25th July, 2021. 126th to 135th day of isolation.

A lot has happened since my last entry.

Not least with Covid and the Tory government. Freedom day came and went and there were crowds everywhere. Without masks mostly. The “bad” figures are still on the rise although hospital admissions are down.So it is not all bad although the deaths and hospital admissions will take 3 or 4 weeks to filter through. I noticed that on public transport masks were still being worn but in our local mini market, it was about 50%. Those without masks did not look like the type of man (they were all male) that you would chose to argue with. You know for an absolute certainty that they would respond negatively, possibly starting every excuse/reason with ” I was only….”. Numpties. We shall certainly not change our approach to the pandemic, wherever we need to. I thought I might go and see Hull City’s first home game with Ronnie. I shall not bother going to the stadium as yet. Also Ronnie was sent home this week and has to isolate for 10 days so will not be available for this week’s under 11 cricket cup final where he would certainly have been picked to play. A real shame.

Last Saturday I managed a couple of hours, and a couple of pints, watching the !st team beat Beverley by 8 wickets. I stayed long enough to see Dom Rhodes score 30 odd runs with ease including a huge 6 off his first ball. My neighbour, Jame Braithwaite, opens the batting and scored a really useful 40. It was a great afternoon, chatting with some old friends.

Sadly, a couple of days ago, we lost our friend Mike from York, to Cancer. We will be going to the funeral. His wife, Chris died a few weeks ago so a doubly sad occasion except that this time, there are no restrictions on numbers and we will go back to the house for the “wake”.

Sally and Jim are home from Crete and are now planning a flight to Spain from where they may also fly to Ireland. Depending on the rules at the time we may even go also. The rules about the red green and orange countries are changing all the time so it@s anyone’s guess at the moment.

However, we are planning a long weekend in Sutton in Derwent to see Andy and Lindy and we are also going soon to Louth to have dinner at Jan’s. There is a lot to catch up on.

Coincidentally, a 51 year old man from Lincolnshire, who was an antivaxxer has died this week. He appeard on Look North on TV and it was reported that his last words to his family were, “I wish I’d had the vaccination” That bit of film should have been show to all antivaxxers. Such a tragedy and a lesson for everyone.

England lost the European Cup Final to Italy, on Penalties. Nothing more to say. The twitter aftermath against the three England players who missed their penalties, was awful and followed the pattern we have got used to with a certain type of England fan who booed he Italian national anthem and shone laser pens into the eyes of the Danish goalkeeper, Kasper Schmeikel. Pathetic.

Our friend in Spain, Peter Clarke lost his dad, Tony, last weekend after a fall in hospital. A brain bleed would not stop and he passed away. Peter was forewarned so at least he was there. There is to be an inquest so Peter managed to get a flight to Spain and will return when the inquest is over.

I kept an appointment at the eye hospital on Friday. No treatment was give but I had an eye test and photso taken of the inner eye and retina. I now have to wait until the consultant examines the pictures. Meanwhile, as the right eye is so bad, I cannot focus properly which means I have great difficulty reading, writing or typing. if I close the bad right eye, I can “see” better but only in 2D and have no depth of field. I think I may have to provisionally stop driving and more importantly, peeling potatoes with a knife.

The Wren kitchen instalment carpenter came for a final measure on Friday. He confirmed that the new units would be delivered on 30th August. Work would start on the next day.

After all the football, we now have the Olympics to keep us entertained. Japan is 8 hours ahead of us so proceedings commence at 3am. Too early for me. To date we have a Silver and a Bronze. No Gold medal yet and my favourite, Jade Jones is out. Our target is 65 medals. I think we will fall short. Like we do in a lot of things.