Today we needed to make one of rare excursions onto the High Street in Bromsgrove and we decided to take the car for reasons I shall explain later. On the High Street, we visited Boots opticians in order to get a slight adjustment made to Meg’s glasses. This was all very straightforward and then made a trip round a cut-price cosmetics shop  to get some bits and bobs of which we were short.  We had a quick perambulation around the park but it was too cold for a stay on a park bench so we made our way back to the car and thence to the house of one of our friends. We had previously arranged to buy  couple of Christmas wreaths (proceeds going to aid our church) and as I had chosen them previously, all I had to had to do was to and pick them up from a pre-arranged spot in their garden and then transport them home. I must say we were glad to get home today because we felt pretty well chilled so it was good to have our coffee and comestibles sitting by our own fire. After lunch, I surveyed our porch and gathered to gather a range of materials to help to hang them in the porch – a job I though should only take about 15-20 minutes. After that, our intention was to treat ourselves to watching ‘The Belles of St. Trinians‘ (the 1954 Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell version) although I vaguely remember that a much more up-to-date version has been made recently in about 2010 (when the girls were notably more street-wise than in 1954). So now to little Mike and his saga of how to hang two wreaths on the brick wall in our porch. The original idea was to hang them on other side of the downstairs (loo) window and to do this, I utilised a couple of stick-on-hooks with their action assisted by some strips of gaffer tape. As I was putting up the second wreath, the first crashed to the floor shattering into 2-3 pieces. So I abandoned the idea of sticking them to the brick wall and plan 2 was to stick them onto the plasticised? surround of the window frame. This resulted in as much failure as effort no. 1 so I needed to think of a third solution. Raiding my box of supplies, I found some picture pins of various sizes. The intention was to put the pin into the space between the mortar and the brick but this attempt, too, ended in failure as the pins bent upon attempting to hammer them in. So onto attempt No. 4 which was to attempt to put a screw again in the ‘weak point’ where the mortar meets the brick. This attempt, too, ended in failure. And so on to Effort No 5 where I had to think imaginatively. I made a small indentation between the mortar and the brick using a bradorl. I then enlarged this somewhat by hammering in a very small nail. Finally, I took a very small screw and using a bit of brute force and ignorance managed to get the two wreaths finally hung on the wall. I need to point out at this stage, that the wreath that had previously shattered into 2-3 pieces was repaired with some gaffer tape – when my daughter-in-law returned home, this too had crashed to the floor (for the second time, I might add) completely disintegrating it. But at least my wall-screw had held so I may be able to get a replacement. Overall, a 20 minute job lasted an hour and a half.

I have started to think that I must try and get my Christmas cards organised – fortunately, this task has been made much easier  because a couple  of years ago  I  ‘computerised’ my Christmas card list (i.e. made a text file of names and addresses) with the spacing between the entries so organised that I can easily print off some address labels on the printer. I have ordered a supply of Christmas cards from Oxfam but they tell me that it may take a few days to arrive so I went to my Christmas card box to see what I already had in stock. The first thing to do was to make sure that I had envelopes of the requisite size for each spare card (and I seem to have ended up with more cards than envelopes). I have these sorted into three piles (a) religious (typically an illustration of Madonna + child) (b) quasi-religious e.g.anything with angels or shepherds on it (c) secular, in that there are no religious themes in it at all – typically robins and snow-scenes. Then I have to make a guess as to the degree of religiosity or secularism before I choose a card appropriate to the recipient. Whether other people share this Christmas card dilemma, I do not know but I do not want to wish religiosity upon people who rather be without it.

Today we entered into our normal Sunday morning routine which involves running down to the newsagents in the car to pick pop the Sunday newspapers in order to get back for the Andrew Marr show (which never quite manages to fulfil its promises these days). Our sit-down in the park was a little on the cold side but not really unpleasant. Whilst sitting on the park bench we were visited by a friendly dog (this is not at all unusual as their magnificent olfactory organs can sense the presence of food from a long way away and hence we are the target of their attentions). Once we got into conversation with the dog’s owners, we ascertained that it had been a rescue dog from the RSPCA. I opined to the owner that you were never quite sure what you were going to get if you acquired a rescue dog but we were informed that before a dog was entrusted to a new owner, it had a ‘behavioural analysis’ done on it. I suppose with a knowledge of the breed and some acute observation, the veterinary personnel who perform the behavioural analysis can have a fair idea whether the dog is going to be OK with children, other animals, not to mention human kind (all of this I didn’t know) On the way home,  I got a telephone call from one of our friends whose wife was busy preparing the Christmas wreaths that we had already pre-ordered. As it happened, we were only two minutes away from their house so we called in had our choice of wreaths. Tomorrow we will pass by and pick them up and then when we get them home we will have to decide how and where we are going to hang them. As it happens,I have reel of fishing line wire which is very fine but has a 50lb breaking strength so no doubt I can utilise this when I choose a display point for the wreaths. Our friends also informed us, much to our delight, that they were going to make application to go on the pilgrimage to Rome next September. All of this means that there will be a group of some 7-8 of us who all know each other and it may well be that we can hire a minibus to take us all down to Bristol airport which seems to be our best accessible airport if we wish to avoid Heathrow.

The afternoon was dominated by our watching the England-France rugby final which turned out to have a pulsating finish. Two minutes before the end, England after concerted pressure all during the second half of the match eventually scored a try (and converted it) which managed to make the scores level. From then on, it was extra time and a ‘sudden death’ finish i.e. whoever scored would win the game. England appeared to have won the match only for a penalty kick to hit the upright post, traverse the goal and then not, in the event,  go in. So with hearts in mouths, we watched England eventually get a penalty from which they won the match but it certainly, in the words of the Duke of Wellington, ‘a damned near-run thing‘ (said of the battle of Waterloo) Without it sounding too fanciful, I wondered idly if this result would have a deleterious effect upon the current increasingly tense EC-UK trade negotiations in which the French are said to be maintaining a very hard line. I was wondering whether the French might be stiffened in their resolve NOT to yield to the UK having just had victory just snatched from their grasp in the dying seconds of the match this afternoon.

There is no news yet of a COVID-19 negotiation outcome, as yet, as the negotiators have resumed their negotiations for ‘one last throw of the dice.‘ It looks as though day, or even some time tomorrow, might be the critical end-point for the negotiations. If and when the UK reinstate the clauses from the legislation governing the operation of the internal market (removed by the House of Lords) then the EU will probably walk away from the negotiations indicating there is no point in trying to reach and agreement if the UK government intends that it intends to break past agreements (the ‘Withdrawal Agreement’) which has the force of international law.

Meanwhile, there is quite a lot of excitement in the press over the imminent arrival of the recently developed vaccine. This looks as though it is going to be delivered to various hospitals and distribution points over the weekend with final preparations on Monday next and possible start of the injection programme on Tuesday. Various political leaders have indicated they are quite prepared to publicly receive their doses of the vaccine so as to increase acceptance of the virus in the wider community. Even the Queen has indicated she is willing to receive the vaccine (although not in public) and apparently there is a precedent for this in the early 1950’s when the monarch ‘did her bit’ for the acceptance of the polio vaccine.

Today was a fine, bright day (eventually) and we strolled down to pick up our newspapers and have our sojourn in the park in relatively good conditions. In comparison with yesterday when the biting wind gave a really raw edge to the morning, today was quite mild with quite a clear sky and a breeze that whilst cool did not have the cutting edge of yesterday. We walked home to our by now traditional Saturday lunch of sausages, knowing that we had three rugby matches in prospect. The first of these was Georgia vs.Fiji, two ‘second flight’ teams but who turned out to be a very interesting contest. The trouble is that I only saw about two-thirds of the second half of the match as it had started early and I had to fit in cooking lunch at some point. The matches were being provided over the Internet as a live stream on Amazon ‘Prime’ and this has proved problematic the last time we accessed it to watch rugby. The problem appears to be a live-stream, there is quite a degradation of internet quality, occasional freezes and a need for pausing for buffering. When it came to watching the second match which was Ireland vs. Scotland this problem became acute and I was on the point of abandoning the whole of the second half after I had been treated to several minutes of the screen saver. Eventually, I switched Amazon Prime back off and then back on again and this actually helped to ‘solve’ my problem. Having had a delay for several minutes and then restarting, the program re-started from practically the start of the second half. The program was now adequately buffered so I managed to watch the whole of the second half adequately. Then onto the third match which was Italy vs. Wales. We only managed the first half of this as the second half coincided with our visit to church, which had started to resume after the lockdown of a month. When we returned home from the service, we managed to watch the whole of the second half that was evidently provided a kind of ‘catch-up’ service from Amazon.

Our attendance at church was not exactly filled with unalloyed joy. Attendance was limited to a maximum of 36 and I doubt that there were that many of us. The necessity to socially isolate, a freezing church (as the boiler still had to be repaired) and the inability to meet with other parishioners all made for a somewhat bleak experience. Our mood was not exactly lightened by a chat we had in the car park as we were leaving with one of the parishioners whom we know well. One parishioner who we know and usually sits near us was ill in hospital with the COVID-19 virus. To compound difficulties, she had had a fall in her home but was not discovered where she had fallen on the floor for 24 hours. Another acquaintance had fallen and her glasses had caused her to have an eye injury. Moreover, the parish weekly newsletter informed us that our parish priest was stepping back from active ministry due to personal and private reasons. As he recently had a bout of colon cancer, we can only fear the worst and hope that his absence is only a temporary one. As I wrote to him on the occasion of his last illness offering him whatever support I could (as a recent sufferer myself) so I will do the same again in the next day or so and hope for the best.

The political news tonight seems to indicate that a stalemate has been reached between the UK and the UE over a new trade. I suppose it is theoretically possible that two savvy political leaders could agree to meet and resolve all outstanding issues by splitting them down the middle and then no side would be able to claim either defeat or victory. But I suspect that the issues that divide the parties are so deep and intractable that such a ‘splitting of the differences’ is im[possible. For example, the EU is very keen to have a level playing field i.e. we all stick by the same rules and trade within them. But the UK wants to have an ‘unfair’ playing field such as abandoning common standards of protection for the workforce (such as the minimum provision of holiday pay, maximum hours worked) so that we could have a competitive advantage vis-a-vis other EU states. How it is possible to ‘square the circle’ in such fundamental issues of principle is difficult to say – it is quite possible that playing games of brinkmanship such as we have experienced recently can result in a bad outcome almost by accident. As they say, the next 48 hours should prove critical.

Today was the kind of day for which the adjective ‘raw’ was invented. Meg and I had a rather uncomfortable walk to pick up our newspapers and thereafter, we went to the park and shivered whilst drinking our coffee. We then had a really uncomfortable walk back home with our fingers as cold as ice – I suppose having had such a mild autumn has made us, in a very old-fashioned word ‘nesh’ (OED definition:’weak and delicate, feeble’) but it does also have a rather pejorative overtone. Still, it was nice to get home and shortly afterwards I needed to go out in the car to the physiotherapists in our local health centre to whom I had been referred for an episode of ‘trigger finger’ in my left hand. I was given a range of strength and other exercises to perform and will be seen again in about six weeks time to assess my progress (or lack of it). After I got home, I cooked a special risotto (which our domestic helped to to consume). Then we made an interesting excursion around our garden to find suitable kinds of leaves and holly berries from which our domestic help can utilise her magic to create some nice autumnal displays. In the late afternoon and early evening, we engaged in some video-calls with some of our Hampshire friends. In the first of these we used Zoom but I always find this a bit difficult to get going and end up with a meeting in which I am the only person present until others are invited to join me. The ‘Zoom‘ link was pretty ropy with a lot of internet drop out- we weren’t quite sure whether this as due to the technology itself or the fact that is was an early Friday evening and we might be having bandwidth problems. The second call to a friend using FaceTime was much more successful but of course you both have to have Apple technology to communicate across this link.

The news concerning the EU and UK trade talks is not at all encouraging: it seems that some kind of stalemate seems to have been reached and the talks have been put ‘on hold’ for the time being. Saturday (i.e. tomorrow) will not be used for any more negotiations but rather for a briefing of principle (political masters). In a joint statement, Lord Frost and Mr Barnier said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson would ‘discuss the state of play’ on Saturday afternoon. The deadlock could be interpreted in two particular ways. The pessimistic way of viewing this deadlock is that there no meeting of minds and therefore in the absence of an agreement, the deadlock must point towards a ‘no deal’ outcome. However, there is another way of viewing the situation which is this. If the negotiators on either side have gone absolutely as far as they can go without breaking their mandates, then the ultimate ‘bridging of the gap’ can only take place as a result of direct political decision making. In other words, if Boris Johnson is determined to have a deal, then he can help to create one – but if is determined to leave with no deal, then all of the negotiations will have been in vain. It could be said that Boris Johnson is really on the horns of the most acute dilemma. If he ere to choose ‘no deal’ then the economic consequences will be dire for all kinds of industries in the UK.The compounding effects of COVID-19 and a ‘no deal’ Brexit will plunge the country into a massive economic crisis.On the other hand, whatever kind of minimal deal he manages to live with will be classified by the ardent Brexiteers and the right wing of the Tory Party as a complete betrayal and Boris Johnson will soon be ‘toast’ and will be dumped by the Tory Party as soon as possible. Of course, in the past, Tory Prime Ministers could rely upon a supine and generally supportive right-wing press to hail any kind of deal as  a ‘triumph’ and could then could claim to have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.But the press has been much less supportive of the present Conservative Government which has hardly covered itself in glory after its maladroit handling of the pandemic. Watch this space!

Today was an ‘interesting’ sort of day! It was raining cats and dogs, as they say but we were determined not to let it deter us. After we had collected our newspapers (our lucky day – the very last copy of both ‘The Guardian‘ and ‘The Times‘) we had intended to go into the park to have our coffee. But as it was raining so hard, we decided to go on our trip to a distant Waitrose on the outskirts of Worcester which we had been given to understand was huge and therefore full of choice at Christmas time. Although I had taken down the postcode, I had already looked at the directions via Google and it seemed to be just a straight run down the M5 to junction 7 and then a couple of miles along the main road into Worcester. But then we started to run into problems – the road which we though we wanted signposted us to Evesham and so we thought to ourselves – ‘No, not that way-  it must this way’ Having gone for several miles long what was evidently a new ring road in the course of construction with massive digging vehicles and traffic jams all over the place we decided to trace our steps, take the road pointing to ‘Evesham’ and finished off where we wanted at the huge Waitrose. This really was like a cornucopia and we filled a trolley full of Christmas goodies (mainly death by carbohydrate such as puddings, Christmas cake, mince pies, stollen) and a quite a lot of alcohol most of which are intended as presents for close family. But we did treat ourselves to a nice Rioja and Cava for Christmas Day, not to mention replenishing our supplies of gin and sherries for when/if people call round. We did feel a little ‘Waitrosed out’ as a result of all of this because e had received our weekly online order from the said store which we are now scheduled to receive between 8.00 and 9.00am each Thursday morning. At this time of year, we have to find extra space in our cupboards and squeeze items in whilst avoiding the temptation to overflow things into our garage (nice and cool – but also a temptation too far for the local mice who have invaded us before)

In this morning’s email, my friend from down the road had sent me detail of the pilgrimage to Rome next September which he had mentioned to us in the park the day before. At the end of the details was an application form which I assiduously filled in at the end of afternoon but there were some questions it that required some chasing around in order to complete e.g. what was the policy number of the travel insurance it was anticipated that you already had, complete with the emergency telephone number to contact them which had already been supplied to you. But I managed to get it all filled in and got it put into an envelope ready to be despatched first thing in the morning. We will need to fly from Bristol Airport which is some 85 miles away but the access will be fairly fast via the M5 and A4 so that should not be very problematic for us – and better than Heathrow. We are hoping that by getting our application fairly early the tour as a whole is not over-subscribed and that our application to join the pilgrimage will be accepted.

Later on in the early evening, I was hunting for an envelope in which one of our Yorkshire friends (in whose guest house we used to stay and who has written a book about his experiences in which we figure) had sent us a Christmas card but with his address written on the back of the envelope – which I now couldn’t find. Somewhat distraught, I rang the contact number I had in my iPhone and was delighted to be able to make contact with our old friend again (who at the same time as myself was having some medical problems) To cut a long story short, we had an incredibly good chat catching up over our plans fo the immediate future – or rather the ways in which both Brexit and COVID-19 had laid waste to them. Anyway, we are now in WhatsApp contact with each other which means that we can use a video call facility to each other in the future. (I have never used this facility in WhatsApp but now is the time and the motivation to learn how to do it) It could be that we meet up in Spain for an extended holiday together when the coast clears, but of course until the E111 status becomes clarified as the result of the Brexit deal/no deal we are both  little stuck. Nonetheless, our friend has assiduously been polishing his Spanish grammar (and he is a natural linguist and ardent anti-Brexiteer) so whoever we meet is bound to be a good trip down memory lane for the both of us! 

Today will go down as those truly momentous days. It was announced first thing this morning that Britain’s medicines regulator, the MHRA, has ruled that the vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech which offers 95% protection against COVID-19 has been approved for use. Of course, this is tremendously good news. This is exactly how the new vaccine works:

BNT162b2 uses messenger RNA that describes one of the spike proteins that stud the outer surface of SARS-CoV-2. Though human cells don’t make spike proteins, they can still read viral messenger RNA and follow its instructions. When someone receives a dose of BNT162b2, their body responds by producing the spike protein, but only the spike protein, and no other part of the virus. 

Since spike proteins aren’t normally found in human cells, their presence triggers the immune system, leading to a defensive response where the proteins are removed. Now that the immune system’s had some practice, it’s ready for the real thing. If someone who was vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 was exposed to the virus later on, their immune system is ready to react, and hopefully, fend off the virus. 

Messenger RNA vaccines are relatively new on the scene, but have the potential to be safer and more effective than other vaccine types. There is no risk of getting COVID-19 from a vaccine, as the virus is never present in the body.

There is a slight downside to this good news and that is that the RNA is so fragile that the vaccine has to be stored at a temperature of -70º which is often available in specialised biological facilities but not in the typical doctor’s surgery. So it looks as though the initial supplies of the virus will be distributed to hospitals where they have specialised facilities and from here, it will be used to vaccinate NHS and other care staff in the first instance, There is then a descending scale of priorities that run from 1 to 9 with residents in a care home and the carers the first priority, 80+ and frontline health and social care workers the second priority, 75 and over the third priority (I won’t go on but personally I shall be in the this priority order and Meg being a bit younger will be in the next priority zone down the list). I suspect that it may be mid-February at the earliest that I shall personally receive a jab (with a follow up three weeks later) but at least we can say that the end is in sight – but only if combined with more conventional measures such as social distancing, face masks and gels.

Today was a bit of a dull day but nothing to stand in the way of our walk for newspapers and coffee in the park – we did have the bonus, though, that we did not have to utilise our tea-towel that we bring with us to dry the park bench as it had been dry and cold overnight. As we were starting to walk home, we met with some of our oldest friends and received some wonderful news. We informed them that we had consulted the website for our local church and ascertained that church services, subject to the normal restrictions, will start again from this weekend. We will need to make a telephone call to book our place but all being well, we are set to resume our normal church attendance from Saturday onwards (but minus any hymn singing, of course) Then our friends gave us some marvellous news. They were in touch with a group of church members who were organising a type of pilgrimage to Rome in September of next year. This will involve deploying the services of a contact in the English College in Rome (a seminary used for the training of priests) Also involved is a trip to the Sistine Chapel and perhaps even an audience with the Pope. In short, would we like to go on this trip? It took Meg and I about 0.1 second to ponder all of this and to say ‘Yes, please!” but we will have to wait for further details to arrive by email and trust that we can well and truly booked up (and it is not massively over-subscribed)

Tomorrow, Meg and I are going to make a special trip to Waitrose in Worcester. This will be a journey of about 20 minutes so but as the store is a very large and well supplied store, we thought it might be a good idea to make it into a trip here we can buy some Christmas food and drink (some of which will act as presents for some of our friends and acquaintances in any case) We haven’t been to this store before but the directions make it appear simple enough to access and there is always the Sat-Nav of course (the first time in this new car but it ought to operate like the previous one).

Well, I must say that I am really glad to be shot entirely of the month of November and to be entering the month of December. I always feel that the month of December flies by because of the intensification of social life as Christmas approaches – although this year, Christmas will be a very different affair for most of us. Also, as December 21st approaches, so does the shortest day which means the once Christmas is out of the way, at least the days are getting a little bit longer if only by a minute or so. The bad weather will also bear down on us in January and February but at least we have had a fairly mild autumn so far -when you have bad weather such as snow in the autumn, then the winter seems to go on for ever and a day.

It was a beautiful fine day on our walk down this morning with a clear blue sky and the sun even warm in places where it could strike the pavement evenly and not be obscured by tall trees on the other side of the road. We spoke with one of our acquaintances who was busy putting lights around the denuded branches of a young sycamore tree and we notice that many people are starting to decorate their houses and their front gardens. There is one particular house in a block long since sold off by the council where the owners really go ‘over the top’ when it comes to external decorations in the house and garden. On this one particular house, it appeared from a distance, that Santa Claus appeared to be in danger of an imminent suicide as he clung perilously to a window sill. In practice, Santa was hanging onto a translucent rope ladder, no doubt to be lit up later on this evening, but from the angle from which we were approaching Santa appeared to be in dire straits. When we arrived home, we had a nice conversation with our next door neighbour, mainly on the subject of the atrocious political leadership we were experiencing on both sides of the Atlantic and we were speculating how long our current Prime Minister can survive in office once the immediate crises of Brexit and Covid appear to be in resolution.

We had quite a busy time FaceTime-ing  in the late afternoon and early evening. Firstly we got into contact with our friends in Hampshire who have been in lockdown since the start of the pandemic – their feelings were very much that having come this far, they were not going to prejudice things over Christmas by too intimate a contact with family. Some family members were going to come and occupy a conservatory where they could communicate but were insulated from each by some glass – no doubt,  families all over the country are having to improvise similar arrangements. No sooner had we made a ‘slot’ when we can chat again in a fortnight, then our ex-Waitrose friends FaceTimed us and we exchanged news of each other’s activities. They were slightly on tenterhooks at their end because a new edition to the family was in the process of being born (but had to be transferred from Worcester were there was no spare space in the maternity site to Hereford where they did have a space). Our son and daughter-in-law are busily decorating the newly acquired Christmas tree (another family tradition) so we can FaceTime a video of the tree when we are next in contact next week.

Car wash time has come around again – I am trying to get into a routine of washing once a fortnight (once a week seems excessive as we hardly go anywhere these days with the lockdown in operation) One has to time these operations quite carefully as the days are so short – I started at 3.0pm and had just about completed quite a comprehensive clean by 4.0pm when it was still just about light – but only just. When I get a new car, I always treat myself to some new cleaning materials and treated myself to some micro-fibre towels for a final finishing off. I thought this might have sounded a bit excessive but the results I am pleased to say were really good. So I gave all of my car cleaning cloths a quick machine wash ready for next time.

We expected that the government would get its own way and once the Labour Party, the Lib-Dems and the SNP decided to abstain, the result was not really in doubt. In the event, some 55 Tory MP’s voted against their own government supported by some 15 Labour MPs and some independents. The real question now shifts to about a fortnight’s time because then some of the regulations may be ‘tweaked’ and it is possible that as a result of political pressure and/or wheeler dealing so area might be detached from Tier 3 to join Tier 2. There is also talk of getting more ‘granularity’ in the data i.e. not averaging out the results of a low-virus rural hinterland with a high-virus urban area to get a result somewhere in-between that reflects neither.

We always knew this was going to be a busy day and so it proved. We started off in the outpatients department of our (very) local hospital where Meg was attending for an outpatient’s appointment – all masked up and hand-gelled up as you might imagine. After a fairly long and quite satisfactory appointment, Meg was prescribed some new medication with might prove to be efficacious.  Once we had concluded the outpatient appointment, Meg and I went to our little local newsagent where we sympathised with each other because we both had experienced computing difficulties in the past day. And so on to the park where we partook of our coffee on a blustery not particularly cold day. Fortunately, the park was much less busy than yesterday as you might expect on a dull autumn day. Then we jumped in the car and made our way to the Webb’s department store to collect our Christmas tree voucher (available only to club card holders). When we got to Webb the queues were absolutely horrendous and must have snaked over at least one hundred yards with crowd control barriers that one got used to at airports in the days when we used to fly. Fortunately one of the Marshalls indicated that those wishing to seek Customer Services (as we were) could bypass the queues for which we were truly grateful as otherwise we might have queued for an hour just to get in. So we eventually got our precious Christmas tree voucher and made for home. In the early afternoon, I decided I would make a trip out to the pharmacists in order to get Meg’s new medication prescribed. Whilst it was being dispensed, I took the opportunity for a quick ‘whiz’ around Asda to get one or two things that I know that Waitrose does not stock and a few things that are so much cheaper at Asda. Then I picked up Meg’s medication and made for home. In the early evening, my daughter-in-law and I made a tip to the afore-mentioned Webbs store  so that we could pick up our Christmas tree, as we always do. Normally, it takes us about 1 minute and 20 seconds to choose a tree but on this occasion, we did take two minutes and went seconds. Then we met with our next door neighbour (who happens to work in Webbs anyway) and she had very kindly arranged to transport our tree home. This was because both my daughter-in-law and myself have changed our cars in the past few months and as they are both shorter than the Honda CR-V we have used in the past, there as a severe doubt whether we could get the tree home by ourselves. (The problem does not occur in reverse because we chop up the tree into manageable ‘bits’ before we take it back to Webbs for recycling) So we got our tree home and it is now firmly in its stand but now ‘resting’ i.e. we are allowing its branches to settle a little before the act of decoration starts in earnest in a day or do. Although we do put some decorations around our living room and have our own little ‘fibre-optic’ Christmas tree, I have taken the view over the years that the fewer the decorations we use for adornment and the less elaborate is their deployment, then the easier it is to clear them all away on or before the traditional ‘Twelfth Night’.

The economic news tonight is that Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia retail empire has collapsed in the worst single corporate failure of the COVID-19 crisis to date, leaving 13,000 jobs hanging in the balance. Even though he was given his knighthood by Tony Blair, modern commentators are being far from kind to Sir Philip. The consensus view of him now is that he was not a natural retailer but he was very good at asset stripping. Apparently with many of his stores, he sold off the properties they occupied to a property management company domiciled overseas (where they paid hardly any tax) but under the control of Philip Green and his family.  The stores, meanwhile, had to pay rent for he premises they occupied which reduced their profitability (and the amount of tax they had to pay) but the net effect of all of this was to make Sir Philip Green obscenely wealthy. It is said that Sir Philip Green’s wife once was awarded a dividend payment in excess of one billion pounds (but I have yet to check on the veracity of this story)

I thought this blog was not going to appear tonight – or indeed ever again! When I tried to log on to my site, I got a system message to say that WordPress would not run on an out-of-date version of PHP (the programming language in which WordPress is written) and it needed to be updated. Whatever I did I got the same system message – to say I was distraught is an understatement. Not knowing that I do, I wrote a desperate email to my friendly web administrator in Canada from whom I rent the webspace. She suggested a solution which meant that I had to go into a special control panel (cPanel) and then access a specific program that would update every folder in my webspace. I did this with bated breath – and it worked! A heartfelt email went winging its way to Karina – how often do you get personal service like that? But I have rented webspace from her for about 15 years now and its on occasions like this that it is worth its weight in gold. And now to return to more mundane matters!

The day was dull and overcast so I went down and collected our newspapers by car before watching the Andrew Marr show (which is our default for a Sunday morning) Then we walked down to the park today and were a bit dismayed to find that it was absolutely teeming full – cars were parked on the nearby grass verges making a real mess of them as the car park was full to overflowing.  Another source of dismay that there seemed to be a feeling that the lockdown had already ended – there seemed to be hordes of people none of whom seem to be making the slightest attempt to socially distance. I wonder of there will be a big ‘spike’ in about a couple of weeks time as the virus has had a field day? As I remember it, the current lockdown was due to be announced on a Sunday but the newspapers had got wind of it. So Downing Street brought forward their announcement to the preceding Saturday and some people must have gone wild in pubs, clubs and whatever because about two weeks after this there was a massive surge in the infection rate. I sometimes wonder how uninformed and ‘lacking in intelligence’ some people must be given the warnings that are all over the place about the necessity to socially distance and so on. I suppose that people get inured to the constantly repeated messages and if they only catch the virus in a mild form or are unsymptomatic then they almost pretend that life must be back to normal.

Tomorrow is going to be quite a busy day for us what with one thing or another. First thing tomorrow morning, Meg and I are attending an outpatient clinic for Meg and this might take a certain amount of time – the appointment was made at quite short notice  and then we were phoned up with a list of questions to make sure that we were virus free. Then we will park the car and have our normal elevenses in the park before we go off to the Webb’s garden store to try to collect our Christmas tree voucher. Webb’s (a huge garden store with a national reputation) makes a special offer to its cardholders in that once you buy a tree at the normal price (which we always do) then most of the price is refunded in the form of vouchers in effect giving you the tree for nothing. We are doing that because in the evening my daughter-in-law and I are going to Webbs again to select our tree. Everything seems so much earlier this year – I have never started to think of Christmas decorations until December has actually arrived but there seem to be decorations going up all over the place. I wonder if people are so fed up the lockdown that they are desperate for almost anything to make life seem a little brighter in the meantime.

This afternoon we watched a rugby match (Ireland vs. Georgia) which you would have thought would have been one of the strongest teams against one of the weakest. As it turned out, the Georgians put into an extremely robust, not to say physical performance and performed very creditably against the Irish – so it turned out to be quite an entertaining match after all. Most of our TV viewing this evening got a little disrupted this evening as I was struggling with the WordPress technology.

There is a report this evening that Boris Johnson’s ‘concessions’ to some of the Tory rebels may backfire and instead of solving the problem may even fan the flames of rebellion. The cost-benefit analysis area by area is due to be published tomorrow but may well prove to be vague in the extreme. The vote itself is scheduled for Tuesday next so the next couple of days is going to be very interesting!

Today was a dull and gloomy day and so it stayed all day. Meg and I went to collect the newspapers in a semi-drizzle but fortunately for us, the rain had just about ceased by the time we came to sit on our park bench and have our customary coffee.  As the weather was so inclement, the park was denuded of its usual complement of mothers with young children and dog walkers – however, the joggers did not seem to be deterred and I suppose a modicum of rain might almost be both cooling and refreshing. We met with a friend of a friend and her husband who are evidently keen walkers and were not to be deterred – they had been to Hagley Hall ( a local 18th century stately home in the vicinity) the day before and enjoyed a good walk in the bright sunshine until the fog descended later in the day. This afternoon after our lunch we prepared to watch the England v. Wales rugby match which was broadcast on Amazon Prime. Fortunately for us, the reception as good enough for us to enjoy the match although we got the occasional drop-out and buffering factor (as Amazon Prime is delivered over the internet rather than through the airways as such) The England team powered their way to a place in the finals next week in what was an effective but not particularly pretty match to watch. The Welsh put up stout resistance playing in Llanelli but were eventually overhauled and could not prosper even in their home country. Of course, without a crowd, there is no home encouragement as such. To follow this match, we again tuned into Amazon Prime to watch the France-Italy match. The Italians started well and bravely against the French and even scored the first try but eventually, they were completely overhauled and lost the match by a large margin. In the interval, I amused myself (!) by trying on the four pairs of shirts we have recently acquired from a well-known shirtmaker who has a wonderful range of cotton, non-iron shirts (we don’t believe in ironing in our house!) These all fitted perfectly as we knew they would – we particularly appreciate the little metal stiffeners with which they equip their shirt collars to keep them looking straight and not ‘dog-eared’ looking.

The Tory party seems to be in absolute disarray, not to say open revolt this evening, after the publication of the new ‘Tier’ rules to which we are going to be subject once the lockdown ends on Wednesday next. It seems that the Tory MPs who have constituencies in the South of the country or in areas that are largely rural or where the incidence of the virus appears to be low are in open revolt, including even the Chairman of the 1922 committee (a committee that is supposed to represent the interests of ‘ordinary’ backbenchers – i.e. not on the ministerial payroll) and will they will probably vote against their own government in the vote next Tuesday evening. Boris Johnson appears to be back-peddling for all he is worth with promises to end the new rules early, to promise a review within two weeks and goodness knows what else as he is an absolute panic mode) It is a strange situation to be in where the only real opposition to the government comes from its ‘own’ MPs and not from the opposition parties (e.g. the Labour Party) who have yet to determine whether they are going to support the government or to abstain. If the Opposition were to deploy an interesting strategy, they could always vote with the government to ensure that the ‘Tier’ rules were approved – and then taunt the government by constantly telling Boris Johnson that he can only get his legislation passed because the Labout opposition has come to his assistance. This might drive an absolute wedge in the split between Boris Johnson and the rest of his parliamentary party – and will probably lead to his demise within a matter of months if not weeks. My own personal view is that once Brexit is ‘done’ in some kind of weird way e.g. a ‘deal’ which is so thin that it is actually more like a ‘hard’ or ‘no-deal’ Brexit than anything else and the vaccine appears to be alleviating the worse of the pandemic, then the Tory Party will ditch Boris at the first opportunity and get another leade who might prove to be a more suitable and adept Prime Minister (like Rishi Sunak?) to help to lead them out of the mire. I have just a final thought on this – to the casual observer is does appear that the protesting Tory MPs would not mind seeing the NHS overwhelmed and thousands of people dying so long as their own business interests were satisfied. Michael Gove has apparently been arguing that the NHS will be overwhelmed unless the new ‘Tier’ rules are adopted but large sections of the Tory party either choose not to believe him (‘crying wolf’) or else do not even care (which is probably worse)