless the school can guarantee that they are entering a safe place of work. Even Boris Johnson is saying that further restrictions may need to be applied ‘in the weeks ahead’.  Meanwhile, Keir Starmer (the leader of the Labour Party) is calling for an immediate national lockdown (similar to that experienced in the spring) and his argument is that the government is always doing doing too little, too late and we should attempt to be ‘ahead’ of the curve and not always behind it. If the virus continues to infect at the present rate, then perhaps the only solution may be another national lockdown. Some senior Tories (but not the government) are arguing that all children should be kept out of school until half-term (towards the middle of February). The situation is fast moving and it will be interesting to see if schools actually do reopen next week or whether the absence of teachers may force a ‘de facto’ closure. It may be that schools find themselves in an almost impossible situation and the headteachers and school authorities may have to cope with whatever complex situation confronts them when the schools actually resume next week.

Today was one of those kinds of days when you were not sure whether it was going to stay fairly quiet on the weather front or indeed even rain or sleet or snow. Nonetheless, we decided to venture forth and although there was a slight flurry of snowflakes, we felt it was nothing to bother us much.  After we had collected our supply of Saturday newspapers, the weather worsened a little but we thought we would make for the bandstand where we were, at least, sheltered from the rain. Our intention was to drink our coffee and immediately make our way home. Also sheltering in the bandstand was a man we had recognised from some months in the park when we were occupying adjacent park benches. Our fellow park visitor had lived for a lot of his life in South Africa but we spent some time discussing how COVID-19 had implications for people of our age and generation. We shared a similar outlook wondering what the views of the medics might be if they had to make ‘life-and-death’ decisions in the dire event that we were struck by the virus and hospitalised. Would the medics apply a ‘Triage‘ system i.e. only bother to give intervention to those who they had a chance of saving given scarce resources (critical care beds, specialised nursing staff, ventilators) and how would we both fare if a medic was poised over us with a ‘tick-list’ and whether we would be offered any life-saving treatment or not. After these macabre thoughts, we started to discuss racism  (particularly in the context of Southern Africa) as our park friend revealed that he was one eighth Sri Lankan and we laughed over the notions of there being such a thing as a ‘pure’ race, white or otherwise. This proved to be an entertaining twenty minutes or so, after which the weather was starting to close in on us and we made for home. However, there was no biting cold wind and the pavements seemed quite sound underfoot.

After a lunch of curry, we decided as a household to remove our Christmas decorations, the principal job being to ‘undress’ the Christmas tree and then carefully disentangle the electrics and store carefully the fragile ornaments. Now we came to disposing of the tree because on the way in, the tree was protected by a type of netting which was evidently removed once we got it inside the house. When we do things in reverse, we snip off some of the smaller branches to make the whole tree slimmer and capable of being taken outside without damage to anywhere. Then I set to work with my trusty bowsaw, inherited from Meg’s parents which is particularly well suited to tree pruning activities. The tree got divided into three largish chunks which will then fit into some garden rubble sacks and thence into the boot of the car without much more ado. We then gave the car a spin (to get rid of the snow lying on its roof) as far as our local garden centre which accepts back the trees you have bought from them and recycles them. After that, it was a relatively simple job to remove the decorations, take down the Christmas cards (which we will give one last read) and pack up our little fibre-optic Christmas tree and crib. I must say it is good to get rid of all the Christmas clutter once you are well and truly into the New Year but there is always a feeling that the livings rooms look a little denuded after them – and of course, the Christmas tree which used to illuminate a corner of our communal hall is now no more.

An interesting situation has now arisen since the Government’s latest U-turn which has resulted in all of London’s primary schools being closed (although still ‘open’ for looked-after children, children at risk and the children of key workers). A leading union has said that staff at schools have a legal right not to return to classrooms due to the spread of COVID, while another has started legal proceedings against the Department for Education. This raises the interesting question of whether schools can be regarded as safe places in which to work. although the government is desperate to keep schools as ‘open’ as possible. But in the face of infection rates that are soaring, is it sensible for school children of any age to return to school and whilst not becoming ill themselves may play a part in transmitting the virus to older generations? The interesting question about a legal challenge is that the government may be forced in any legal action to display the reasoning that has led to some primary schools being ‘closed’ whilst others remain open despite the fact that the local risk factors appear to be similar. it will be interesting to see how this plays out – a fortnight’s delay in returning to school for all school children may buy us a little bit of time and, perhaps, allow more time to have adequate testing facilities to be installed within the schools.