Feest Isolation Days – 11 January 2021
Finally! After days of heavy cloud or even dense Sherlock Holmes type fog all day, Sunday dawned bright and golden. We have a draft stopper across the bottom of the kitchen door and one day last week a white line of frost clung to the wool. That I’ve never seen before. The grass was white and the freezing fog was perishing. Thank heavens the heat is working and the house is warm and toasty. We did venture onto the swing all wrapped up later in the week but it was so cold we didn’t stay out long.
I needed to scrape my car in order to go and pick up the Sunday Papers yesterday. The Observer and the Sunday Times have been the two papers I read each week and between them they offer a range of opinions. There are some columnists in each that I find too left or two right, but a read of both gives me a great deal of information and makes me feel like I am staying in touch with the world. My newspaper man keeps the door of his small shop open and we converse as I am outside the door and he is inside. I sprint in and pick up my papers and pay with a cashless machine touching nothing but my papers which I select from the middle of the pile so are unlikely to be touched by others. What a palaver! I then get home and the next big outing is a trip to the garden swing for a cuppa. By the time we watched Andrew Marr and had brunch the sun was gone. Oh well. At least we saw it today!
After a week like the last one we needed a bit of an uplift from the weather. The repercussions of the seditious acts in America are still being felt around the globe, and here in the UK Covid deaths passed 80,000. The Health Secretary stayed at home and Zoomed his interview with Andrew Marr. He made his point effectively. Stay home. Go out only if you absolutely must. The virus is virulent.
Exercise is one of the musts. We went for a walk yesterday for the first time since the latest lockdown. Walking around the city was strange. There were lots of people around and we didn’t want to be among them. We kept turning toward empty streets and were happy to get home. As a people person I find this tough. My inclination is to walk towards people not away from them. The exercise bike and Pilates are keeping us fit. A walk later in the week in our local area, but not in town is in our plans. There are few who venture even a few miles away to the places we walk even in non Covid times, so we feel safe doing that.
Tech companies in the States are finally shutting up the worst offenders on their platforms. Trump is banned from Twitter and Parlor has been kicked off Amazon and Apple. It’s about time too! Where does freedom of speech allow for incitement of riots and sedition? With freedom comes responsibility. Speaking of sedition here’s a beauty from my favourite Randy Rainbow. I think it’s one of his best yet.
I’ve been reading Heather Cox Richardson for a while now. She’s an American Professor of history and posts very sensible pieces on the goings on in America. I’ve learned a lot from her work. The pieces aren’t too long and filled with facts. You can find her work here.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/people/4875576-heather-cox-richardson
While the death toll mounts and 46,000 NHS staff are off with Covid, the vaccine rollout continues apace. Bristol has one of seven countrywide mega centres where the vaccine will be given starting today. If all goes well, Terry and I should both have our jabs by the end of February. That doesn’t mean we will do much at first, but we will hold our breath less often as we pass others in the street! Who would have thought that was something we would do regularly on our walks!
Stay safe and keep at it!
With love,
Kathy x