Today was the day when Storm Barra (named by the Irish Meteorological Service) swept across the country and we knew that, according to all predictions, it ought to sweep across the Midlands mid-morning. In view of all of this and as it was my Pilates day as well (when we normally have a ‘tight’ turn around), we decided to go down to town by car so that we wouldn’t end up soaking wet. So we picked up our newspaper and headed for home so that we could have our elevenses snug at home rather than shivering on a park bench. Meg and I are gradually getting over our ‘sniffly’ colds thanks largely to some ‘colds and ‘flu’ capsules  that we had stored away in a kitchen drawer waiting for a time when we would really need them (such as this). Once we had got home, I started to prepare some of the elements of lunch so that we could eat rapidly once I had got home from my Pilates class. Then I spent a certain amount of time looking around for some of the specialist Christmas socks I was certain I had bought last year. I did discover some with a discreet motif of reindeers on them but I was sure that I had purchased several more festive pairs last year but I couldn’t find them in my search through various sock drawers.  My ‘reindeer’ socks were easily surpassed in festive spirit by the socks worn by my fellow class members so I shall have to do something about that by next Tuesday. 

My thoughts are gradually turning to more Christmassy things, particularly now that Christmas cards are starting to arrive by every post. Prime amongst these concerns is trying to find out what has happened to the Christmas tree which we have purchased and now seems to be ‘stuck’ somewhere in the carriers (Hermes) When I try the tracking sytem I am informed ‘Parcel being processed in the depot’ but it has been like that for days. After my abortive efforts to get through to the retailers yesterday, I tried again to get through to the retailer who agreed that there was a problem. They consulted their stock records  and as I feared, this particular model of Christmas tree is now out of stock. So I accepted the offer of a  full refund (which might take 10 working days to process, by the way) and am left to contemplate my options. I got onto Amazon and ordered another tree, similar in design to the previous one but perhaps not quite as nice and certainly more expensive. However, this ought to arrive by tomorrow which means I get round to putting it up on Friday (with a bit of assistance from our domestic help  were I to need it). The next Christmassy thing is to get my Christmas cards (computerised) list run off.  If this works satisfactorily, then it considerably speeds up the mechanics of Christmas card writing but it is always a slightly anxious few minutes to make sure that the address label printing system works as intended without a lot of abortive and wateful trial runs to get it right before you initiate the final run. I have to check in my particular storage space if I have the right number of sheets of labels and, if necessary, order some more before I start this year’s run. Another Christmassy type job that I will have to think about is bottling at least some of my supplies of damson vodka/gin so that ‘Santa Claus’ can have his normal jaunty visit to members of my Pilates class this year.

Sky News has got a remarkable scoop this evening. Thy are reporting that the Labour Party  has accused Number 10 staff of ‘laughing’ at the British public after footage emerged of Downing Street officials joking about a Christmas party during a time of strict COVID restrictions. In a video recording of what ITV News reported was a rehearsal for a TV media briefing, senior Number 10 aides were filmed talking and laughing about a Christmas party. According to the report, the footage is from 22 December last year – four days after an alleged Christmas party took place in Number 10. I wonder if the Downing staff will try and argue that just because you are rehearsing what you will say in the event that one’s party has been ‘discovered’ just not mean to say that that the party actually took place.

Boris Johnson is quoted tonight as opining that the Omicron variant of COVID appears to be more transmissible than the dominent Delta variant which is confirmed by the very rapid rise in the number of new cases reported daily. There were 101 new cases reported yesterday taking the total to 437, a 30% increase in one day. However, there are the slightest of slight indications that the new variant may be somewhat less likely to cause severe illness rather than the Delta variant but we shall have to wait about 2-3 more weeks before this prediction can be confirmed (or not)

We woke up to quite a raw day today but there no active frost or snow – just a constant icy drizzle. Last night, Meg and I were fighting off streaming colds so we treated ourselves to our second hot toddy of the day (whisky, sugar, lemon,boiling water) and took some cold and ‘flu relief powders as we were going to bed. We woke up feeling marginally better so perhaps the self-medication was proving its worth. I needed to pop into Waitrose to buy one or two things of which we were running short so we went down in the car, collected our newspaper and provisions  from Waitrose and then shot home to have our elevenses at home. We cooked ourselves a small joint of gammon (transferred from yesterday) and then settled down for some afternoon chores. One of these consisted in hanging onto the help line of the customer services firm from which we have purchased an artificial Christmas tree but which has got stuck somehow at the carriers. I somehow feel this is a saga which is going to run and run but as I have already paid for the tree, I feel I must try and get through the suppliers (on the non-suppliers) somehow. 

The health secretary has admitted that the latest Omicron figures are such that he is uncertain whether or not the UK will be knocked off by the latest figures which have now risen to 336. Sajid Javid has admitted that there is now ‘multiple community transmission’  which means basically that the new variant of the virus is all around us and looks as though it is outcompeting the Delta version of the virus and will become the dominant variant of the virus within a few weeks i.e. by Christmas. What I think is quite interesting is to see how a virus-weary population might respond to all of this and whether it will impact on the family visits and celebrations over the Christmas period. I would imagine that many of the traditional Christmas parties might be abandoned or radically scaled back but I doubt that it will stop people seeing their relatives as happened last Christmas.

We have received some very worrying news about my brother-in-law, still in hospital in Yorkshire. It looks as though the cancer from which he is suffering has spread from his spine to his liver so may sister and the rest of the family are preparing for some very sad news in the days and weeks ahead. Because of COVID restrictions, only one member of the fairly large family may see my brother-in-law at a time (my sister has four children and they all live fairly locally) The family are doing all that they can to support my sister who now seems resigned to the inevitable – but it is a very sad and troubling time for all of the family.

We are looking forward., if that is the right term, for the latest storm to sweep across the country. It looks as though we are in for a period of high winds and freezing temperatures – but the snow looks as though it may fall mainly on the high ground and in the already afflicted north east areas of the country. I think it was a hardy Scandinavian who coined the epithet ‘there is never bad weather, just inappropriate clothing‘ so I suppose we need to prepare ourselves with multiple layers of jumpers supplemented by good outerwear, gloves, scarves, hats and sound footwear plus trekking poles (if the need should arise). Tomorrow is the day when I traditionally walk down to my Pilates class and it looks as though the height of the storm might just be as I am undertaking my walk. But, ‘sufficient to the day is the evil thereof‘ as the good book says.

A most extraordinary new principle by which we are policed has just been announced. Some Labour MPs have reported to the Metropolitan Police (in the capital) that Downing Street had had a party about this time in contravention of the then regulations. A spokesman for the police has announced  ‘we do not investigate transgressions of the regulations that might have occurred in the past’ (in other words, they don’t want to tangle with the political elite who do not feel themselves bound by the same rules as the rest of us) As has been suggested on Twitter, one could always try this out on the police next time one has an encounter with the police, say for a traffic offence:  ‘Well, I might have been speeding in the past, officer, but I am not speeding at the moment.‘ It is also reported in the headline in today’s Times that Boris Johnson is to instruct the members of his government if any of their actions are subjected to judicial review that they should ignore the rulings. This is the start of an authoritarian progression which means that the very foundations of our democracy are being undermined by a Prime Minister who is beholden to the right wing of the Conservative party.

Winter has set in with a vengeance and today dawned with a generally raw and icy blast. As is customary, I walked down to our local newsagent on my own coming back in time to watch the Andrew Marr show. The deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, was interviewed and I was wondering how he was going to reply. He admitted that a  ‘formal party’ in Downing Street last December would have been contrary to Covid-19 guidance saying it would have been ‘the wrong thing to do’. However, Boris Johnson had assured him no rules had been broken over the alleged gathering last year, despite reports from various sources in several newspapers. So that is all right then! Meanwhile, some of the Sunday newspapers are recounting poignant stories of how about a year ago now, relatives were not allowed to be present at the deaths of their close relatives (observing the rules) whilst a party was taking place in Downing Street  (where ‘no rules were being broken’). Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday has not denied that the party took place but has denied that any rules were broken. But holding a party (breaking the rules) is not breaking the rules. This is Alice in Wonderland politics and I wonder for how long the present government can continue with such rampant dissimulation.

Meg and I got into contact with our University of Birmigham friend to indicate we would have to  have a truncated meeting this morning as we were off to visit our friends down the road for a coffee. In the event we decided to call off our meeting in the park and we made our way, cold and shivering, to have coffee and a chat with our Irish friends. We spent a very happy couple of hours and it was particularly nice to accept the offer of a hot toddy (whisky and boiling hot water)  to help to overcome the effects of the cold and streaming colds that are afflicting Meg and myself. I think it migh be another case tonight, as last night, to have a ‘cold relief’ type of medication before we settle down for the night. Our chat was very useful to us, though, in lots of ways because as well as a laugh and a joke, we discussed some of the ways in which we might align our holiday plans for later next year. It could be that we go off to our normal haunts in Northern Spain next year when the coast has cleared (in the spring) and then we might holiday together on the same pilgrimage to Rome and Assissi in Italy in the autumn.  Of course, so much depends on how much damage the new COVIFD variant of Omicron manages to wreak on the European population and how viable travel to any European country turns out to be.

In the Sunday Times, I read a wonderful  quote which rather tickled my fancy. This was an apparently an old expression that if you being pursued by a bear who wants to eat you, then it not important to be at the front of the group of people who are running away but rather one should strive not to be the slowest person in the group (at the back). This rather reminds me of an article which I read decades ago and this was entitled ‘Protection of the Inept’ The idea here is that all organisations contain within people who are obviously inept in their current role for the psychological well-being of the other organisation members. These may well say (or think) ‘However badly I am doing, I am not doing worse than X’), the principle being that all organsations find it useful not to sack evidently inept people. Whether this was intended to be a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ article or a serious organisational principle, I am not in a position to determine – but it is an amusing idea. I am pretty sure that I can discern this princple at work in every organisation in which I have been employed (since 1962)

It is scary time in the Omicron saga again tonight. The number of new infections in which Omicron has been identified has leapt by 50% in a single day. Whilst the absolute number of cases is not huge at this stage, the rate of increase is dramatic. The cases have risen from 160 yesterday to 246 today and this must be getting close to an exponential rate of increase. According to the scientists, we have to wait for about three weeks (which takes us very close to Christmas Day) before as a society, we can discern what degree of threat the new variant poses to us and what further measures might be necessary.  I can see another lockdown coming on but no doubt it won’t be called that but will have the attribution of ‘Plan B’ or something similar. I think the degree of complacency in our current political leadership lamentable – one suspects they are holding their fingers and hope it all goes away (but we have to have lots of socialisation over Christmas to give the new variant an especially forceful boost)

Today dawned fairly bright and clear and the only thing to disturb our equilibrium was that quite a cold and gusty wind blew from time to time. On hearing some banging noises from an adjacent garden, we looked out of our bedroom window and noticed that our next door neighbour was completing the construction of his garage-type replacement adjacent to his house and right up to our boundary fence. We spent several minutes observing them closely, largely so that we could act immediately in case there were to be any more trespass to occur as it did about a fortnight ago. The builders (evidently, employed to work over the weekend) were busy putting on a type of damp proof membrane, fastening it down with battens and finally hanging the tiles on it. When they evidently having a coffee/cigarette break, I popped down into Mog’s Den to ensure my video camera was working OK (which it was), largely to act as a reassurance that we wouldn’t have workmen hopping over the fence into our garden to finish off the job. Meg and I walked down to the park, where we met with our University of Birmingham friend by prior arrangement and he turned up with Seasoned World Traveller so that we could make up a foursome. About a couple of days ago, Meg and I had watched the first hour of the spoof disster mobie ‘Airplane‘ that we had first seen in a little local cinema in Leicestershire about 36 years ago. We still enjoyed many of the visual gags and some of the dialogue, funny at the time and still funny, could not be repeated in these more politically correct times. So we spent a few happy minutes mutually recalling some of the more memorable scenes in this and similar movies before we were joined by one or two of the local dogs (complete with their owners) who sensed that food was in the offing whilst Meg and I were consuming our coffee and biscuits and they hung around expectantly, to the chagrin of their owners, waiting for crumbs to fall from the rich man’s table, as it were.

We collected our Saturday newspaper and were then fortunate to bump into one of our Irish friends who we had not seen for several days as we had tended to make our journeys by car rather than walking down in the last few days. We got invited around for coffee tomorrow morning at 11.00am to which we will look forward tremendously as we have quite a lot to catch up with one thing or another. We also saw some of our other oldest friends who had been especially busy preparing Christmas wreaths which are sold through the church. Having spent some time last year getting suitable screws into the walls in our porch upon which to hang our wreaths, we will be delighted to receive ours in about a week’s time. Needless to say, we haven’t heard any more about our missing Christmas tree so I expect that will be even more hassle and another ½ hour wait on the customer helpline on Monday. 

We had to have a ‘quickie’ lunch as we got in a little late after our conversations this morning. The wind was biting cold and most unpleasant on the way home so we were delighted to get home as soon as we could. One thing that we could not help noticing as soon as we got home was that the building work next door seems to have been largely completed. I took Meg down into ‘Mog’s Den‘ so that she, like myself, could inspect the new edifice at close quarters. From what we can tell, the overall result is not displeasing – the bricks match up with the original house and the new construction has been tiled. From what I can tell, there has been no provision made for any rainwear goods so I suspect that after my intervention of a couple of weeks ago they have decided not to bother. The ‘catchment’ area for any rainwater is not huge but nonetheless I suspect that in the fullness of time a certain amount of water, not to mention snow, will shed onto our land. I will have to decide what to do about this a little later on. At the same, I showed Meg my new video camera which is trained on the fence and provides us with a measure of security, as well as capturing images of any would-be trespasser. Much to my surprise, Meg thought the installation looked very professional and would certainly do the job for which it was intended. At the same time, I can check that the electronics are all working as they should.

Meanwhile the number of Omicron cases has risen to 160 in the UK. The government has also announced today that all travellers to the UK will have to have a negative test before they are allowed to travel to the UK.The rule applies to all travellers visiting the UK or returning from a holiday, regardless of vaccination status, and will come into force from 4am on Tuesday 7 December.

Friday has rolled around once again and normally it is the day when we meet our University of Birmingham friend either in the park or in a local coffee bar, depending on the weather. Today, though, we had an exchange of text messages and we have agreed to meet tomorrow rather than today, all being well. Today, we had our usual natter with our domestic help whose ‘day’ it is on a Friday and we always seem to have a good laugh, one way or another. As the weather was a little indeterminate thiis morning, we decided that we would collect our newspaper by car and then go and park in the ‘top’ carpark in the park. This way, we have a little walk to give us a breath of fresh air and to blow away the conbwebs but withour getting thoroughly chilled. Meg is still fighting off some sniffles and although it is not a fully fledged cold, we are not tempting fate by getting needlessly chilled. Later on in the day we decided to sort to sort out our collection of gloves that had been populating the piece of furniture in our hall called a ‘Monk’s bench’  and bring some kind or order to the motley collection. Once we had matched up the pairs, we divided them into ‘quality’ items such as real leather gloves and ‘utilitarian’ gloves, normally made of a wool mixture and made weather resistant somehow (the trade mark is ‘Thinsulate’). We did end up with a collection of leather gloves, woollen gloves, fingerless gloves (that we must have thought useful at on time e.g. if you don’t want to take gloves off whilst tapping the keys of an ATM) and a couple of odd gloves of which the companion must have been lost. My first thought was, of course, to throw these away but, in the event, they finished off in the boot of the car where I reckoned they would always come in handy to clean off a misted or frozen window.

Today being a Friday, we had our by now traditional meal of sea-bass with salad – which only takes about 5 minutes to prepare which is just as well as we often seem to run late on Friday mornings. This evening, we raided our supply of diced carrots and parsnips from which we made another hearty soup, given a slightly spicy twist by the addition of a spoonful of Balti cooking sauce. I am getting into the habit of buying from Waitrose some diced vegetables known by the Italian name of ‘Soffritto’. I had no idea what the constituent parts of this mixture were but, by consulting the web, I have learnt that Soffritto’ is actually a mixture of diced onions, carrots and celery with perhaps a bit of garlic thrown in and tossed in an olive oil. This means that the hard work of dicing the vegetables has already been done and after a bit of parboiling it just have to be thrown into the SoupMaker, together with some ‘sweated’ onions and eventually served  with some croutons and a big dollop of yogurt (which helps to cool it down).

The Omicron variant news coming this evening continues to be a source of concern. More than half those who were confirmed to have been infected with the Omicron variant of coronavirus in the UK were double jabbed, health officials have said. A new technical briefing from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says 12 of the 22 known cases up to 30 November had been fully vaccinated. Admittedly, this is a very small number of cases upon which to base a trend but I am not sure that this news has fully sunk in with the general population. If one has to go in for ‘clutching at straws’ time, then there are a few very slight indications that the severity of the new variant might be less than than other variants and, in particular, the Delta variant which is now the dominant one.

This afternoon, I spent a certain amount of time completing the most esoteric questions that are a necessary to fulfill the safeguarding provisions of our community bank account. One of the questions asked whether any members of our group had any dealings whatsoever with the ‘Crimea’ which is, of course, the bit of the Ukraine that Russia seems to have reclaimed in the last few years – with more to come. The interesting thing about all of this is if I did have any connections with the Crimea are other outposts of the Rssian empire, I would hardly  tick the box marked ‘Yes’ on the form. I seem to have got to the stage where the whole of my complex form seems to have been completed and submitted and I am now told that is being ‘considered’ by the SafeGuarding unit of the bank so I have to wonder all of this is going to take.

This was a day for leaping out of bed early and heading off for Waitrose bright and early. After a very vivid dream (basically it involved smuggling myself from Mexico into Brazil, bartering for a large and gaudy cake and then smuggling myself back again, all without papers) I made some tea in the early morning and promptly fell back to sleep again. After I had thrown some clothes on, the weather had been so frosty overnight that the car required the trusty old method of a trickle of warm water across the windscreen and window areas before I could set off. I got to the supermarket only a few minutes after the opening time, got some cash out of their ATM and then proceeded with my normal weekly shopping. Finally, I got home a little late having filled the car up with petrol on the way home and then Meg and I had a quick breakfast and a slow unpacking of the shopping. Then we had a long phone call lasting ½ hour to work out what had happened to our Christmas tree which should have delivered a week ago and seems to have ‘stuck’ in the carriers. As we going out in the afternoon, we again popped out in the car to pick up our newspaper and then proceeded to prepare our lunch of chicken curry. Half way through this, our central heating engineer arrived and we were mightly glad to see him. The kitchen mixer tap which was a good make and failed after only about 18 months of use was still covered by the five year warranty. But our central heating firm had to request an invoice from their wholesalers that had to be sent to the manufacturers who then had to authorise and post on a replacement mixer tap. All of this process has taken the best part of 2-3 weeks in which time, Meg and I have had to suffer a slowly running tap which couldn’t be turned off and after a while, this proved irritating beyond all measure. But the replacement tap is of a variety named ‘Easyfit’ and indeed so it proved. The whole job took only about 5 minutes to fit  and as well as fully functioning tap, we could then restore the contents of the undersink cupboard to their proper home (relieved of their contents in case more serious access was required).

This afternoon, we had been invited out to visit close friends who had just moved house. It is always an interesting experience to see furniture that you are used to seeing on one place relocated to entirely new surroundings but the overall effect was stunning. The new flat contained a mixture of both the existing furniture, some bought from the previous owners and some newly purchased but they blended with each other perfectly. Moreover, the views from the new dwelling were absolutely fabulous and we were delighted that everything hd worked out well in the end. When you see someone else’s place, you are never fully aware of the various little traumas that have been involved getting things to exactly the way they would like them. So it was back home braving the Bromsgrove rush hour which I had forgotten can be truly dreadful if you happen to find yourself in the middle of it.

The COVID news this evening sounds rather alarming.  Omicron has a ‘substantial’ ability to evade immunity from a previous COVID infection, according to the first real-world study of the variant’s effect.  The finding suggests the new variant could cause a substantial wave of infections, even in populations with high levels of antibodies.  Researchers at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) warn their finding has important public health implications.  They add: ‘Urgent questions remain regarding whether Omicron is also able to evade vaccine-induced immunity and the potential implications of reduced immunity to infection on protection against severe disease and death.’ On the other side of the equation, there are also reports that cases of the Omicron variant might be much more infectious but has symtoms that are mild rather than severe. The trouble about all of this is that the data upon which predictions are based is at best, incomplete, and at worst misleading. The early findings from the South African data (where the variant was first identified) were from a population that was predominantly young and we know that the COVID virus, in general, affects the young less severely than the old. So at this stage, it is incredibly difficult to form any firm conclusions and we just have to wait for 2-3 weeks until we have a sufficiently large data set upon which we can draw even tentative conclusions.  The debate in this country is still intensifying as to whether we should hold Christmas parties as normal, scale them back radically or avoid them altogether. Some government advice is not particularly helpful or enlightening such as ‘do not snog a stranger at a Christmas party‘ which sounds rather like the first entry in the Manual of the Exceedingly Obvious.

Well, I have to say that today has been a thoroughly miserable day.  Meg and I have not managed a walk down to the park for a day or so for one reason or another but we decided to risk it today as the weather seemed to offer a brief respite. But no sooner had we collected our newspaper and made for our customary park bench when a really icy wind laden with a kind of stinging drizzle assailed us. This was so unpleasant that we shared one cup of coffee between us and quickly packed up our bags and struck for home. When we got out of the park, the stinging rain abated somewhat but we have to say that this was one of the most unpleasant walks we have had for several months. As soon as we got home, we started to prepare our lunch which we could not prepare too soon. It was one of those days when wet clothes had to be shaken off and stored in the garage, my leather hat had to be dried out  and we gradually got round to being slightly less miserable once we were home and dry. Lateron in thre day, I has the exciting job of picking the usable morsels of meat off our chichen carcase which we will form the bedrock of a curry for tomorrow’s lunch. If the weather worsens again, then a hearty curry will be much appreciated. We have generally maintained the habit of preparing a curry from the leftovers of the weekly joint, a habit we acquired in our student days and have maintained for about 56 years now.

The COVID-news this evening is about what one might expect. The number of cases of variant Omicron has risen to 32 as I write and one hopes this does not explode into hundreds or even thousands in the few weeks ahead. The news from government today is that that we may know within about 2-3 weeks how severe and transmittable the Omicron variant will prove to be. The fact that the government policy is now to go ‘hell-for-leather’ to get all of the adult population vaccinated both with two doses and a booster by the end of January is an indication of the race against the virus. It may well be that in about three weeks time, it may become somewhat more clear whether or not we are losing the race and we need to look forward to even tighter restrictions (or a lockdown by any other name). Meanwhile two supermarket chains (the Co-op and Iceland) are saying that their staff will not enforce the wearing of masks within their stores – despite the fact that this is now the law of the land. I must ask myself how it is that supermarket chiefs take it upon themselves to  inform their staff which of the laws of the land are to be obeyed and which ignored, however unpleasant some of the reactions of customers might be. Can supermarket chiefs be prosecuted to telling their staff to not enforce the law, I ask myself (although it would never happen). The number of new cases of infection which has been hovering around the 39,000-41,000 mark for a few weeks now as today risen to 48,000 which sounds that infections are going in the wrong direction (when, in theory, they should be going down as the proportion of the vaccinated pop[ulation increases)

There are two political stories to note this evening. The first is the revelation that Downing Street threw a party for their staff last December when the rest of the country was well and truly locked down and relatives could not even visit their families over the Christmas. There seems to have been quite a ferocious row at Prime Minister’s Questions today in Parliament and Boris Johnson does not deny that the party took place but just that ‘all of the relevant rules were followed’. The rule in place at the time was that Christmas parties and functions should not take place so the Prime Minister’s assertion that all of the rules were followed appears to be, to put it baldly, an untruth.

The other big story comes from the United States where the US Supreme Court is being asked to either approve a draconian abortion law that radically retricts the availability of abortions. It is today considerering a Mississippi law which asks the court to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Its final ruling, due in June next year, could cut off abortion services for tens of millions of women. Although the case is being heard today, I anot quite sure why it should take 7 months before a ruling can be made. If the Mississippi law is upheld, then it will open the floodgates for many other conservative-run states to pass similar legislation which will all be deemed to be ‘constitutional’  Of course, all of this is a consequence of the fact that Donald Trump got many of his nominees (ultra conservative) to become Supreme Court justices and they hold power for life (i.e. until they die). The balance of the Supreme Court was altered from about 5:4 to 6:3 (conservative vs. liberal) This means that the legacy of Donald Trump could persist for another 30-40 years (or until the balance of the Supreme Court alters)

Well I must say I am rather glad to be at the last day of November which I always think to be a type of ‘non-month’ and one that has to be lived through rather than actively enjoyed. The month of December always has a few things in it to be enjoyed. Evidently, there is Christmas Day itself (which, I must say, has to be carefully managed) but then there are the social events with friends which is always a real pleasure. In a perfectly managed world, I suppose one should have massively cut back on the carbohydrates to prepare for the excess of carbohydrates with which one’s system is assailed in the latter days of the month. At the same time, I always look forward to December 21st/22nd  of the month, after which it starts to get lighter by an imperceptible minute or so per day and this helps to raise the spirits.

Tuesday is my Pilates day so we never quite have time enough for a normal walk down into town. We got up somewhat late this morning so all we could squeeze in was a quick dash to the newsgents by car before we returned home for a quick elevenses and then I began my walk to my Pilates class. As a matter of tradition, we generally wears pairs socks desporting some kind of animals – our teacher’s favourite socks, for example, always seems to be a pair displaying seals. When Meg and I went shopping to M&S last week, I hunted out some socks and discovered a collection of socks which happened to feature dachshunds (the sausage dog, that is). But this was enough for me to awarded the prize of ‘sock wearer of the week’ which makes a change. After next week, we shall all flash our Christmas socks at each other and I am pretty sure I have some stuck in a drawer somewhere with reindeers frolicking around which, evidently, I only wear at Christmas time. When I got home, we were going to have a fish-based meal and last week I had bought some mackeral fillets that could be eaten either hot or cold. In order to solve the dilemma of how to heat up the mackeral fillets without smelling the rest of the house out, I hit upon the idea of taking some of the mackerel fillets (that could be eaten either hot or cold) and putting them on a small plate absolutely covered in cling film. This was then lowered into a saucepan of boiling water which I hoped would impart a little of heat to them. This sort of worked but I think I need to refine my technique a little before I repeat the experimemnt next week.

Now for the ‘isn’t that completely obvious’ time. I have been doing a little bit of research into disposable batteries – and it isn’t really obvious that you get what you pay for. Like the rest of the population, I tend to use Duracell or Energiser for things that I regard as absolutely essential such as my computer mouse. More trivial things can take the cheaper ‘Poundland‘ type offerings. Well, we all know that lithium batteries are the best and the most long-lasting but they do cost the earth compared with the others. The middle of the range are the alkaline batteries which have a wide range of uses. The cheapest battery of all (the kinds that Poundland sell 10 for £1) are typically zinc batteries and self-evidently do not last for long. The important thing that one must remember is whether you intend to put the battery into a ‘high drain’ device such as a digital camera, portable video game or radio-controlled toys. By contrast, low drain devices are things like clocks, smoke alarms and a computer mouse. Whereas you would use lithium or alkaline batteries for high drain devices, you can put the ‘el cheapo’ batteries into low drain items.  The battery makers Duracell reckon that many of their batteries are thrown away with up to 40% of their potential powr unused. If it ‘fails’ a high drain device then it might have a lot of useful life left if put into a law drain decide. That I didn’t really know or appreciate. One trick is to take out you ‘Duracell‘ battery out of your high drain device, leave it for a few hours, warm it slightly (top of a radiator is excellent) and then insert into a low drain device of which clocks are the best example.

The location of the Omicron cases has been revealed. They are as follows:Barnet 2 (new), Brentwood 1, Camden 2 (1 new), Haringey 1 (new), Liverpool 1 (new), North Norfolk 1 (new), Nottingham 1, Sutton 1 (new), Wandsworth 1 and Westminster 2 (1 new). Of the nine cases in Scotland,  five are in Lanarkshire and four are in Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Boris Johnson has given a news conference in which it has been announced that all adults in the country should have received a booster by the end of January. Is this a case of being really prudent or a panic reaction by the government?

The cold weather snap continues today and the weather remains raw. Judging by the appearance of cars parked outside, we had another dump of snow during the night so some of this was removed by the old trick of a watering can of warm water trickled onto the windscreen. Some time in the past, I had invested in one of those more specialist watering cans that had an especially long spout and it is incredibly useful on occasions like this. With having porridge every morning for breakfast, we have been running down our milk supplies so I popped into town by car to pick up extra supplies of milk and porridge – whilst parked nearby, I popped into Poundland for one or two little items that I needed.

The news today has been dominated as might have been expected by the increasing concern over the Omicron variant of COVID. As we write, the number of reported cases has risen to 11, with a cluster of 6 cases in Scotland. Judging by the speed of the government’s response so far, it indicates a degree of worry within Government circles that this variant could wreak massive damage if it evades the vaccines currently on the marketplace. The government is evidently playing for time as the scientific community is desperately seeking answers to various questions asked of the new variant such as how virulent is in in transmitting itself?  Does one get seriously ill with this version of the virus? To what extent has the virus got itself embedded  at the community level (i.e. there is no evident link with any of the South African bearers of the virus). To illustrate this degree of concern and also so that the government can get to grips with the scientific analysis  that it being rapidly undertaken, then the following steps have been announced by the government:

• Booster jabs for everybody over the age of 18

• Shortening the gap between a second jab and a booster from six months to three months

• Giving a second jab to children aged between 12 and 15 – again after no less than three months

• Severely immunosuppressed people given access to another booster – meaning for some, a fourth dose this winter

• Boosters consisting of either a Pfizer vaccine or a half dose of the Moderna jab

All of this is quite a marked change of gear. There is quite a lot ot talk about ‘saving Christmas’ but a thought that must be in the back of the Government’s mind is the pressure that placed on the NHS which is already practically overwhelmed as it attempts to deal with the backlog of patients not having been seen or treated during the first 18 months of the COVID provisions. The tentative knowledge that we have do have at the moment is that the Omicron variant might prove to be highly transmissable but so far it appears that this strain is not more virulent than others and it may even be that the effects are that it is even milder. The analogy being used is that of a race between the virus and the vaccine manufacturers. So far, the virus had undoubtedly got a headstart because it might be out there in the community (and perhaps as many as at least eleven countries so far). In the meanwhile, we have to tweak a vaccine, manuafcture it and then get it into the arms of a population which must take a matter of weeks and/or months by which time the virus might have infected even more and mutated yet again. Scary stuff.

There is a crisis in the British pig industry but the stories have been entirely relegated in the news media because of the migrant crsis and deaths in the English Channel first and then the mergenec of Omicron second. The slaughter of healthy pigs has begun on British farms, with farmers forced to kill animals to make space and ensure the continued welfare of their livestock, amid an ongoing shortage of workers at slaughterhouses. Pig farmers have been warning for several weeks that labour shortages at abattoirs have led to a backlog of as many as 120,000 pigs left stranded on farms long after they should have gone to slaughter. Practically all of this is, of course, caused by Brexit as many the more unplesant jobs in our abbattoirs were performed by workers from Eastern Europe who have been ‘encouraged’ to return home. The COVID pandemic has added a twist to this labour shortage, of course. One always has to add that the British population as a whole voted for this to happen, so if that is what people wanted, then why should we be surprised when it actually happens? However, now is the time when surely we could do with thousands of additional nurses – one estimate is 50,000 are needed immediately. One estimate is that we need an additional 1.1 million nursing and social care staff by the year 2031 and where are these to come from?

Today being a Sunday was the day for me to get up early and walk down to our local newsagent. Yesterday we saw the aftermath of storm Arwen which did its worst yesterday. This morning it was quite cold but there was no icy wind so it was not an unpleasant walk for me this morning. In our hall at home, we have a piece of furniture called a ‘Monks bench’ which combines a temporary set with a cupbord underneath and in this we store hats, gloves and scarves. In the course of time, the contents have got rather jumbled so I spent a certain amount of time sorting out a pair of usuable glothes from the jumble inside. Once I retrieved the various left hand and right hand gloves, I have left them all out so that we can have a good rationalisation. I retrieved, though, one pair with quite good cuffs on them and they made my hands as warm as toast on my walk down. After a breakfast of porridge (what else in these weather conditions), Meg was still feeling a little shivery so she stayed warm at home whilst I walked down to the park with a flask of coffee. There I met our University of Birmingham friend who was having a coffee with Seasoned World Traveller so once I had ascertained where they were in the park, I joined them in their coffee sojourn. We started off our conversation exchanging what we knew about the Omicron variant of COVID and then moving onto deeper questions,more related to the philosphy of science than anything else. Then it was time for me to drag myself away and make sure that the chicken I had put in the oven for lunch had not exploded or got overcooked. But everything was fine so lunch was quite easy to prepare. As it still quite a cold day, I am going to prepare the second half of our sweet potato and leek homemade soup into which I add one quarter of a tin of coconut milk and a soupspoon full of a Balti cooking sauce which should give it just a little degree of spice flavour, without being overwhelmed by it. This has again turned out OK, I am pleased to say.

On the subject of Omicron, Sky news is reporting the opinions of Professor Schoub, the award-winning author of ‘AIDS And HIV In Perspective’ who previously advised the World Health Organization (WHO) on several vaccine programmes He said: ‘This virus is a plastic virus – in other words, it tends to mutate very readily. And under conditions where it is mutating – particularly in people who might be partially immunosuppressed, in other words where they’re not getting rid of the virus – that remnant virus which remains will be selectively enriched to escape immunity and to become more transmissible‘

This is an interesting perspective and underlines the importance of getting as many of the population vaccinated as possible. There was a fairly heart-rending article in the edition of the ‘Sunday Times‘ today. This was written by a palliative care doctor who was explaining that many of the intensive care beds were actually filled with unvaccinated COVID patients. Some of them actually beg to be vaccinated – all of which is of course in vain. One can only imagine the psychological angst  of the medics who are desperately trying to keep alive those in intensive care beds who are there only because they refused to believe in the efficacy of a vaccine which could have saved their lives. 

Although the government has always claimed that schools were ‘safe’ places, they ignored the fact that school pupils could be carriers of the virus and could infect the adults around them in schools. But tonight, the government is suggesting that all Year 7 pupils (basically 11-12 years old and upwards), as well as all adults and visitors, must wear masks in communal areas.  They are also privately desperate for the school holidays to begin in about 3-4 weeks time because this, too, will help to stop the spread of the virus. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is now carrying out targeted testing in places the person visited when they were likely to be infectious – including, it is thought, Westminster. Of course if Westminster is threatened, does this account for the speed of the government response? The UK government is calling for a meeting of all of the G7 health ministers so that a coordinated response to the new variant can be organised.

It seeems incredible to believe that the month of November has practically ended and on Wednesday, we will usher in the month of December. ClassicFM to which I listen a lot is heavily trailing the fact that Christmas music will have an official start next Wednesday which is, of course, 1st December. They must have taken a policy decision that exposing people to Christmas music before the end of November is not a good idea.