22nd November, 2020. 252 days of lockdown/isolation

We’ve been busy this week. Jenny has been wrapping presents and buying more gifts online. I have been writing cards which by the time I finish, will probably exceed 50 including 7 or 8 to Europe and a small parcel to Sally and Jim in Bucharest. We had to buy more cards and stamps but will be ready for posting them all together on 1st December. Plenty of time for them to arrive at their destinations.

Having visited Mum on Tuesday I went again on the following day to await a delivery of flowers from York for Mum’s birthday. I waited for nearly three hours but they did not arrive in the time slot M & S had promised. Still, it gave me a great opportunity to fill in lots of gaps to Mum’s story in 1944 to 1949, The year we moved as a family to England.

At the back end of 1944, my Uncle Martin who, like every boy in Prussia, was in the Hitler Youth, was sent to Germany for Army Officer training. It was an SS training camp but as the war was coming to a close, he had not completed his training before he was ordered to go and fight the advancing Russian Army. Mum didn’t know how the story went but Uncle Martin told me he led his platoon of boys (they were all 15/16) into the arms of American forces where they all became prisoners of war. We don’t know where he was imprisoned but as he was a minor, the Americans would not allow him to be released unless a German soldier would take responsibility for him and get him to Kassel where his Aunt Lisbeth lived. At this point, Mum’s family assumed he had been killed. In reality he had not even fired a shot in anger. He found his way to Kassel with the help of a German soldier and was able to contact everyone in Kiel thought Auntie Lisbeth. He immediately got a job as a printer but not in Kiel. He moved to the Ruhr area near Duisburg where he spent the rest of his life with his late wife Elfriede, 3 children and 5 grandchildren. I am still in infrequent contact with them. ore next time.

I called again on Wednesday morning on Mum’s 94th Birthday. The flowers (I assume) had arrived whilst the morning carer was there. Not the service I would expect from M & S. Angela was there to see Mum too so I stayed two hours chatting.

Stayed more or less at home the rest of the time. Caught up with a few phone calls and paperwork. Obviously we had no visitors nor did we go anywhere else other than we had a Covid safe shop at Aldi and got some stamps from the Post Office.

We have been informed that we are likely to go into a Tier 3 situation on December 2nd. It doesn’t really affect us as we are still going to stay in our own lockdown and are prepared not to go out at all and have groceries delivered as we did in March. Despite some indications that there will be some easing of restrictions for Christmas, we don’t anticipate being anything but “home alone” right through the festivities.

Nothing much has changed in the USA and I am frankly bored of it all and await Biden’s accession in due course. My list of narcissistic villains has increased with the inclusion of Priti Patel who seems to be another narcissist joining the club members of Boris, Cummings and of course Trump. There are many other not so well known club members who are extremely self-centered with an exaggerated sense of self importance and are not too concerned with the state of the world. They exist in both parties. Give me strength.