Today, if my memory serves me correct, is what Catholics/some Christians call ‘Candlemas‘ day. According to our friend, Google, this is because it is the day when all of the candles used throughout the church year are traditionally brought into the church to be blessed. It is also the day, 40 years after the birth of Christ, when Mary the mother of Christ would be brought into the synagogue for a ritual purification (part of the Judaic tradition) I also speculated whether today was also the feast day of St. Blaise when a pair of sacred candles are held across the throat to act as a holy remedy against sore throats. I was not completely wrong but out by one day as the feast of St. Blaise is celebrated on February 3rd, which is tomorrow. But enough of this superstition. It was quite a mild day today but with quite a heavy hanging mist blotting out the son but nonetheless the warmth is surely appreciated. As we passed our park on the way for our newspapers, I espied our Birmingham University friend, so Meg was left with him whilst I sped off to collect the newspapers on my own. When we reconvened as a threesome, we espied some personnel with bright yellow HV vests on and thinking that they might be the COVID-19 rule enforcers (we call them the ‘thought police’) we made sure we were properly socially distanced from them until they had gone on their merry way. They might just have been local authority parks department workers but we didn’t want to risk being caught ‘in flagrante delicto‘ so we made sure we were on the straight and narrow. I remembered to bring with me some copies of ‘Bullshit Bingo’ handouts which I gave to our friend and we reminisced about the meetings we had attended where many of these phrases were bandied about. I must say that being employed at one time in a school of Business and Management, with the two halves sharply delineated from each other (Business tended to be CNAA undergraduate courses whereas as the School of Management concentrated on professional and post-experience courses). I have to say, from years of experience, that one has to listen to members of a School of Management to fully appreciate how relevant a game such as Bullshit Bingo can prove to be! Then we met some other mutual friends and had a fairly snatched conversation because it looked as though we were turning into a kind of social gathering (but, I hasten to add, we are certainly not alone in stopping to have little chats with people all over the place because ‘there was a lot of it about’) Perhaps the milder weather was encouraging people both to walk and to chat.

After a traditional Tuesday lunch of fishcakes, I knew that I needed to pay a flying visit down into town so I took the car down to break the back of the journey before I journeyed along an almost deserted High Street. I managed to replenish our supplies of money from an ATM which had to be done from the street – I had not realised that the building societies that have in-store ATM’s seem to have a policy of shutting at 2.0pm. Not having ventured along the High Street since the start of the latest lockdown, I was unsure of the local norms. But I managed to get a watch battery for Meg’s watch (surely indispensable) and one or two cosmetic-type items. Tomorrow is the day when I have to update my Waitrose order before 12 midday and to book my slot for a couple of weeks time.

The airwaves this afternoon have been dominated by news of the death of Captain Sir Tom Moore, the ‘centurion’ who captured the hearts of the nation and who raised £32 million fo the NHS by walking laps in his garden – he initially intended to raise some £1,000 but as news of his exploits was broadcast abroad, the donations flowed in. It is remarkable that the flags in Downing Street and even Buckingham Palace were immediately flown at half-mast – this is the kind of tribute that might only be paid to an ex-Prime Minister for example. When the media announced that Sir Tom was in hospital but his family were at his bedside, one did get the feeling that the virus might claim another victim. But what an inspiration to his family and to the rest of the nation! Having actually reached 100 years of age, there were not many peaks left to conquer but I am sure that the inevitable feelings of sadness at his demise must be mingled with admiration at Sir Tom’s exploits at his age. Amongst other things he performed in a cover version of the song ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ sung by Michael Ball, with proceeds going to charity. The single topped the UK music charts, making him the oldest person to achieve a UK number one.

Some fascinating tests results by the University of Oxford, published in a pre-print report with The Lancet, showed a 67% reduction in positive COVID-19 swabs among those vaccinated, which may have a ‘substantial effect’ on the transmission of coronavirus.  In the report, the university also said that a single standard dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is 76% effective from day 22 to day 90 after the jab. This means protection is not reduced in the three months between the first and second dose (which rather vindicates UK government policy of delaying the second ‘jab’)

The 1st of the month – and I forgot to say ‘White Rabbits! White Rabbits! White Rabbits!‘ and all the rest of it, which I won’t repeat here. Having said that, I was mightily relieved to get January behind us – February is one of those months (like November) which just has to be lived through with better things in prospect. We collected our newspapers and I remarked to my local newsagent that I had found out how to access operas via YouTube on our Smart TV and we had entertained ourselves with watching a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni from the Zurich opera house. My favourite line from this opera is that uttered by Don Giovanni when upbraided by his servant Leporello how he could be unfaithful to all of the 1003 women he had successfully seduced across various countries in Europe. His reply – ‘Well to be faithful to one would be unfaithful to all of the rest!‘ (Obviously, I couldn’t possibly comment on my reaction to all of this)

Having collected our newspapers, we made off for the park but via Waitrose where we pick up some extra milk (our porridge creating a dent in our supplies) There we met, a little later than usual, with our ex-Birmingham University friend. I had managed to find for him on the internet some examples of ‘Bullshit Bingo‘ which is a board game to amuse organisation members during boring and interminable meetings. You wait until you hear one of those incredibly trite expressions like ‘touch base’ or something similar. The rules are that when you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout “BULLSHIT!” (I’ve never seen this done, by the way). 

We had not been very long home when the doorbell rang and there, on the doorstep, were some of our friends from down the road. They had very kindly cooked us a Lemon Drizzle cake in exchange for a jar of damson gin I had donated to them (as I have so many spare!) we thanked them profusely for this and shared it with our son and daughter-in-law before promising ourselves a carbohydrate treat with ice-cream for our supper later on this evening. During the afternoon, I had intended to give the car a wash but as it so cold and miserable with a sort of freezing fog, I wonder why I never got round to it. Instead, I amused myself with creating some ‘Day of the Week’ labels to complement the flip-over calendars of which we have one or two around the house. It is interesting how difficult it is to get calendars complete with days-of-the week. I had actually cut these out from an out-of-date Guide to the week’s TV and stuck them onto some pieces of thick white card (part of a box containing Christmas shortcake in an earlier life) and the finished product has a sort of ‘not bought but sort of home-made’ feel to them. I also got my iPad successfully reconnected with a 11″ Bluetooth plus mouse – I had successfully got them to communicate with each some time before Christmas but had neglected them for a few weeks so thought I would get them back together soon. The 11″ is quite significant because to make it transportable, you need a keyboard which is quite compact (i.e. does not stick excessively out of whatever little carry-on case you utilise for these sorts of things) Although the model I purchased is a bit tinny it was undoubtedly cheap (and so much cheaper than the Apple alternative) and so easier it is to produce text on than even the ‘virtual’ type keyboard available on the iPad.

I have just read the following on Sky News – it sounds almost unbelievable here it is:

Steven Brandenburg, who pleaded guilty last month to intentionally destroying more than 500 doses of the Moderna vaccine at his pharmacy, has been described as a gun-toting flat-earther who indulged in conspiracy theories, according to the FBI.

Brandenburg apparently believed the Moderna vaccines contained a microchip and would “turn off” birth control.

The FBI said: “Some of the conspiracy theories Brandenburg told [his colleague] about included: the earth is flat; the sky is not real, rather it is a shield put up by the Government to prevent individuals from seeing God; and Judgment Day is coming.”

Remember – you read it here first!  The ‘innoculation count’ is now up to 9.3 million and proceeding satisfactorily. I also read that that the Oxford vaccine (which was the one that Meg and I had) was up to 80% effective when the second dose was delayed by three months. The jab already provides 70% protection 22 days after the first dose, according to the UK’s Joint Committee of Vaccinations and Immunisations (JCVI), which advises the government. Meanwhile, the government is getting seriously worried that the ‘South African’ variant of the virus might have escaped into the community and is mass-testing in about half a dozen post-codes across the country.

This morning I did not oversleep as I sometimes do on a Sunday morning and was therefore in plenty of time to walk down to the newsagents and get back again in time for breakfast and the Andrew Marr show. When I am walking on my own, I often use an incredibly old iPhone that I generally use as a music player – somehow (and I am not quite sure how how I did it) I have about 200 classical tracks stored it (a good selection of Mozart and Bach amongst other things. And now for the coincidence I am about to explain. At the time of our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations, I got out our large album of wedding photos to digitise them (which I did). Out from the middle of the album dropped a lined sheet of paper torn from a notebook and on it was the original organist’s notes detailing what we had played at our wedding in 1967. Meg and I can remember most of what we had played but it was nice to have the ‘definitive list’ as it were – and for this, I managed to go onto the internet and get recordings which very closely simulated what one would have heard 50 years ago. One of the things that we had sung at the wedding was the cantata ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring‘  by J. S. Bach (incredibly well known to almost everybody). It was sung for us by a close friend of Mike’s called Austin who was training to be an opera singer but we have lost contact with him decades ago (and he may no longer even be alive) Anyway, a very good acquaintance of ours was Clive who used to walk his two Jack Russell terriers every day and we often stopped to engaged in conversation and jokes. Clive had played the trumpet for about 80 years and was very accomplished – we asked him if he would like to attend our wedding celebrations which he did and played ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring‘ for us at our reception. Now for the coincidence. The recording of this I got from the internet was a trumpet solo accompanied by an organ (a stunning combination, by the way) and, as it happened, this on my iPhone. Now for the coincidence. As I was passing Clive’s house, what came up on the iPhone as a random shuffle was the track of the trumpet/organ version of the cantata. Is this coincidence? fate? Beyond the grave? I am not ashamed to admit that as I was only own, I shed quite a tear in remembrance of my very good friend Clive, who departed from us in his 80’s about this time last year.

We picked up our newspapers and proceeded to the park where we met with a couple of our park friends. One we had not seen since about Christmas time and I had been carrying round a bottle of damson gin in my rucksack for weeks but we had not coincided. Now at last I could hand my little gift over and I hope she doesn’t drink it all at once (although there is more where that came from) Then we met our Birmingham University friend and caught up on several things we have been discussing over the days (I told him my ‘Clive’ coincidence by the way) Then, on the way home we met with some of our oldest church friends who were waiting patiently for their turn of the vaccination jab.

We had a normal Sunday lunch and treated ourselves to Part 1 of the Channel 5 series on ‘The Great Plague‘ – we have seen this before but it was well worth watching again and we look forward to the next two parts. Tonight, by way of experiment, I tried to see if I could access YouTube from our TV. I can, and after fishing about with Gmail usernames and passwords managed to get myself onto the YouTube system. Now we are really enjoying a production of Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ (a production with stunning voices but I’m not quite sure in what theatre it was filmed and I don’t want to pause it or mess about with it in case I can’t get it back again – I can see to that in the morning no doubt) Now I can treat myself to all kinds of things that YouTube offers (in particular Amadeus, the story of Mozart’s life which is may favourite film of all time)

I see that the number of vaccinations is fast approaching 9 million (8.97 at the last count) so that looks well on track. I wonder whether the 70 year olds are easier to process as they find they can access the vaccination centres more easily compared with the 80 year olds. I also read tonight that the 100 year old Captain Sir Tom Moore is in hospital being treated for COVID-19. Apparently, he had not been vaccinated as he was suffering from a bout of pneumonia. Wouldn’t it be a terrible comment on the year if he succumbed to it? The nation must be holding its breath.

Well, we knew that the weather forecast for today was not good and so it proved. The day started with some swirling rain then turned into sleet which eventually turned into a rather light snow – but given the wind, one that looked as it would not settle anywhere. We decided to cut our losses and go in the car to collect our newspapers which we did. Then it was onwards to the park and we made for the Bandstand which is always our haven when it is raining/sleeting/hailing/snowing. As were enjoying our coffee (if enjoying is the right word) we were joined in our refuge with a young father who was looking after a four-year-old as well as a babe-in-a-pram. It was noble of him to brave the elements under the circumstances. It turned out that he was an environmental officer at Birmingham University whilst his wife was busy doing on-line tuition as an English as a Foreign Language tutor. You meet some interesting people in the park – needless to say, we were the only people in evidence save for a solitary dog walker in the far distance. We were pleased to jump in the car and have more substantive elevenses at home when we eventually got warmed up. 

As it was a dull, wet afternoon, we decided to indulge ourselves with any old films being broadcast this afternoon. As it happened, BBC2 was showing the 1948 version of St. Joan with Ingrid Bergman which I assumed would be in black and white but was actually in colour.  It was quite a brave film to make as WWII had only ended three years earlier and most of the films made in the era tended to be uber-patriotic and certainly anti-German with one or two exceptions (Rommel coming to mind) Actually the French squabbling between themselves did not come out of it too well and might well have fed into latent English prejudices about the French. I always find it interesting that UNESCO tried to write an ‘objective’ comprehensive history of Europe but couldn’t find enough consensus to bring their project to fruition. For example, the English always tend to trump their victories at Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt (particularly in Shakespeare’s plays) and consign to a small footnote the fact that the English actually lost all of their French possessions at the end of the period. The French, by contrast, will acknowledge some temporary defeats at Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt and stress, that at the end of the day they were victorious in repelling the English. They say that history is written by the victors, which of course is true. Before leaving this subject, how many of the British population realise that the USSR with a population of 170,000 million had quite a lot to do with the defeat of Hitler (and lost 20 million of their population in the process)

There are several distinguished diplomats in the EU who have been pulling their hair over the rushed decision to suspend part of the Brexit deal agreement on Northern Ireland, in its rush to impose restrictions on Covid vaccines, or components of vaccines, exported from the bloc. This decision was so ill thought-out and taken without the knowledge of the governments of the UK, Northern Ireland or Eire that it had to be reversed in a matter of hours. As a German newspaper put it, succinctly, ‘Brexit 1, EU 0’ and it does really look as though, at a stroke, the EU committed an enormous blunder and must fuel the Brexit-like feelings, wherever they exist in the UK or elsewhere in continental Europe.

Our ex-Waitrose friends had texted us halfway through the afternoon to say that they had received their doses of the vaccine (as had our friend in Hampshire, so we learnt last night). I am sure it will be a massive relief to them as they have patiently locked down for the last 10-11 months and have borne this with a great deal of patience and fortitude – but glad that the end may be in sight so that they can re-connect with members of their family.  In the meanwhile, the numbers vaccinated has now reached  8.4 million out of the projected 15 million (to be reached by mid-February). The UK is vaccinating at the rate of 12.3 per 100 people (and Germany, by contrast, is only 2.6 per 100) and the UK has vaccinated some 16% of its population which is an impressive achievement given the timescales involved. Meg and I have entered ourselves in the COVID-19 computerised system which recognised that we had been given our first ‘shot’ and allocated us a date and a time for our final shot which will be 11 weeks after our initial jab. So this will be on 12th April so we have to be especially cautious until then (and subsequently). And to conclude, one public health expert is warning the population tonight that we might have to reconcile ourselves to a two-year wait (when vaccination rates in the rest of the world catch up?) before anything approaching a semblance of normality returns.

Today started off as quite a bright, blue day so Meg and I enjoyed a pleasant walk down to the newsagents this morning. Then we struck out for the park where we coincided, after a day’s absence, with our Birmingham University friend. One little conundrum which were trying to puzzle out together is the exact meaning of the phrase ‘to have all of your buttons sewn on‘ which I have used in the past but the origins of which are lost in obscurity. It tends to imply that someone is completely rational i.e. in touch with the world (‘ he has all his buttons‘) but my two sources do not help. I have on my bookshelves a dictionary of idioms and their origins but no entry is listed here so that is no help. Nor is the internet (which tends to be very USA-oriented when you trying to track down British expressions) I think I may have an explanation for the origins of this phrase but I may be entirely wrong. I believe it is a tradition in parts of the navy, or perhaps just the merchant navy, that you cut the buttums off your dress uniform and transfer them from one dress uniform to another – to ‘have all your buttons sewn on‘ then becomes to have everything in order. I am quite happy to be told the correct explanation for this expression. Whilst on this subject, I did discover at the bottom of a hole in a wooded area which bordered on my garden a button which when cleaned up I identified as probably worn by a submariner captain in the 1940’s – how it got there in the wood, one can only imagine.

On our way home. we bumped into our two sets of friends who live near to each other so we had a genial chat. One of our friends is having some drainage work done which necessitates having a trench cut along the length of their drive. I reminded them if one partner reports to the police that their other half has suddenly gone missing and has not been seen for days, the police will look carefully at the patio to see if there is any signs of recent digging activity or irregularities in the patio surface – it seems in the light of experience, the best place to start looking.

After we had a lunch of risotto made with kipper fillets and cauliflower rice. Actually topped with cheese and with a big dollop of yogurt it turned out to be more delicious than you might imagine. Our domestic help enjoyed her portion anyway. After lunch, I walked down into town for the second time this day. The first thing I needed to do was to pick up some of the unsupplied portions of Meg’s medication – the pharmacist we use often seem to run out of things and give you a supply that will last for a few days but then you have to go back for the rest.  My second port of call was to visit Boots in order to pick up some electric pre-shave which I buy from thenm when I can. As they never have any in stock, I decided to buy a couple of bottles online and then go to the shop to pick them up. This part worked OK and then I thought I would check the open shelves and, sure enough, Sod’s law appeared to be in operation because there on the open shelves were four bottles (which I never seen in stock for years)

Today, the media has got very excited about another two vaccines that appear to have extremely good efficacy. One of these has an 89% efficacy whilst the other Johnson and Johnson is 66%  after a single injection. Each of these viruses work in a slightly different way so it is surely reassuring to have several arrows in one’s quiver so to speak. The EU, worried about its own sources of supply, is putting export controls upon vaccines manufactured in some EU-based factories and this has exploded onto the political scene in the context off Northern Ireland – which is evidently a potential border to be crossed between the EU and the UK. So this has the possibility of becoming really, really messy. One just hopes that cooler heads prevail and that everybody realises that it should be the virus that we are fighting and not each other. But again, national interests have sprung to the fore and the Germans, for one, may not recommend the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for their 65+ population (but is has just been approved for the rest of Europe)

Finally, we are keeping a careful watch out for a further bout of snow. We might get this in the next day or so and I, for one, hope this may be the last snowfall of the winter. At least we are fairly well prepared with snow clearing gear if we do get dumped on once again. 

This morning proved to be one of the most entertaining of mornings. Our Waitrose delivery was delayed as the SatNav on the Waitrose delivery van had directed the driver down flooded roads in the area so the driver had to take a roundabout route to reach us. We collected our newspapers and then on our way to the park we met one of the Waitrose staff that we know well who had a trolley full of bunches of daffodils. Somehow, somewhere Waitrose had finished up with masses of bunches of daffodils far in advance of what they could sell. They had already reduced the price from £1.00 a bunch to 5p a bunch and then decided to give the rest away to clients of a local veterinary centre and a local garage. We had a long chat with the Waitrose staff member and we exchanged stories (what else?) about how members of our respective families were coping with the pandemic and whether they had received the vaccine or not. At the end of our conversation, we finished off with five bunches of daffodils and so made our flower-bestrewn path to the park. After our elevenses, we proceeded up the hill and called in at two of our friends to donate each of them a bunch of flowers (gratefully received?) Naturally, we all compared our various vaccination procedures which almost invariably dominates all of our discussions thee days. Finally, we popped in one of our neighbours to donate to her our last bunch of daffodils. She had received her call-up to be vaccinated at our local surgery in a few days time but had tried to get vaccinated at the local Artrix centre. If she had made it before 10.0am they could have squeezed her in but after that time they were absolutely inundated (and the word from the street was that they had managed to vaccinate at a rate of approximately 2,000 each day) So she decided, having waited for 10 months, to wait for a few more days.

I do not intend to tread much into the AstraZeneca row which is boiling at the moment. But I will offer just two thoughts, both of which give pause for thought. The first is a quote from The Lancet (read by many if not most GP’s) published on January, 9th 2021. Here is the relevant quote: ‘Only 1418 (12.1%) of those assessed for efficacy were older than 55years of age meaning that…we cannot yet infer efficacy in older adults’ This would appear to be quite a damning quote, admitting that we did not have the evidence base for older populations. On the other hand, UK medical scientists have been piling in this evening with statements of support, indicating that they had seen data that tends to suggest that the immune response in the 65+ age-group is high (but where is the evidence?) This is one of those situations where only time (and the availability of more evidence) will prove one side right or wrong.

We are right in the middle of a fairly mild spell of weather at the moment – that, plus the fact that the days are getting lighter to the tune of 1.0-1.5 minutes per day surely makes the spirits rise a little. Also, when we handed out our bunches of flowers (courtesy of Waitrose!), it was amazing to see how they lifted the spirits of the recipients. Of course, our own crocuses are out at the moment and daffodils will follow quite shortly. We also observed a Japanese flowering cherry which (I think) is on the point of bursting into bloom. One of the memories that we have when we used to Spain in January was to make a trip in the Alpujarras (mountainous area) to visit some of the highest villages in Spain. At some of our stopping off points, we used to marvel at almond blossom in full bloom right in the middle of the winter snows. I have been collecting empty boxes because I have a half-remembered idea (from somewhere) that I can get some seeds going at this time of year (perhaps some beet, leaflet, early lettuce) and get them going on a window sill. Then they should be quite easy to thin out and even easier to plant (as the fibre of the egg boxes should just rot away and of course, spacing becomes incredibly easy) As soon as I have acquired some more small wine bottles, then I can carry on with my damson-gin bottling activities as I still have several litres left to get processed. I must admit that of the two seasons, Spring and Autumn, I have a marginal preference for Autumn but after a year such as we have had with the pandemic, who can fail to look forward to the spring, particularly as the end is just about in sight!

Meg and I went to bed an hour earlier last night as we were experiencing some slight flu-like symptoms after our receipt of the vaccine (an indication that our immune system is working the way it should). We enjoyed the benefits of an electric blanket and later on, when I awoke with a coughing fit, I treated myself to some genuine honey-and-lemon mixture which I made up into a good supply, had a good glass of it and then slept like a baby after it.

Today we knew we were going to be a little time-constrained as I needed to get to our local community hospital in the late morning for a (routine) blood-test. So we took the car down into town to collect our newspapers and then peregrinated towards our favourite park bench in the park. There we met our Birmingham University friend (which seems to be an almost daily occurrence nowadays) and  talked about some of our joint interests in the way in which statistics are presented, communicated and interpreted. (We both enjoy a Radio 4 program called ‘More or Less‘ which does an extremely good job in uncovering and sometimes debunking statistical measures).

As we had planned, we made a fairly rapid exit from the park and I dropped Meg at home before I set off for our local community hospital. In order to effect my progress my system, I had previously taken a little stick-on print out I had acquired from a previous visit to a hospital and this contains your name, address, date of birth, NHS number and a bar-code which I suspect is your NHS number as well. This proved to be incredibly useful as I had to go through a COVID-19 screening first and needed to be logged in to the hospital system. Then I went on to the ‘bloods’ department (where I was the sole patient) and taking the required sample was easy and straightforward. I must admit I had not been looking forward to visiting a hospital but, in the event, I must have been incredibly safer than I would have been wandering around the aisles of a local supermarket where customers did not socially distance, where goods were handled before being put back on the shelves and the COVID-19 is reputed to be rampant. (I had read somewhere that supermarkets are the greatest simple source of infection ranking with people getting too close to each other not observing social distancing).

There is a massive row going on between the EU and AstraZeneca which is getting more acrimonious by the day. The first source of contention is that the EU provided some money upfront to AstraZeneca to help avoid the production difficulties which the firm is now claiming it is experiencing (I think this complaint may be justified). A second source of complaint is the feeling that the UK is getting preferential treatment, although it had signed contracts a lot earlier than the EU. There are some ‘insider’ stories that the UK contract stressed continuity of supply over price (giving the company the opportunity to charge a higher price so long as the supply was forthcoming?) The UE because of its bargaining power had prioritised price, no doubt because of its superior bargaining power. (In this respect, I think the UK is probably correct in having drawn up the contract to expedite delivery and well before the opposition) And then thirdly the EU is angry for the simple reason that all this plays into the idea that Europe’s approach to vaccination has been stuttering and sluggish, particularly in contrast to the UK. It is reckoned that about 11% of the UK population has now been vaccinated. The best-performing country in the whole EU is Malta, with about 5% of the population vaccinated. It looks as though the UK is administering 4.5 doses per 100 of the population whereas the comparable figure for Germany is only 2.1

Boris Johnson is now indicating that schools will not reopen until March 8th ‘at the earliest’ Personally, I think this is just to placate the right-wing of the Tory party (desperate to have the schools reopened, and not for the purest of motives) More realistically, rather than opening the schools for some children (they have already been ‘open’ to key workers’ children and others) I suspect that schools will not reopen until after Easter which is probably just as well to be on the safe side. The number of vaccinations in the UK is now 7.1 million but the argument is increasingly being heard that vaccines are not a ‘magic bullet’ but will have to be complemented by a variety of other strategies, not least social distancing and the avoidance of anything resembling a large crowd. The government have also put into place a rather half-hearted attempt to curb new strains of the virus entering the UK by requiring entrants from certain ‘red-list’ countries (e.g. Brazil) to stay in government-provided ‘quarantine’ hotels upon arrival. But, of course, anybody determined to get in will just arrange a flight so that it appears they are arriving from another country e.g. Holland. Too little, too late it seems!

So this is V (for vaccination day) + 1 – in other words, we are waiting to see if the vaccine will inflict any of its side effects on us or not. We got up at our normal time, having had a night of untroubled sleep, and then settled into our normal routine. We then collected our newspapers passing our Birmingham University friend en route and we said we would catch up with each other later. When we got into the park, we were hailed by our next-door neighbour who was busy giving his little dog a walk. We expressed our effusive thanks to him for having tipped us off the day before and we explained how we had all successfully received our jab. Then we resumed our conversation with our Birmingham University friend where we discussed a paper I had come across as a postgraduate student by Sir Peter Medawar, the principal executive of the Medical Research Council. His seminal paper was called ‘Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud?” (or something similar). His whole thesis is that the typical scientific paper proceeds by laying out the literature base of the extant theory, then some new theoretical insights arising from current work from which hypotheses are drawn, data is collected and then a conclusion reached as to whether the new theoretical formulation receives support (wholly or in part) or fails to be confirmed by the available data.  The point of the Medawar paper is that describes the formal logic underlying the scientific paper – actual research, however, does not proceed like this and is actually quite a melange of data collection, hypothesis formulation and reformulation, some working adjustments in the light of the data – in other words, quite a messy and complicated business which is not at all like the ‘formal’ procedures outlined in the paper as it is actually presented for publication.

So you can see that we had quite a busy morning and came home to a meal of fish cakes. I busied myself getting some of our medical documentation in order (some of which will require copying and then a careful filing) In the late afternoon, we had a couple of video calls, the first of which was a Skype call to a colleague/friend from Hampshire – we then went down memory lane exploring some of the ways in which as external examiners or PhD candidates we had come across some current problems and concerns. Immediately following this, we engaged in a FaceTime call with some of our ex-Waitrose friends who had eventually secured a ‘slot’ for them to receive the jab. Actually, the husband should have received his call-up weeks ago because of his medical history but somehow the appropriate ‘flag’ had not been set on his records so he had got missed off the priority list. Anyway, better later than never.

Although I generally do not discuss medical matters, the reactions of our bodies to the jab is interesting. Meg and I have generally felt OK and it seems to be a characteristic of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine that the older you are, the fewer symptoms you appear to have. Having said this, Meg and I are starting to have a few flu-like symptoms so we have switched the electric blanket on early and will probably go to bed an hour earlier tonight. The symptoms are signs that our immune systems are working as they should and are not a cause for alarm but they should last for 24-48 hours.

Today is quite a dramatic day in the history of the pandemic in the UK for it is the day when the death total since the start of the pandemic has topped 100,000 lives. One the government’s medical advisers had stated at the start of the pandemic that 20,000 deaths would be quite a ‘good’ outcome but this has now been exceeded five times and we are not near the end of the second wave yet. On the more encouraging side, the number of people vaccinated is now 6.85 million. It does appear that the death rates in hospital are less than the first wave of the pandemic as the medics have discovered new ways of treating (if not actually curing) the disease.

Today has been the most interesting – and eventful-  of days. The day started off well with a phone call from our local doctor’s surgery inviting me along for a COVID jab next Friday, which I was very pleased to receive, needless to say. I thought they ought to be getting around to the 75+ age group quite soon now. Although we had a fresh fall of snow yesterday evening, it was only a thin layer over the recently cleared paths and driveways so walking down to the park was a real pleasure as it was quite nice and crunchy (and not slippery) underfoot. On our way down, we met with one of our acquaintances who we know very well and is a supervisor in a local supermarket (name starting with an ‘A’) She was at home because the test-and-trace app told her she may have been in contact with an infected person so she was staying at home for the relevant number of days (despite pressure from her employers to get back into work!) Outside the park, we met with our Birmingham University friend so whilst he and Meg progressed on to the park I made a quick detour to collect the newspapers. After that and another detour to buy milk (having porridge in the morning makes us run out!) we all coincided in the park and had yet another interesting and fascinating chat. I was telling our friend the experiences I had had in Leicester when I was run over by a driver who had ‘fainted’ at the wheel (after a heavy night of all-night partying the night before) so there were quite a lot of stories about the accident and its sequelae with which to bore our new found friend. We made for home and met with some of the oldest of our church friends so we communicated the good news about the fact that I had been called in for our vaccination jab. On our final stretch of the way home, we were stopped by a couple (but I didn’t recognise them) They live on the new estate built where the orchard happened to be adjacent to our house and after they had moved in and their ‘cess-pit’ alarm was ringing constantly I had gone round to explain how the whole thing worked and what they needed to do about it (none of it explained by the builder/developer by the way) We exchanged news about the progress with vaccinations because as it happens they attend the same surgery as we do and they had received their invitations for a jab next Sunday.

In the middle of the afternoon, the fun started! Our next-door neighbour called round to thank us for clearing the snow in front of their house – useful as my neighbour has had some heart problems so a lot of energetic snow moving is NOT what the doctor ordered (one of my family doctors, when I was a teenager, died whilst digging his car out of the snow whilst doing his rounds). Our neighbour informed us that the newly re-purposed Artrix Arts Centre (see last night’s blog for details) was in operation today but they still had a degree of spare capacity as fewer people than you might have thought couldn’t get to them because of the overnight snow and ice. So I quickly grabbed my wife and and we went down to the vaccination centre. As I had previously been a ‘wise virgin’ and got the NHS numbers for Meg and myself kept in a laminated card in my wallet, then processing ourselves was quite easy. We had to socially distance and then take our turn at one of four processing stations – fortunately, Meg and I were allowed to be ‘done together’ after answering the routine battery of questions. Meg did not feel a thing and I only experienced the slightest pinprick and so we were all done and dusted within about ten minutes.  So all in all an eventful day and so what if we have a sore arm in the morning because we both feel quite good having had the vaccine (but realise it takes three weeks for your immunity system to be ‘primed’ and then another twelve weeks before we get the 2nd dose).