Originally published on Photoblog by Gethin Thomas DECEMBER. 30, 2020
[147-365] 30th. December 2020- It was feeling a bit more wintry today although the plan worked and we have had no snow like they have in our old home area in the Midlands, so our move in January down to the South coast has paid off. By comparison it is positively balmy here. Just a bit grey today.
There is a lot of talk about extending the tier four areas in the media, journalists frothing at the mouth, desperate to put millions more people out of work and bankrupt thousands more businesses, while they tap away on their keyboards at home on full pay.
We are currently tier two which means we were able to go out to lunch today. We thought we better had, while we could. They are announcing changes to the tier levels and areas as I write this.
At the pub where we went for lunch I discovered that someone has shot Rudolph and to add insult to injury they have hung baubles on his antlers. There was no venison on offer though so I had the barbecue ribs instead. Since we moved here in January this is the first time we have had the chance to go to this pub, although we have had home delivery meals from them throughout the lockdowns so we were what we have termed long time virtual customers of actual food, until today. The waitress remembered our doorstep well when we explained who we were as she had never seen us before, she'd only met Roger, our gnome and guardian.
I was due for the jab after lunch, no not that one, just the normal flu jab. But today we had news that the new Oxford vaccine has been approved and will be rolled out from Monday, and the government has ordered enough for fifty million people. They are aiming to vaccinate one million people a week within weeks, increasing to one and a half million a week.
Yesterday the first person in the world received her second dose of the Moderna vaccine.
Our local surgery is now like a military operation and my appointment was at 14.27 precisely, "Don't be early, don't be late". Business here at least is very brisk. The only thing missing was an actual conveyor belt as we were each ushered along a one way route with coloured stickers applied to our backs so we didn't stray into the wrong room. Coat off, sit down, jab, coat on and out the back door into some shrubbery the other end of the car park. I never even knew they had a back door, let alone shrubbery, I fought my way through the shrubbery back to the car park. It was reminiscent of a holiday cottage we once rented in Scotland, the rear view of which was of a sheep dip where rows of sheep lined up and were ushered along fenced corridors some with red badges on their backs just like mine, where they received a soaking before escaping out of the back door into the shrubbery.
I got the distinct feeling this was all a rehearsal for the next one. The big one.
Because of the exactitude of the timing we ended up parked up after lunch staring out to sea,(you see there is reason in my madness in showing you seascapes when discussing vaccines). We had allowed two hours for lunch but because business is definitely not brisk at the pub, due to the fact only single households can dine together in tier two, there are no groups or parties booking tables, meaning service was quite prompt. That left us with half an hour to spare.
So I sat here for a while, contemplating this jab and the next more important one, wondering how this will all turn out. What is over the horizon?
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