15th November 2020. 245 days of lockdown/isolation.

It has been a very interesting and to some extent, exciting six days.

First, the vaccine. I am hoping this is not fake news. I don’t think it is. Particularly as we, as over 70s, will be two of the first in the queue. Obviously NHS workers and all those in the care industry will be first along with the over 80s. After that it will be administered down wards in five year bands. With 20,000,000 jabs available (we need two each) we should be OK. Congratulations to Pfizer and in particular Ugur Sahin. Other vaccines are not far behind and I look forward to others such as Moderna and Oxford University/BioNTech coming on board soon. Despite this optimism, the Anti-Vaxxers are mobilising to oppose the programme. Seriously? This is the same lot, I assume, who opposed the MMR vaccine and have since been proved wrong. My advice is to ignore them. They are nutters. The same as that PETA lot. In fact I think they are just anarchist looking for a cause to attach themselves to. Anti fracking, anti abortion etc.

Second, Trump seems to have sounded his last hurrah. He is very quiet of late and although he is still claiming the election was a fraud, his pals and Republicans generally, are deserting him bit by bit. Biden on the other hand is carrying on in a dignified manner and I believe will be inaugurated without fuss next January. I predict, that as a last gesture of defiance, he will not turn up. He is also threatening to contest the election in 2024, which suggests he is planning to give up the fight for this year. I don’t think even his current supporters would risk his nomination in the primaries. He should concentrate on running his (garish) hotel in New York. Mind you, I think he is rubbish at that too.

Third, Dominic Cummings (and a couple of others) have gone. Not before time. Boris will have to appoint replacements and that will be interesting. However, Cummings, I believe was largely responsible for forming our Brexit policy so we will be left with the legacy of that smirking toad for a long time to come. I hope we never hear from him again!!

Next, a pupil in Thea’s class at Beverley High School has tested positive so she has been sent home with her classsmates and they must isolate for 14 days. This means that we won’t see David and the kids for that period of time. It was Maisies 12th birthday on the 11th and we were able to see her for a short time whilst child minding them when David went to pick Ronnie up from school. We took chocolate cake, which went down very well.

Then on Friday night we took part in a ZOOM quiz with Sally and Jim from her school. Technically a nightmare but Sally and Jim set it up for us. We had Sally, Jim and two of their friends, live on my tablet and the quiz master on You Tube on my Smartphone. Mind blowing!! We did OK in the quiz too. We were just six points behind the winners. Strangely enough, the Music Round was what let us down. We had to name famous songs that were played on a hurdy gurdy, A large vegetable and boogie woogie piano. I got one right despite being given 14 answers to choose from for the 10 answers. Pathetic!!!

The weather in the last week has been awful and along with a very painful right knee, I only managed two days walking in excess of 5000 steps. 6335 and 8136. Both of those resulted in a day of rest the next day. The average daily figure was 2700 steps. Not bad but definitely not good enough. On the plus side, admittedly with the help of Codeine, I am averaging 8 hours of good sleep most nights.

In the current lockdown we are not using the big supermarkets (Sainsbury’s and Aldi). All local shops are open and we will be using the butchers, bakers and greengrocers wherever possible. Our freezers are well enough stocked not to need meat. I shall again be baking scones to use up some of the proliferation of strong breaded flower we have accumulated. Today we are using up the veg from the garden centre and some frozen chicken wings, lightly cooked in the oven with some garam masala, turmeric and garlic. Ive also got some lovely frikadellen which I shall fry up and put in what is left after today’s meal. Maybe some chick peas as well. Yum yum.

Hamilton is F1 World Champion. Again. Equalling Schumacher’s record of seven wins. Well done Louis.