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.

It is extraordinary to think that Christmas is now only two weeks away – for a reason, I cannot quite put my finger on, Christmas really seems to have crept on us this year and I am starting to think about all of the jobs that need to be done before Christmas. Principal amongst these are the Christmas cards which, in theory, ought to be quite easy. All I have to is to make sure I have enough labels of the requisite type, find the appropriate file, conduct an experiment with one page  to make sure all goes well and then run off the completed file. I think we have about 55 contacts altogether so at 10 to the page, this should take six pages of labels. When I checked, I only had 3 x. 10 left so I needed to make a quick foray onto Amazon to have a few more of the relevant type sent to me. I am making my absolute cut-off point 12.00 on Monday for the following reason. No doubt, lots of people will be writing their cards this weekend so Monday morning at the post office is liable to be hell-on-earth. If I delay until Monday afternoon, then I should manage to get everything posted off in plenty of time. In the meantime, I have to make sure my list is up-to-date. I seem to remember that last year I sent a Christmas to one of Meg’s cousins and got an out-of-date address for the cousin fron an old address book. The recipients of the Christmas card sent it back to me (as I always stick my own address labels on each card I send) with a note saying that the perspn for whom the card was intended had moved at least 10 years previously. I am sure this must happen quite a lot, actually, but I need my list to be as accurate as possible before I start this year’s run.

Meg and I walked down to the park today in weather not particularly inclement. There we met with our long time park acquaintance, Seasoned World Travellor, and we exchanged Christmassy type things, as well as Omicron and related news with each other.  Because of the cloud cover, it ssemed to start getting dark at about 3.15 and for this reason, as well as th fact that there is a Thomas Hardy film on the TV tonight (‘Far fom the Madding Crowd‘) which I particularly want to watch. By the way, ‘madding’ in this context mens ‘frenzied’ which I didn’t know until a visit to Google. When my mother was alive, she would often bewail the fact that ‘the light was failing’ when she was trying to do jobs at this time of year. As a teenager, I had no idea what she was talking about and could not discern why she didn’t  just put on the (electric) light and make do with do that.  Several decades later on, I think I know what she was talking about because there are some jobs (of the cleaning variety) where you actually do need genuine daylight as far as possible. 

The COVID news continues to dismay. With no further restructions than the ‘Plan B’ that we already have in operation, there are authoritative projections that buy the end of the month, we shall have 1 million new infections and 75,000 deaths. Already there is talk of a ‘Plan C’ to be implemented immediately that Plan B appears not to be working. Yesterday, the increase in cases over the day before was 50% as the number of new cases rose from 1265 to 1898 so the exponential trend of the number of new infections doubling or tripling within days is being played out before us. Schools have not been mentioned recently and I suppose this is because we are now entering the period  (a week and a half before th Christmas break) when school attendance ought to be high. I wonder, though, whether at this rate of progression, it would be sensible to delay the start of the new term by 2-4 weeks. The trouble for the government is that the scientific and medical community seem to nearly of one voice, or at lest ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’) as the Omicron data slowly emerges. However the libertarian (= right wing) of the Tory party are threatening to withhold their support from the ‘Plan B’ measures when the vote takes place next Tuesday – and, of course, there is the critical by-election in Shropshire North next Thursday. If the Conservatives lose this seat, I can see the pressures on Boris Johnson to move aside or be replaced may well be overwhelming. Just to make matters worse for the government, it has been that some staff at the Treasury had office drinks while England was in lockdown last year. It has been reported that around two dozen civil servants were present for the drinks on 25 November, 2020.

Today is the day when our domestic help comes round and we immediately told her the news of the week, namely the death of Mike’s brother-in-law. As we will be away when she calls around next week, then she needed to know of our plans and indeed our whereabouts. Late last night, after I made the booking with the hotel, I realised that car parking might always be a critical issue and it appeared that our chosen hotel had a limited amount of parking but was only 2 minutes from a public carpark (which we did know about and, in fact, often used when we were in Harrogate) I decided that I would email the hotel to see if they could reserve a space for us when we go up in somewhat less than a week’s time. We were pleasantly surprised  to get a reply quite early on this morning where it was indicated that a space would be reserved for us, so needless to say we were delighted with this news. The Christmas tree that I had orered as a replacement for the one that got ‘lost’ at the carriers arrived yesterday and I had done a rough job in assembling this. The assembly took only a matter of minutes but what did take the time was working round the tree branch by branch to ‘spread out’ the wire branches and twigs around the tree. Our domestic help and I spent several minutes making the tree look a presentable shape and we agreed that it was quite OK for now but would be considerably improved once dressed i.e. had its lights  draped on it and decorated with a few baubles – but more of this later.

Meg and I walked down to the park and met up with our University of Birmingham friend whilst I shot off to collect the newspaper and to post the ‘In Synpathy’ cards to my relatives. Although the weather seemed quite fine when we walked down, an icy wind had sprung up from somewhere and we were very glad to get home. When we did open our front door, we had a real surprise. Our domestic help knew where the Christmas tree lights were (which we had recently purchased) and took it upon herself to decorate our Christmas tree for us. When the hall curtain was drawn (to minimise the light), the effect was absolutely stunning and to say we were delighted is a massive understatement. Then our chiropodist rang to say could she come an hour or so early as she had a cancelled appointment which was fine by us and we had been expecting her later on in the day anyway. Then the doorbell rang – it was our domestoc help who had left us some time before but gone down to Age Concern where she knew they had masses of spare decorations and bought a collection of very tasteful baubles for us with which she proceeded to finish off the decoration of the tree. I suspect that she hates to see a job only half completed but the net result is that at the end of the day we have a superbly decorated tree which is one of the best we have ever had.

The COVID news today is all very worrying and the mathematics of Omicron are terrifying. Infections are currently doubling every two to three days (apparently slightly faster in Scotland) and today the UK Health Security Agency estimated that by the end of the month that doubling would mean at least one million people being infected with Omicron. There are two potential silver linings to the cloud of uncertainty. One of them is that the severity of the illness that the Omicron variant causes may well turn out to be mild – and therefore less likely to result in hospitalisations or even death. While it looks like boosters will act as a powerful shield against Omicron, just a tiny reduction in vaccine protection against hospitalisation could make a massive difference to the NHS. Earlier this week, SAGE estimated that a drop in the vaccine’s ability to keep people out of hospital from 96% to 92% would mean a doubling in the number of people going to hospital. This is a very, very sobering thought for a variant that spreads much faster than any one we’ve known so far.

The other political sport so far is to see whether a rebellion against Boris Johnson will intensify or not. As the Labour Party are going to support the new government measures in the House of Commons next week, it could well be that Tory MP’s will feel inclined to rebel knowing that the life of the government is not threatened. But of course, the critical thing will be the bye-election next Thursday in Shropshire North which ought to be a really safe Tory seat wit a majority of nearly 23,000. In all probability, the Tories will still win this (as the Liberal and Labour campaigns do not intend to step aside in favour of the other) but were the Tories to lose, then the Tory party may well run into panic mode and ditch Boris Johnson.

Today seemed quite a fine day after the storms of the last week or so. As Meg and I walked down into the park, it semed almost mild and n enjoyed some pale sunshine – admittedly, it is still a little on the cold side but with the absence of icy winds blowing from the storms, it was quite a pleasant experience.  On our way down this morning, one of my Irish friends had learned, through this blog, of the sad death of my brother-in-law and  came out of the house to offer her condolences. Our other friends were also on their way out shopping in the car and stopped by to remind me that the wreaths they had been making for us were ready for collection. So I promised I would call by later i the car and pick them up. After we had our walk in the park including our elevenses, we set off for home. I made a curry with some leftovers and following the family tradition of hving a curry about once a week (carried over from our student days, a long long time ago).

After lunch, I knew that I needed to make a trip into town bar car. Firstly, I picked up our wreaths with which I am going to adorn our porch some time in the morning when I have plenty of light and I can see what I am doing. Then I needed to buy some bereavement cards for my sister and for each of her four children (who have just lost their father) I went to WH Smiths for the cards as I could buy stamps at the same time and managed to get five cards which did not duplicate each other. Then I popped into Poundland to buy one or two bits and bobs and then finally struck fo home. I decided that we would have some homemade soup this evening for our afternoon bit of supper so I took the 500gram bag of Soffritto (carrot,onion and celery) and weighed out a third of this. Then  I parboiled these together with one half of a (huge) leek and a fried onion and got them going in the soupmaker, together with one desertspoonful of Balti cooking sauce and some vegetable stock. The result was just how I wanted it to be, even though I forgot to put in some coconut milk which I had purchased this morning.

After we had our tea, I got a call from my sister who was bearing up well after the death of her husband yesterday. She was in a position to gve me the date of my brother-in-law’s funeral and it is now planned for a week tomorrow i.e. Friday, 17th December. This is excellent in many ways as it means that we can have the funeral well before Christmas. At the same time, I can take some time to meet the Yorkshire branch of the family so I am pleased that we did not get into a situation where there delays all the place because Christmas is now so close. After the phone call, I did a quick search on the web to see what accommodation was available. The hotel we stayed in before and the B&B which used to stay in (now converted into an ApartHotel) both seemed pretty expensive but one of the big hotels in the city centre had a special offer on and we managed to book a room at this price. In particular, the advantages of hotels over B&B’s in Harrogate is the availability of carparking – the B&B’s in Harrogate have to rely on street parking which can be a nightmare. So we can now go up for the funeral the day before (i.e. on Thursday), have the funeral on the Friday and then stay one extra day on the Saturday before we head for home on Sunday. This way, we have enough time to spent a bit of time with the members of the family that we have not seen for about two years now.

The press are still having a field day with what you might call ‘Partygate’. It now seems that apart from the infamous party that took place on 18th December last year, there are two more that are also going to come into the investigation that Boris Johnson announced in the Commons yesterday. One Conservative MP when asked if he thought that there was actually a party replied that when you put together the ccounts of the food and drink that got wheeled in, the ‘secret Santa’ presents that were organised, some incredibly loud carousing that went on until about 1-2 in the morning plus the damage to a door that had occurred during the proceedings, he replied ‘Well, it sounds like a party to me’  Today it has also been announced that the Conservative party have been fined £18,000 for not properly declaring the donations from a wealthy Tory party donor in their accounts to pay for the refurbishment of the flat in No. 10 – and it looks as Boris Johnson may have lied to Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministers’ interests.

Today has been quite a momentous day, one way or another. After the release of a video by Downing Street staff showing a rehearsal of how the press team would respond if informed there had been a party in Downing Street (held against the regulations), there has been a lot of interest into exactly how the Prime Minister would respond in Prime Minister’s Questions at 12.00 today. What made the video especially obnoxious was the fact that that Boris Johnson’s then adviser and press spokesman, Alexa Stratton, was giggling throughout her rehearsed answers which were, in themselves, a quasi-admission that the party had actually taken place. To the thousands of relatives who could not be present at the death of their parents and loved ones, let along hold their hand whilst they were dying, they were confronted not only with the fact that the Downing Street were not only having a party but were giggling about the possible consequences of their illegality. This has been like a red rag to a bull and has absolutely enfuriated bereaved relatives all over the country.

Meg and I tuned into Prime Minister’s Questions where Boris Johnson apologised abjectly for the fact of the release of the video (and therefore its contents) but also promised an enquiry by the Cabinet Secretary as to whether or not there had been a party.  According to an opinion poll in Sky News, 64% people believe that there actually had been a party. Only about 7% think that Johnson is telling the truth but as I have indicated in previous blogs some ‘vox pop’interviews have tarred Labour politicians with the same brush assuming that all politicians lie.

No sooner was Prime Minister’s Questions over, then I received a telephone call from my sister with the incredibly sad news that her husband of 55 years had died in hospital in Harrogate. He had taken a dramatic turn for the worse a few days ago and members of the family had been in a constant vigil. He died peacefully holding the hands of his two daughters and my sister arrived within minutes of his death to bid her farewell. One of my nieces who was sharing the telephone call with my sister giving us the sad news left me with a poignant comment that ‘Although people might have thought that (my father) was a funny old thing at least he was OUR funny old thing’ The most immediate questions that arise is whether there will be new COVID rules which will hamper the holding a full funeral and Meg and I are holding ourselves in readiness so that we can immediately make a booking in a local hotel (if that is possible) for the funeral wenever that might be.

I remember particularly  clearly my sister’s wedding day on a very cold day in February, 1966. I was in my first year at university and was not the possessor of a lounge suit so I hired one from Messrs. Moss Bros (as one did in those days) Although they had measured me up for a suit the one that was supplied was extraordinarily ill-fitting so I felt the need for some braces to keep the trousers up. I raced into town (Leeds) early that morning and dashed round Woolworths but all I could find was ‘suspenders’. Cursing the Americans for replacing a perfectly good English word (braces) with one of their one I bought the suspenders only to find when I got them home that I had bought a pair of sock suspenders. To make the best of a bad job, I took the pair of suspenders and twisted them together to form a type of elastic rope which I then tied together under my armpits to keep the trousers in more or less the right position – the ‘suspenders’ were hidden from  view by the waistcoat. I was ‘giving’ my sister away as my sister and I were part of a one parent family and I recall that we had a taxi to take us to the church. To give ourselves a little Dutch courage, we swigged from a hip flask of whisky but as the taxi arrived early, we had to keep ‘going round the houses’ to use up a bit of time, swigging constantly as the taxi circulated around. The rest of the wedding went off without any hitches. My brother-in-law as well as running his coal and haulage business was equally deducated to snooker in his earlier days (when he won the prize at his local Conservative club quite regularly, fishing (into which he inducted his two sons) and last, but not least, cricket. He was an avid follower of Yorkshire cricket and would have been saddened in the extreme to see what has happened to his beloved in recent weeks – he could be that he was too ill to fully appreciate the most recent event when most of the committee members of Yorkshire cricket club have resigned in the wake of the Azeem Rafiq revelations about rampant racism within the club.