Well today the shortest day and longest night is now upon us. The technical moment was 15.58 this afternoon so we are now moving away from the period of maxiumum darkness. The coldest day is often in the middle of February, however, so we can expect to shiver for a few weeks yet. Once Christmas and the New Year are out of the way so to speak, one can observe that the days are lightening just a smidgeon but, of course, there is a lot of the winter to go yet. I always wonder how our primitive forebears managed with formal calendars to mark out exactly when the winter solstice occurs. Of course, if you go into the intricacies of Stonehenge, then it does appear that the Winter Solstice was marked when the sun’s rays appared at a particular point between two of the uprights. We also know from quite recent archeological evidence that a huge quantity of pig and cattle bones were found near Stonehenge and these animals may well have been born 9 months before and reared so that they could be slaughtered in good time for the winter feasting and celebrations. On a more serious note, our ancestors might have needed the exact date of the solstice so that they could plan when to plant their crops, rear their animals and the like. Christianity grafted itself onto these traditions. The very earliest Christians did not celebrate Christmas but about 200 AD the date of Christmas was assumed to be January 6th. But as earlier Egyptian source celebrated the solstice often representing it as the birth of an infant child, so the early Church Fathers realigned Christmas to be coincide with the date of the earlier pagan festivals – and hence December 25th.

This morning, I busied myself putting some labels on the bottles of damson gin and then wrapping them up (crudely) in Christmas wrapping paper and then writing a card to each of my Pilates class mates. Then as we were short of time, Meg and I made a lightning visit to the park by car and had a quick drink of our coffee before we raced back in time for me to make my Santa Claus decorations. I decided to wear my Santa Claus trousers underneath my tracksuit bottoms and may Santa Claus top underneath my normal shirt. Then I bundled my Santa Claus coat and hat into my hessian bag, complete with the gin, and set off for the class. As it popped down, I rehearsed the lines of my Sanata Claus ditty which I won’t repeat just now but it starts off with ‘I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus‘ and quickly progresses onto the birth of a baby Santa Claus who proceeds to get outrageously drunk on damson gin. By tradition, the very last five minutes of the Pilates class before Christmas is devoted to a period of relaxation. So I wait for a couple of minutes until I think everyone’s eyes are shut and then sneak out of the door to complete my transformation (which involved ripping off shirts and track suit bottoms in the foyer before I don my outer robes) Then in I pop, with excellent timing as the class were just being woken up and I exclaim  ‘My goodness, girls and boys – you have grown a lot in the last year‘  and I proceeded to sing my little ditty and distribute the gin – all in a socially distanced fashion of course and hence no Christmas hugs (Sigh!) But my fellow class members have been denied this spectacle last September so it is two years since I performed my act. I make sure that the reception staff and the owner of the clinic also receive their prezzies as well, so that is all over for another year. I must say that I was minded to walk down to the park on Christmas Day in my Santa Claus regalia but my son cautioned me out of this on the grounds that all of the little children in the park might rush towards me and would have to be severely disillusioned. I do agree with this analysis but I might don a Christmas hat at an appropriate point in our sojourn in the park – after all, one of my fellow Pilates class members came along with a pair of green antlers (which had to be removed before the exercises).

There is the whole of the Christmas grocery shopping yet to be done and I have known some horrendously busy supermarkets in the past. However, tomorrow I intend to be at the door of my local Waitrose store in Droitwich at 1 minute before opening time and then I shall have to have a good race around. Tomorrow evening, we are having our next door neighbours in for a Christmas drink so I can get well and truly provisioned in my shopping trip in the morning.

Today being Monday and the start of the week before Christmas, I started to get focused on what needed to be done in the next few days. The first thing on my mind was the location and condition of my ‘Santa Claus’ outfit which, by tradition, I deploy on the Tuesday before Christmas when members of my Pilates class exchange Christmas cards – and occasionally other goodies. With the things that you only use once a year, I had a rough idea of where my outfit was but fortunately I went straight to a cupboard from whence I could retrieve the required items stored in a Father Christmas style hessian sack. Instead of the considerable rigmarole of having to change in the toilet area of the Pilates studio, I am going to wear all of my gear underneath my Pilates clothes – then, at the requisite time after we have the ‘treat’ of a relaxation session, I ‘wake up’ half way through and complete my transformation. In the past, I have composed a little song  to the tune of ‘I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus’  but somehow the creative spirit has left me this year so I may give this a miss. The second tradition associated with my Pilates class is to make a present of a little bottle of our own bottled damson gin to each of my class mates. I knew that I didn’t have time to bottle any of this years but again, fortunately, the year before had been a bumper year so I just happened to have the exact number of small 200cc bottles of gin left over so this has saved me a bit of work. First thing in the morning, I need to wrap up each bottle in Christmas wrapping paper and write a little Christmas card for each person. All of this takes a certain amount of organisation but traditions must not be allowed to die. After getting all of this sorted out and the rest of the unpacking done, Meg and I were a little late in getting down into town today. It was a slightly chilly day but nothing that couldn’t be tolerated. We picked up our newspapers, called by Waitrose to pick up a few supplies and made our way to the park. One of our purchases at Waitrose was a copy of the Radio Times which we tend to buy only once a year at Christmas time so that we have a good guide to the programmes not to miss over the Christmas period. Whilst films at Christmas time are often used just to fill up the empty schedules, occasionally there is a real classic which is well worth watching (last year, for example, it was Casablanca which in black and white had a particular quality to it)    Although it was the first day of the Christmas vacations, there were hardly any children around and even the dog walkers were in short supply this morning so we were quite pleased to drink our coffee and head for home.The thing about doing walks in the summer is that often people are toddling around their front gardens and do not mind stopping for a chat but just before Christmas, no doubt we are all being driven crazy finding Christmas stuffing or its contemporary equivalent. 

One of the chores at Christmas time is the writing and sending of Christmas cards and I am always mightily relieved when this task is done. On the other hand, you have the undoubted pleasure of getting cards from friends and relatives and catching up on their news. We do tend to keep a tally in our heads of the peoiple from whom we have received cards if only because if we do not receive a card from one of our regulars, then we start to get a little concerned lest they be seriously ill – or even worse. However, the Christmas card list does have one set of macabre bonus. When I compiled it for the first time, I gave a copy of it to our son and daughter-in-law with the admonition that whever Meg and I died, this was to the the ‘people-to-be-contacted’ list. I say this because sometimes relatives have the task of sifting through old address books to try to discover old friends, current friends, now forgotten friends and so on. To have an up-to-date list is always useful but with the various amendments that take place from year to year, I must remind myself to give my heirs the up-to-date list this year.

Boris Johnson gave a Prime Ministerial broadcast today which I was glad to miss. Torn between the scientific community and medical experts on the one hand and the libertarian right of the Tory party (to whom any lockdowns are anathema) on the other, Boris decided to do – nothing! However, the situation is to kept ‘under constant review’ and could change at a moment’s notice. I think the ploy here is all too transparent – i.e. get Christmas Day and Boxing Day over and then go for a lockdown in all but name before the NHS is completely overwhelmed.

Today we were scheduled for departure from our stay at ‘The Crown‘ hotel in Harrogate. We both woke up relatively early and I always find it to be a much easier job to pack to come home rather than to pack when coming away. We got most of the job done in about an hour and a half and I transferred most of our ‘funeral’ clothes into the body of the car where they could be hung up without creasing. Breakfast ran a little later in the hotel at the weekends (so people could have a lie-in) and there were only two other couples in the dining room when we got down. At the end of our breakfast, we have a chat with our friendly waitor and then with two reception staff at the entrance to the dining room. We explained to them that we had had a very pleasant stay and may well be back and then shared some experieces of hotel work with them, based upon my earlier Old Swan experiences. As it turned out, the very blond female was from Poland and her older colleague was from Lithuania but if I had been forced to guess, I would have each coming from the other’s country. What was quite interesting was the lady from Lithuania and I agreed with each that  hotel work seemed very diffierent from other types of work and it was not unusual for people to have had a variety of jobs within the hotel. I recounted my experiences of starting my hotel life by washing dishes, then washing silver, then working in the still room, then washing glasses for the bar, finally working as a cocktail barman as well as some portering jobs (including night portering) and even a spell in the laundry.  The hotel worker from Lithuania, too, had done many different jobs in the hotel and this was actually quite common. I mentioned that the highlight of the Christmas proceedings occurred on Christmas Day lunch when the head chef donned his best (newly laundered) chef’s clothing and then a huge plum pudding was set alight with brandy and was then carried aloft over his head in a darkened dining room in which all of the lights (apart from candle light) had been extinguished. The spectacle was amazing and brought gasps of astonishment and applause from the assembled diners. I asked if anything like that took place at the ‘The Crown‘ these days – they both laughed and said it would not be allowed under current Health and Safety legislation!  So we left at about 10.30 and received a telehone call (via the car’s audio/bluetooth system) from my niece when we had just about hit the M1. We had a stop half way down and enjoyed some Costa coffee and some of our own mince pies and then got home some time before 2.00pm. We were delighted to be home and did a bit of gentle unpacking (including the washing, which we bundled into the washing machine) and then gradually starting picking up the pieces again.

The Health Secretary, Sajiv Javid, is reported as saying that the COVID situation is being reviewed ‘upon an almost hourly basis’ which I am sure is probably correct. I am sure that given the overwhelming scientific advice and the amazing spread of the Omicron variant that the government have probably decided ‘in their heads’ to produce radical new measures but are puzzling how to sell it to the libertarian wing of the Tory party and when to do it. My guess would be that the government is relying upon the fact that a few days before Christmas many are ‘voting with their feet’ and staying away from large crowds and parties so we have a semi-lockdown in all but name. Then new measures might be announced that will take effect one day after Boxing Day i.e. let the population have their Christmas dinner and then hit them with new restrictions whilst their gaze is diverted by Christmas jollities. 

I have just read a story on BBC News that a pet monkey, a Marmoset, was found which had been fed cocaine and then flushed down a toilet. The monkey has survived and the owner is being prosecuted. When I first read the story, I assumed that it was either a joke or  a story of the ‘Freddie Starr ate my hamster‘ genre.

On the political front, Nadine Dorries has just tweated that “I’m aware as someone said today that regicide is in the DNA of the Conservative party, but a bit of loyalty to the person who won an 83 majority and delivered Brexit wouldn’t go amiss.”  As a result of this she has just been removed from the (right wing) Tory MP’s ‘WhatsApp‘ group – which may be an indication of the way the wind is blowing and that Boris Johnson’s removal has been decided in principle – it’s just a question of when!

So here we are the day after my brother-in-law’s funeral and the consensus amongst family members is that we all experienced dignified whilst emotional farewell rites yesterday and my brother-in-law had received a really fitting tribute to his life. Today we had planned to have a toddle throughout Harrogate this morning and to see my sister in the afternoon. The breakfast room is largely self-service and there is only one waiter on duty to cope with anything that needs doing as well as a lot of clearing up. I had chatted with him briefly yesterday about my experiences working at the old Swan Hotel (just down the road) and this morning the waiter was in the mood to chat a lot more about our mutual experiences of life in the big hotels. He did tell us, though, that the hotel we were staying in had endured three changes of management/ownership within the last five years – the manager himself, though, was not stand aloof but would get ‘stuck in’ to help out wherever a pinch point happened to be. As might be expected, there seemed to be quite a flurry of people booking in for a kind of pre-Christmas holiday day cum shopping trip. I remembered well my Old Swan days when as a 15-20 year old, the locals were treated to a contingent of young female staff (waitresses) who had been supplied by a local catering college elsewhere in Yorkshire and the hotel offered them some accommodation as it needed a lot of extra staff to help to cope with the demands of the festivities ahead. As you may imagine, the local youths working in the hotel were more than happy to receive and induct this new augmentation to the hotel staff and to show them ‘the ropes’ as it were. So after a leisurely breakfast, our first task was to get into town and to buy a charging cord for my iPhone as I had neglected to bring one with me with the other things I had to think about on Thursday morning. Having acquired a charging cord, we set off in search of a coffee outlet but Harrogate is liberally supplied with these, We managed to secure the last seat in one (it was a popular time) but we had the good fortune to have a power point completely adjacent to our table so our iPhone could charge whilst we were tucking into tea-cakes and Yorkshire tea. We texted my sister to confirm it would be OK for us to turn up in an hour or so. The other family members were busy at work or busy entertaining relatives of their spouses who were visiting over the Christmas period. So we journeyed from Harrogate to Knaresborough and spent a quiet and contemplative few hours with my sister where various details of my childhood were revealed that I knew nothing about. One of these involved a stout wooden kitchen table which had a top about a metre square. Apparently, in my imagination this made a wonderful craft with which to navigate God knows what stretch of water. Apparently at the age of about 3 or 4, I had taken one of my grandmothers blue dresses and cut a lare hole in it (for what purpose I cannot imagine) so that I can make either a flag or a sail to expedite the journey of our pretend boat. What happened to me as a result of this I do not remember but I suspect my grandmother did not say ‘There, there – boys will be boys‘ but probably exacted a kind of retribution that would have made an Old Testament prophet grow pale. My sister fed us with some of the left-overs from yesterday’s ‘do’ (buttered scones and the like), so Meg and I did get to consume some of yesterdays victuals after all.

We returned to Harrogate in the late afternoon and were delighted that the hotel had reserved a parking place for us. We made a lightning visit into town where we were tempted into an Oxfam bookshop and bought a couple of items and also a few iron rations to sustain us a little this evening before breakfast tomorrow morning and also upon our return journey. We do not feel inclined to do any packing this evening but may throw things into the suitcase first thing tomorrow morning.

The Omicron variant is spreading fastest in London and 26,000 new cases have been declared in London alone. This has resulted in the mayor of London declaring a ‘major incident’  as hospital admissions have been rising fast but, even worse, staff absences have been going up massive levels. There is now talk of a Plan ‘C’ to act as a follow on to Plan ‘B’ and even of a two week lockdown immediately after Christmas. Whether a lockdown is declared officially or not, some of the country is going into an unofficial deadlock over Christmas with working at home, Christmas parties cancelled, sporting fixtures largely devastated and a general feeling of alarm and despondency.

Well, the day has dawned when it is the funeral day of my brother-in-law. In truth, the day started a lot earlier than this because I awoke in the night at about 3.00am and turned on the TV (at a low volume) to see if the results of the North Shropshire had come through where the Tories were defending a majority of some 23,000. The indications at this hour were that the results would take another 30 minutes to come through but in the meanwhile the Liberal Democrats were getting supremely confident of gaining a big victory. The reasons for such confidence is because (by tradition?) the counted votes are put into bundles to form a long line for each candidate and if one candidate has a discernible lead, this is evident to the observers  who are allowed by law to watch the count as it proceeds. I dozed on the bed until after the count was actually announced and then discovered, some time after 4.00pm, that the Liberal Democrats had taken the seat with a majority of newly 6,000. This was the second biggest by-election swing since 1945- which makes it the second biggest swing for about 75 years. By all accounts, the Liberal Democrats had gained a lot of support once the full details of illegal parties in Downing St. started to emerge and this cut through in a massive way to those who were not allowed to see their dying relatives whilst their political lords and masters were partying in Downing Street. Meg and I showered and then got dressed up in our funeral-going gear before going down for breakfast. This had a variey of cooked or continental style breakfasts and was of excellent quality. The dining room was in what was evidently in a former time the hotel’s ballroom and I thought the the interior compared incredibly well with the Old Swan hotel just down the road, which I know well, having previously worked there for about 3-4 years.  I seem to remember my mother telling me that the Air Ministry had requisitioned the hotel for wartime use in 1939 and had actually only completely vacated it in 1959, allowing it to be converted to a 150 room hotel. I think that she had actually worked there at some time during the war, probably in a clerical capacity.  The building as a whole was built as a mansion some time in the 18th century and still looks imposing. After breakfast, we spent a bit of time chatting with a mother and daughter from Teeside who were also visiting this hotel for the first time. The daughter was a probation officer whose job entailed working within one of the local prisons and as Mike had taught some summer schools for the Open University with Gartree prison in Leicestershire, we found some points of mutual interest for an interesting little chat.

Meg and I went for a little walk in town and had a coffee before departing for the church for the funeral service which was timed to start at 1.00pm. We arrived there half and hour early, managed to park without difficulty and had the opportunity for a chat wih some of Mike’ extended family members that we had evidently not seen for over two years. The service was very dignified and moving in parts with poems read by  family members as part of the proceedings. And so we proceeded to the crematorium where again we managed to follow the funeral hearse and arrived at the relevent part of the cemetery for the commital proceedings. This also was dignified and restrained but Meg started to feel ‘wobbly’ so we missed the reception part of the proceedings so that we could get Meg back to the hotel for a rest. After a couple of hours on the bed, she felt a bit better so we made our way back to the same cafe in which we had had taken coffee this morning. We had a delayed lunch (of lamb shank, which we had noticed during our morning visit) and then chatted to the staff in a mixture of French and Spanish as the proprietor was Moroccan, the waitress was French and the chef was Spanish so we felt as though we had quite an uplifting little continental experience. We received telephone calls from members of the family to check that Meg was OK and we managed to give some reassurances that after a rest she had revived somewhat. Tomorrow will be a quiet day in which we will do a little quiet shopping in town in the morning and then pop along to Knaresbrough to see my sister in the afternoon.  We have been in text contact with my son this afternoon who was hoping that the day’s proceedings had gone well so we indicated to each other that we would be glued to the Channel 4 news to get some good in-depth analysis of the political upheavals following the bye-election result in the wee small hours of the morning.

Knowing that we were going to journey to Yorkshire today, we got up in plenty of time at about 6.00am in the morning,knowing that there was a fair amount of final preparations to be done before we could start off on our journey. There are always some things that you want to hang in the back of the car rather than pack them into a suitcase where they could become incredibly creased. In addition, I had promised my sister that I would make some home-made soup so although I had parboiled the vegetables, I finished it off in the soupmaker this morning. But we made good progress and managed to set off at about 8.30 which meant that having collected our newspaper, we managed to get onto the M42 for a journey northwards around Birmingham. Altogether, our journey had been mapped out at 149 miles and we stop at our favourite service station, Tibshelf, which is about a mile or so beyond the half-way point. At Tibshelf, we treated ourself to a cappuchino and a mince pie as well as a loo visit and managed to leave only 5 minutes behind our own schedule but the second half of the journey is much easier than the first. We hit Wetherby at about five minutes to 12 which was absolutely superb from a timings point of view.  We were about the second or third set of diners though the doors and so we could choose a nice and quiet i.e. not overlooked table location. We dined on a scampi salad and found the portions enormous so having eaten our fill, we left a lot of the food on our plate. Then we texted my sister and got to her house almost exactly as planned at about 1.30 in the afternoon.  When we got there, we were delighted to discover that my sister’s eldest daughter was there in the house, together with her own daughter who has just got back from university (where she is really enjoying her Psychology course) We spent a happy afternoon together, talking about family affairs and sharing photographs of family members that we had on our respective iPhones. Then at about 4.0 in the afternoon, we thought we had better and check into our hotel in Harrogate. The hotel upon which we alighted was one of the bigger ‘old-fashioned’ hotel and we especially fortunate to secure the very last parking place in the car park. The room is itself is delightful and spacious and seems clean and well appointed. However, it has one fateful flaw from my point of view which is the absence of  any power sockets apart from one immediately below the TV set. This is making preparing this blog incredibly difficult. My laptop is perched on the top of our smallest suitcase which in turn is perched upon a chair. To accommodate the mouse, I have had to draw up the suitcase rest, balance my iPad (precariously) on the top side of that and then use my Ipad turned upside down to give myself a suitable flat surface on which the mouse can operate. Hower, I am pleased to say that after an awful  lot of improvisation, I am managing to make some progress, although it was slow at first. However, I am sure than experienced journalists on location in small and poorly equipped hotels in far flung corners of the earth are skilful in making the most incredible improvisations to get their stories written (if any get written rather than just transmitted via a satellite these days). Even so, I am sure that accessing the satellite in an allocated time slot must call for considrable ingenuity at times.

The latest scary Omicron virus news is enough to  frighten most people out of their wits. We are starting to get data about the spread of Omicron, almost three weeks on from when the first case of the new COVID variant was detected in the UK.  Scientists estimate the number of new cases is doubling in less than two days, with every person with Omicron infecting three to five other people on average. The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) suggests that the new variant now accounts for 41% of cases in England and more than one-fifth of cases in Scotland. The number of new infections was more than 90,000 yesterday and the latest estimates are that the virus has an ‘R’ rate (infection rate) between 3-5. This means that each new case of the Omicron infection will infect 3-5 people. The economic pain is starting to be felt in the hospitality industries. Many peopke are heeding government advice and either working from home or avoiding events that it is not strictly necessary for them to attend, Apparently food is being thrown away on an industrial scale because  the hospitality industry has got geared for a really busy period but demand is dropping like a stone so the food is having to be junked.

Although Meg. and I had a fairly good night’s sleep, we slept in just a little this morning but enough to make sure that we were running somewhat behind our normal morning schedule. By the time we had breakfasted and showered, we were getting ready to go down for our normal walk when we glanced at our ‘planning board’ only to discover we had an appointment for later on that morning. Our ‘planning board’ is a large whiteboard divided into 49 daily ‘slots’ i.e. 7 weeks worth and we have this so that we can put on it the things for a few days and even a few days ahead so that we do not forget about them. This is worth its weight in gold but, of course, you have to remember to look at it daily. Today we realised with about a quarter of an hour to spare that it was the day for our hairdresser to call around. So we took our ‘elevenses’ that we had prepared for the park and immediately had our coffee and biscuits at home waiting for the hairdresser to arrive.  Whilst we waiting, we tuned into ‘PMQ’ – Prime Ministers Questions- because yesterday was a most extraordinary day in Parliamentary terms. Although Boris Johnson has what would seem to be an incredible majority of 80, yesterday 100 Conservative MPs rebelled and the measures to put ‘Plan B’ into effect were only passed because of the support of the Labour Party. So this means that we have the most extraordinary spectacle which I do not think I have witnessed since the time I have been closely following politics for nigh on sixty years of a government not relying upon its own MPs to get legislation passed but having to rely upon the votes of the Opposition. So PMQ turned out to be an extraordinary event where Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, could accuse Boris Johnson of having lost control of his own party if he has to rely upon the votes of Opposition members. As I blog, Channel 4 News  is reporting some rumours that the depth of the revolt might have been 120-130 MPs but Boris Johnson promised, behind the scenes, to recall Parliament during the Christmas period if any more measures were planned. We also had the extraordinary event of the Prime Minister denying that it was true that the government measures were passed with Labour support saying that Conservatives ‘passed’ the legislation last night. Such an outright denial of the absolutely obvious left the Labour leader practically lost for words – but then Boris Johnson has lied consistently to everyone since he was a child (and has a record of being sacked for it). 

When our hairdresser did arrive, Mike had his hair cut first and then started off for a daily walk to pick up the newspaper and to buy a few things. At the newsagents, we handed over a Christmas card to the proprietor and his wife and his two ‘trusted’ regular employees, one of whom we think goes back even further than the current owner of the shop i.e. she has worked there for years and been ‘inherited’  by the current owners. We also tend to exchange a few token gifts with each other a little bit nearer to Christmastime itself. Then it was ‘onto’ the road to buy some apparently simple things. One of these is to buy supplies of powdered potato which Asda sell in sachets for about 25p – needless to say they were sold out. The other thing that I needed was the ‘C’ size of batteries to put inside our house doorbell. We didn’t hear the doorbell when the hairdresser arrived so thought we had better get them replaced as soon as possible. I tramped up and down Bromsgrove High Street attempting to buy some ‘C’ size batteries. Many retailers do not stock them and the one that I did had almost run out as I bought the last two but I really needed four. Eventually, I bit the bullet and bought some Duracell ones at a fabulous price but I suppose that once a much needed commodity becomes in short supply, shoppers such as myself scour the local shops and they soon vanish.

The Omicron virus figures are now in the realm of the truly, truly scary. The number of new infections has risen by nearly 20,000 in a single day (from 59,000 to 78,000). At this rate, the virus seems to be doubling every couple of days which could mean that by Christmas Day, the rate might have risen 16-fold.  BBC news reports  that Prof Chris Whitty has said: ‘Records will be broken a lot over the next few weeks,’ adding Omicron is spreading at an ‘absolutely phenomenal pace‘. Earlier, Health Secretary Sajid Javid refused to rule out the prospect of fresh measures over the coming weeks. All of this is happening as a backdrop to the fact that we are travelling up to Yorkshire tomorrow for three nights to attend my brother-in-law’s funeral on Friday.

We always knew that today was going to be a busy kind of day and so it proved. Last night, I had made a start on getting the Christmas cards processed and managed about 60% of them. This morning, I carried on until the task was complete. By the time I had completed the major part of the task, there was no real time to go down into town and get them posted. The rather sad part of completing one’s Christmas card list is the relisation that one has to delete from the list those from your friends and associates who have not survived the year. Apart from the recent death of my brother-in-law, we also experienced the sad loss of Mariano Baena, the Professor of Public Administration at the Complutense University if Madrid. In an earlier life, he had help to write some of the parts of the reformed Spanish constitution after the death of Franco and the birth of a liberal democracy. At one time, as a member of the Spanish Supreme Court he was under threat from Eta, Basque sepratist movement in Spain  and received police protection (but not between 2.00 and 5.00 in the morning when ETA could have murdered him if they so felt so inclined). Meg and Marino Baena organised between them  the first exchange of students between Leicester Polytechnic (later, De Monfort University, Leicester) and later he faciliated my spending a term teaching (in Spanish)  some Information Technology  to public administration students in Madrid. So both Meg and I had both owe, in our own ways, a debt of gratitude to Mariano Baena and his passing is mourned by us both. Meg also lost a former long-term colleague (Commander Robert Rendall) which she worked intimately for many years as the organiser of the supervised work experience of our students. We have also lost our next door neighbour in August, Pat – who got me into Pilates many years ago now. Finally we lost another colleague of ours who lived in Thurnby village with whom we were friendly because we not had shared academic interests but also lived in the same village in Lecestershire. When the task of writing and checking our Christmas cards envelopes was complete,  we had our ‘elevenses’ at home because in a few minutes, we knew that I needed to get ready for my Pilates class later on. 

Our Pilates class ran as normal with a lot of good natured banter and anticipation of what might happen in the final class of the year next Tuesday (when it is rumoured that Santa Claus might appear and, by  tradition, brings with him some little bottles of home-made damson gin!) 

After a late dinner had been consumed, it was a trip down into town by car to both pick up our newspaper and also to post the batch of Christmas cards – some 40+ in number, excluding the local ones that will get written and then hand delivered to neighbours and nearby friends in a day or so. We were pleased that we had got inside the posting ‘limit’ for Spain which is next Thursday so that we hope that the three Spanish cards that we have stent this year should arrive before Chtistmas Day itself.

A very large number of Conservative MPs (approx. 100) have voted against their own party tonight, to express their displeasure at the new ‘Plan B’ regulations which the Government are putting in place to attempt to hold the wall against th spread of the Omicron variant – which is spreading at the most alarming rate. As the size of the revolt (100+) is in excess of the Government majority of 80, then we have the interesting position of a government passing legislation (statutory instruments) only with the assistance of the Labour party. Whereas Tory MPs are not in the habit of rebelling, the experience can prove instructive for them. Loyalty is the Conservative Party’s secret weapon but rebellion does not come naturally to them. But, once MPs get the taste for rebellion, it gets easier for them. Aslo the role and influence of the government whips (in charge of party discipline) is very much diminished when the size of the rebellion is so large. Boris Johnson may well feel that his hold on power is a bit more tenuous after tonight’s votes but, of course, Tory MPs could ‘revolt’ knowing that the legislation would pass with Labour support. The really crucial event this week is the North Shropshire by election where a Tory majority of about 23,000 is under threat. The latest opinion polls put the Liberal Democrats 1% behind the Tories, whilst the bookmakers are favouring the Liberals. We shall know in the wee small hours of Friday morning and if the Tories were to lose this by election (unlikely, but not impossible) then Boris Johnson’s hold on power will be seriously under threat.  Many Tory MPs always knew that Boris Jonson might be a brilliant campaigner (i.e. election winner) but was unlikely to be a success at the task of government itself.  Compare his performance with John Major or Gordon Brown for example.

Today was the day when I had planned to get a lot of my Christmas cards written but the ‘best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry‘ (I don’t give the full  Gallic rendition of this in the interests of clarity) What made things go slightly awry was the fact that I received an email some time in the last 24 years which was from the bank which is used by our Residents Association to organise our communal affairs. I had already filed a long electronic form which I had previously submitted to the ‘safeguarding’ unit of the bank but I received an intimation that further details would be required to  process our safeguarding progress. It transpired that they required the date of birth of the Treasurer of our association, plus the exact date upon which he moved into his property. Evidently, I don’t have these details to hand so I had to send him an urgent email and when I get these details, I will have yet another go. I felt that this had to take priority over my own domestic concerns and hence I was delayed by about an hour.  But eventually, Meg and I set off for the park only for me to realise half way through our walk that I forgotten to bring with me the pre-paid token that I take with me every day to pay for the newspaper. So we needed to have ‘Plan B’ which was to go to the park and then later go back in the car to collect the newspapers and some supplies from Waitrose of which we had run short. In the park, we often get into conversations with dog walkers and today was no exception. Today, though, we got into conversation with a friendly young lady who turned out to be a Jehovah’s Witness – so we had quite an interesting and friendly conversations on matters liturgical and theological (with neither of particularly wanting  to convert the other to their own religious persuasion) When all of this got done, I was then in a position after we had lunch to start the Christmas card ‘run’ for this year. I have got the address address in a ‘Word’ document which is in the ’10 to a page’ format and I knew that I had sufficient labels to make a start on the address list but not to complete the whole of the job. This is because I run off a separate set of labels to inform recipients how Meg’s health is progressing. Actually, the same labels that I used for last year were sufficiently general to be used this year without amendment. Half way through the job and just in the nick of time, an extra set of labels that I had ordered from Amazon came through the door and they worked without problems. Now we come to the job of writing the Christmas cards themselves. Into each card, goes three ‘sticky’ labels, the first being the one that detail’s Meg’s health, the second being our own name and address and the third being an additional label that I use containing additional contact details such as this blog, my website, my mobile number all of which require an additiuonal label as they would not fit onto one standard address label. Now we come to the interesting question of which cards to send to which people.  I usually buy cards that come into three categories and I use them as appropriate. The first set of cards are the religious ones (typically a ‘Madonna and Child’) that we send to people who would definitely appreciate a card with a religious theme. The second category consists of people who may well be offended by religious cards so these are the people who receive the more generic Christmas cards (robins, reindeers, snowy scenes and Santas being typical themes) Then there are those amongst my friends who are definitely of an internationalist perspective  and I always try to send a card with a multicultral and diverse ethnic flavour. Finally, there are some who would appreciate the ‘dove of peace’ type of illustration (but this category tends to overlap with the internationalist one) Then I have to make a judgement as to which type of card to send to which recipient) I tend to write particular messages to several of our friends who we meet periodically for a meal, expressing the hope that we can get together in the Spring and as soon as the pandemic allows. Finally, of course, each card has one of our own address labels affixed to the rear of the envelope so that that any misdelivered cards can get sent back to us) Finally, and hopefully tomorrow, I can make a trip to the Post Office to get stamps on them and get them posted. We tend to leave cards for local friends and neighbours to the end of the run, giving priority to the ones that have to get posted, knowing that the local ones can be popped through letter boxes in a day or so. 

Today being a Sunday, I leapt out of bed at a very early hour (for me) to walk down and collect our Sunday newspaper. Actually, it ws quite a mild day with a brilliant pink sunrise as I walked down to town in a generally easterly direction. Although I normally see nobody at this time, I did bump into my Irish friend who was popping something into the boot of his car so we discussed some church matters such as the exact name of the new priest who we were informed last night will be taking over early in the New Year. Then it was a routine watching of the Andrew Marr show from 9.00am onwards and I thought that Keir Starmer was making exactly the right noises in his attacks upon the Prime Minister (quote: ‘the worst possible prime minister at the worst possible time‘) After we had collected our thoughts together, we walked down to the park in quite pleasant conditions – it was not too long before we were joined by our University of Birmingham, friend and a few minutes later, Seasoned World Traveller.  We discussed some of the implications of the Omicron new variant, including the view that this might have arisen in the body of an immune-compromised individual being treated for Aids in South Africa. There is also the possiblity that Omicron might already have generated new ‘sons and daughters’ which are themselves the mutation of a mutation. A little like Atlantic storms, some of which fizzle out and some of which develop into major storms that sweep our stores, so the virus may act in the same way. As mutations in a virus are are fairly common, presumably some turn out to be ‘dead ends’ whilst others adapt to be highly dangerous. Yesterday, it appeared that the incidence of Omicron had increased by 50% but today, the situation is such that the increase is nearly 100%. The government is trying to roll out the booster jabs to everybody (including schoolchildren) as rapidly as possible and it is hopeful that this will hold the line. However, Boris Johnson is due to address the nation at 8.00pm this evening, probably to try and build up public support for the ‘Plan B’ measures in advance of 60 odd Conservative MPs rebelling against the new measures when there is a vote in the House of Commons next Tuesday. Up to a point, though, this will be a ‘pain-free’ rebellion as the new measures are bound to be approved as the Labour Party are committed to voting for them – hence any Conservative ‘rebellions’ will only reduce the size of a huge majority in support of the measures.

This afternoon, my sister and I were in contact with each other whilst we discussed some of the practical details of our forthcoming visit to Yorkshire to attend my brother-in-law’s funeral. Once we have discussed some of the details (difficult to park both near my sister’s house and at the church and at the crematorium and at the venue for the reception) we are formulating a ‘Plan B’.  Meg and and I have had a series of unfortunate experiences at the last 3-4 funerals we have attended. Basically, the locals know the whereabouts of the local church/crematorium/venue for the subsequent refreshments. By the time you have sat-navved your way to the church/crematorium/eating venue, you are invitably at the back of the queue (as the locals know their way around and secure the best of the vailable parking spots/seat at the venue and so on). The last funeral we attended for a near neighbour we have known for the past 14 years turned out to be particularly disastrous. By the time we had got a distant parking spot at the crem. and an even more distant parking spot at the eating venue, there was no space left for us to sit and no food left for us in any case. So we came home feeling a bit frustrated that some of the attendees at the funeral who had not seen our neighbour for years managed to secure better parking/seating for themselves. The problem arises because we are always coming from a good distance away and generally do not have the insider local knowledge that other attendees possess so you inevitably at the back of whatever queue there is. The problem is compounded when more people turn up to the event than had been catered for. We think that one solution is to leave the car in the hotel and catch a taxi to the church. Then we might have to rely upon other people’s generosity to get a lift to wherever the eating venue is. It would be a great shame if after the journey and the hotel expenses of attending the funeral of a close and much-loved family member, Meg and I found ourselves in the really unsatisfactory situation that we have had the misfortune to experience on the last four such occasions.