Matt Hancock – Skat's Chat

Coronavirus week 19 – That didn’t last long…second wave starting

A short heatwave but signs of another wave of infection.

According to one of the weather forecasters I heard, to qualify as a heatwave there needs to be a period of three days of higher than average temperatures, but ours this week was only one day. It was 20-21 degrees on Thursday and reasonably sunny, by Friday afternoon it was 35 but by the evening it was cloudy muggy and raining and on Saturday it was back to 21 with a cool wind and some showers.

At the end of my last blog I suggested that I may not do another for a few weeks as things appeared to have reached a ‘steady state’, with falling numbers of deaths and a ‘levelling off’ in the number of infections. That idea didn’t even last for 24 hours. It wasn’t that a couple of people were kind enough to comment on my Facebook post saying that they enjoyed reading them; it was watching Channel 4 News on Monday evening. It’s a way of getting updated on current events that I get the most from. All day ‘rolling news’ is a great thing, something we never had in ‘the good old days’ when there were only three or four terrestrial television channels. The problem is that even BBC News 24, whose coverage I also enjoy, only touch the surface of a story. I don’t want to sound like a ‘grumpy old man’, but programme makers appear to think we are incapable of listening for more than 90 seconds, or in ITV’s case, that we also need the chance to win a £150,000 prize of gifts we probably don’t need.

Anyway, it was watching the news on Monday evening that there were so many items I wanted to write about, many of them linked to each other or to coronavirus. Hence this blog with all the topics originating with the items on that edition.

Holidaymakers returning from mainland Spain complaining that there were more cases of the virus on one caravan park in Shropshire, than the whole of the Balearic Islands, and they felt safer in a country where everyone was obeying the rules on social distancing and hygiene. By the evening, the islands had been included. Transport minister Grant Shapps went to Spain but had to isolate when he came back on Wednesday. I admit to thinking that I would go if insured, and suffer two weeks quarantine or extend the holiday as I was sure there would be extra capacity. By the end of the week, however, as local lockdown was declared for large parts of Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and West Yorkshire, like others I suspect, I was more doubtful. I listened to arguments about having to declare whole countries as giving a simpler message than trying to exclude certain areas, and had to agree. Whilst the Canaries are further from mainland Spain than Venice is from London, it would not be difficult to get around the rules by taking a flight from the mainland to the islands and return from there. There is also the danger of catching the virus and having to be in hospital in a foreign country possibly for a long time where the care may be excellent, but my Spanish is almost non-existent.

Despite early criticism there appeared to be more acceptance later in the week when the rates of infection in Belgium (which had one of the highest rates in Europe in the earlier part of the pandemic), and Luxembourg, were rising very quickly. It seems a ‘second wave’ is starting to spread across Europe.

In the UK cases were definitely rising with average daily cases approaching 800 at the end of the week. The fact that average daily deaths was still falling to about 60 at the end of the week, could point to two things; that the lag between cases and serious illness is not showing yet, or that it is mainly younger people getting infections and they don’t generally suffer with the more life-threatening symptoms.

Boris says ‘get on your bike’…

Boris encouraged us (like Norman Tebbit in 1981) to ‘get on our bikes’, but this time not to look for work, but in an effort to fight obesity. The web site handing out free £50 vouchers to get bikes repaired crashed due to demand. Not surprising for £2.5million of untargeted benefits. Many would be snapped up by those who could well afford to repair the bicycle that had lain neglected in the garage for years. It all seemed a bit of a headline-grabbing gimmick. Boris has previous on this topic. As Mayor of London he encouraged people to use a Transport for London (TfL) scheme for hiring simple bicycles parked in many areas in the city to travel to other areas. Registered users could take any of the 5,000 cycles from any of the 315 docking stations in central London to any other for a relatively small fee. This was in 2010 and proved successful. The original bikes were sponsored by Barclays bank with a blue highlight. The scheme was transferred to Santander bank with the current ones mainly red and there are now 11,000 bikes and 800 ‘stations’ spread across 40 square miles of London.

In a week of mixed messages I had one alert from GOV.UK announcing a ban on buy one get one free offers on unhealthy food, and the next one reminded me that I could go to the pub or restaurant and taxpayers will give me 50% off any meal. This is for as many times as I like. So presumably I could get a first course with chips, followed by a chocolate brownie/ice cream / sticky toffee pudding (with extra chocolate sauce) for 12 days (it’s only Monday-Wednesday) from 3rd to 31st August. All washed down with a nice glass of wine or beer – but don’t worry the discount is not off those and they don’t contain many calories. Even HMRC were putting out Tweets about the offer – even if they couldn’t bring themselves to think people might want other European or even British menus…?

The idea of making it a requirement to put calories on all restaurant menus is a good one, but many pubs and fast-food sites do that now. The problem appears to be the ‘education’ needed to allow us to make the healthier choices.

Channel 4 News had an interview with chef Jamie Oliver (who also has years of campaigning for us to make more healthy choices. He made the point that the good quality food is more expensive, and those with less money can only afford the ‘less good’. Rather than taxing sugar, he suggested that perhaps we should be subsidising healthier food.

It could be that this approach to obesity, exercise and healthy eating was related to Boris’s own experience of Covid-19 and the realisation that his own health may have meant not seeing his fiancee and young child? There are many in the Conservative Party who decry the so-called ‘Nanny State’ (itself a posh expression), but a government that claims to have been ‘following the science and experts’ appears in the past to have paid more attention to the food and drink industry lobbyists than ‘health experts’ when deciding policies. Like tobacco before it, the ‘curse of sugar’ needs mass cultural and social change if it is to be effective.

What it doesn’t need is ‘fat-shaming’ and judging people by their apparent excess weight. The majority of our population have some problems maintaining a healthy diet. No one wakes up one day and finds themselves several stones overweight. The busyness of our lives and availability of cheap food make it hard to change. I have the luxury of a good income, the space to own an exercise bike, and a pleasant area go out for a run. In my case I have made a conscious decision to change, and am currently about a stone less in weight than I was at the start of March. I also know it will be a struggle to keep this way once we get back to eating out again on a regular basis. I often wonder how people in poverty-stricken countries who have to walk miles to get clean water or a meagre amount of food to take back to a house with no electricity, would make of our kitchen cupboards and American-style double refrigerators. As if that wasn’t enough for them to take in, imagine trying to explain that we then pay a membership of £360 a year for the privilege of driving, three or more times a week ,to a large warehouse full of bicycles that don’t move and treadmills. All in an effort to lose the excess body mass we have!

The next item of news last Monday was one on rehabilitation from the after effects of having Covid-19, or one of its variants dubbed ‘Long Covid’, as the fatigue and memory issues and muscle weakness can last for months (maybe even years, we don’t know yet). The item showed a group using a gym closed due to lockdown, and sharing experiences with people who have been through the same thing. This is just like my journey after brain injury, when I found the charity that brings together people from all parts of society and background to share with each other. Access to physio and rehab services across the country is patchy at best, but so vital. All of this should have happened years ago. There is a small charity that works with people who have been in intensive care for long periods of time. Patients may be physically well, but the mental effects can last a very long time. If this step of physio is missing or not done thoroughly, there is more of a cost to the country in terms of lost working days and productivity, as well as actual treatment, medicines, and care in old age. It makes no sense health wise or economically, not having these services readily available for everyone.

The final two articles on the Monday evening news was one that US president Trump’s security advisor had tested positive, after a trip to Florida ,where there is a rise in cases of Covid-19. Then that Brazil’s president Bolsanaro has been reported to the International Criminal Court, by an umbrella group representing health worker unions and social care organisations, for ignoring and mishandling the crisis. Their claim of crimes against humanity amounting to genocide are unlikely to be taken on by the ICC but demonstrate the strong feelings in the country. There was an interview (on BBC news!) with a doctor in a hospital in Sao Paulo stating that they had people turn up at hospital still claiming it was all false and a hoax – but when they ended up in intensive care they say ‘doctor don’t let me die and tell my family to take care!’

Other news last week.

We watched Jimmy McGovern’s powerful drama imagining the life Anthony Walker a young black man killed aged just 18 in 2005. He wanted to become a barrister. His mum asked the writer to show him qualifying against all the odds, marrying his (white) girlfriend at the time of his death, having a child and saving his best man from a life of crime by taking him to live with his family after becoming destitute. It brought me to tears.
Anthony’s mother, Gee Walker, has setup a trust in his name and as a Christian she believed this was part of Anthony’s legacy. This will be something that is hard for those without a faith to accept. But I believe, as his mother hopes, that despite not becoming a civil rights lawyer and going to America, Anthony’s legacy through the work his mum does, and the effect of this drama, means more people could be touched. Some small comfort to his brave mum.
Late Thursday evening health secretary Matt Hancock announced that Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire were told to go into a ‘local lockdown’. This was due to a ‘spike in cases’ from people going into each other’s homes. There was some confusion and a great deal of contention from the Muslim population as it was the eve of Eid one of the major feasts of Islam. One leader likened it to cancelling the Christmas Day at 9 o’clock on Christmas Eve, although another did acknowledge that when the original lockdown was imposed many Christians had to miss Easter Day celebrations.
Writing as someone who is doing project work for a company in Sale, there was concern that some members of the team who had only returned to work because their parents could look after the children again, may have to go back on furlough until the lockdown was over.
Another member of the team at the company developed some symptoms and was relieved when their test came back negative – but they had to wait over 3 days for the result.
One report from Manchester showed a street where many of the rainbow posters drawn to put in windows to celebrate the NHS Heroes were faded and torn….perhaps a sign of how quickly we forget?
One of the most worrying statements last week was from Professor Chris Whitty as he stood next to Boris Johnson at a Downing Street press conference on Friday announcing that the opening of face to face beauty treatments and bowling alleys was to be delayed for a further two weeks at least. He said

“I think what we’re seeing from the data from ONS, and other data, is that we have probably reached near the limit or the limits of what we can do in terms of opening up society.

“So what that means potentially is that if we wish to do more things in the future, we may have to do less of some other things.”

He expanded to say that if we are to get children back to school in September we may need to close some other places (pubs perhaps?) or put new limits on what people can do and who they can meet.

It really does feel this week that we are not in a ‘steady state’ anymore….!

How was week 19 for us?

After weeks of training and struggling with IT and ‘HR’ Alyson finally managed to book a few shifts on NHS 111 service…but only as reserve. She responded ‘I don’t want to be a reserve I want to be on the first team!’ Her wish came true on Friday when she was given just 20 minutes notice that she was working an 8-hour shift. This was due to late cancellations by two other people on the shifts. The deal is that people are supposed to get 24 hours’ notice. So, she managed to cancel one and worked 4-8pm. It was a tough shift, not only with the types of call, but using the systems for the first time. Reflecting afterwards Alyson felt that she had helped people at a difficult time, and knew that the next shift(s) would be better.

We both signed up as volunteers for vaccine trial in conjunction with the NHS and a pharmaceutical company. Unlike last week’s attempt we both passed the age & health requirements.

After the very warm day of Friday we went to Coventry for a ‘socially distanced picnic’ in a large park to meet up with Alyson’s sister and brother and their families in Coventry. It was good to see everyone again including our two boys and our nieces. There were three generations and one of our nieces is expecting her first child in October – she works in a hospital so was concerned about getting too close to us, but I think she enjoyed the day. The only member of the family who couldn’t come was our nephew who returned from the Spanish Balearic Island of Majorca so was self-isolating in his London flat.

On Sunday I attended my now weekly Zoom service at Westminster Central Hall Methodist Church. It was great to be part of a ‘congregation’ of over 1,100 people sharing in worship. Rev Howard Mellor gave an amazing sermon on the ‘original picnic’, the feeding of the 5,000, a miracle told in exactly the same way in all four gospels. Howard pointed out a small word that I had not noticed before – grass! Despite the disciples only having meagre rations of five loaves and two fishes, and thinking that was not enough to feed the crowd, Jesus managed to make it sufficient for all the people (more than 5,000 when including the women and children) and ‘still there were 12 baskets left over’. All this in an area which, because of the grass, was clearly a place of abundance where crops could grow. Howard’s message to those of us hoping to be modern day ‘good disciples’ was however little (in terms of skills and gifts) we think we have, if we give it to Jesus, he can help us achieve so much more than we ever believed.

Stay safe and let’s see if there is enough for another blog next week!

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 10 – taking things one day at a time

Week 10 in daily format.

I usually start these blogs at the end of the week but decided today that I will try doing a ‘daily’ note. This will allow me to capture my thoughts in real time and my mood in relation to events around the crisis. I will review and correct some grammar and shorten sections prior to publishing, but the essence of the days won’t change.

Monday 25th May – ‘I have never been so angry..’

Having made a determined effort in last week’s blog not to write much about Dominic Cummings, the story of his 260 mile trip to Durham, and Boris Johnson’s ‘defence’ of his actions at Sunday’s daily briefing, I woke up this morning quite angry. Not about the actions of the senior advisor, but more that I was so distracted by the whole thing that I missed a huge section of the blog which I had planned to cover.

Sunday 24th May was, for Methodists like me a special day. It is called ‘Aldersgate Sunday’ formerly ‘Wesley Day’. As the web site for the Methodist Church in Great Britain explains;

In May 1738, John unwillingly attended worship at a Moravian ‘Religious Society’ meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. It was during this service that he felt his “heart strangely warmed”, as he experienced God’s love in a most personal and life-giving way. Until then he had known God in his mind, but not in his heart. Now he understood the value of a personal experience of God that would bring assurance of salvation to the believer.

This year the 24th fell on a Sunday so that made it even more relevant. Not so reluctantly as John Wesley, I attended a streamed service from Methodist Central Hall in London, just over two miles from Aldersgate Street in the City of London. It was a wonderful service with over 1,500 watching. It was also the last service of their minister Rev Dr Martyn Atkins, former President of the Conference who was ‘retiring’ or as we call it ‘sitting down’ after over 40 years of service to his church. He was what we call ‘one of Mr Wesley’s preachers’, who had been ‘stationed’ in various places across the country as ministers in our denomination are called to be ‘itinerant’, usually staying in one place for around 10 years and then moving to another ‘appointment’ .

The penultimate service I attended in church before they were closed for lockdown was at Methodist Central Hall on 1st February. We were down in London for a visit and, never having been there, I decided to go for the Sunday service. It is an impressive place, built from the donations of one million Methodists, including members of my mum and dad’s families. Martyn was preaching and gave a challenging message about putting on the ‘armour of God’. I received a blessing and was anointed with oil by one of the Deacons at the end of the service. I managed a few words with Martyn as we had briefly met a couple of years previously. It was in a small room at one of our closed churches, repurposed as a second-hand bookshop raising funds for the museum of Methodism at Englesea Brook Chapel, which is in our circuit between Crewe & Alsager. I was dropping some books off and Martyn was chatting to our Superintendent minister who worked there on his days off. Martyn had written an article for the ‘Methodist Recorder’ that came out that day and which was a challenge to modernise, and I told him it was thoughtful and a great piece. Martyn didn’t remember the conversation but knows the bookshop as he is a great collector of books, and said he would be going there a lot in the future as he and his wife are moving back to Derbyshire, less than an hour away from Alsager.

So, my anger was about not mentioning all that in last week’s blog.

However, the anger referred to in the heading of this section is my wife Alyson’s. Having never been ‘political’ before, she found the email address of our local MP this morning and wrote to him to express her anger at the situation over Dominic Cummings and her disappointment at the way Boris Johnson has handled it. I don’t think Alyson will mind me saying that her natural inclination is not to vote Labour. As a pharmacist and frontline worker who has seen the effects of coronavirus on her patients she wanted her MP to know. He is Dr Kieran Mullan who worked in the accident & emergency department prior to becoming our local MP for the conservatives and has gone back to work some shifts. It will be interesting to see if she gets a reply.

Neither of our moods was improved after the two press conferences that evening. The extraordinary lengthy one with the special advisor in which he showed no regrets but tried to explain why he could make special arrangements for his family. Followed an hour later by one with Boris Johnson. No one, particularly the journalists, was listening to details of how lockdown was to be eased by opening of shops and secondary schools in mid-June. Everyone wanted to keep talking about Mr Cummings. As the day ended the special advisor was still in place, left to be judged in the court of public opinion.

I sat and wrote my own email to Dr Mullan MP.

Tuesday 26th May – hey ho, hey ho, it’s back to work we go..

When the prime minister told the country two weeks ago to get back to work, I didn’t think it applied to me. I was enjoying my semi-retirement, time with Alyson, the warm weather and helping my church and the charities I am involved with. However, at 9.30am I found myself attending a Zoom ‘Monday Morning Meeting’ (moved due to yesterday’s Bank Holiday) with 18 of my new colleagues at an accountancy practice in Manchester.

My friend Steve had asked me back to do another systems project for his new company. If Alyson and I had been managing to take all the holidays that we had planned, there was no way I could have said yes. Truth be known I had some doubts about my ability but after a couple of meetings and 1-2-1’s my interest, and not a little ‘excitement’, was back. It took most of my day, and I had foregone the usual early morning exercise.

Meanwhile Dominic Cummings was still in his job, despite one ministerial resignation and a ‘revolt’ of 30 MPs and literally thousands of similar emails like mine to local MPs. It was left once again to the BBC ‘s Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis in her opening ‘monologue’ to sum up as follows

Dominic Cummings broke the rules. The country can see that and it’s shocked that the government can’t. The longer ministers and the prime minister tell us he worked within them, the more angry the response to this scandal is likely to be. He was the man remember who got the public mood, who tagged the lazy label ‘elite’ on those who disagreed. He should understand that public mood now; one of fury, contempt and anguish. He made those who struggled to keep the rules feel like fools and has allowed many more to feel they can flout them. The prime minister knows all this, but despite the resignation of one minister, growing unease from his backbenchers, a dramatic early warning from the polls, deep national disquiet, Boris Johnson has chosen to ignore it. Tonight we consider what this blind loyalty means about the workings of ‘Number Ten’. We do not expect to be joined by a government minister but that won’t stop us asking the questions.

Wednesday 27th May

Today was a warm one and started with my weekly 5k ‘local Parkrun’ which I have been doing as the usual Saturday morning one, I have done since 2016, has been suspended as part of the lockdown measures. We ate all three meals outside on our patio table and were delighted to see a pair of young goldfinches on our feeders.

The numbers of Conservative MPs asking for Dominic Cummings to be sacked was over 40, and the prime minister was before a committee of senior members of parliament from all political parties. Their questions were supposed to be on his performance in the new parliament which started in December. However, they too concentrated a lot on his special advisor and what effect it might have in getting the message over for the rest of the pandemic.

Health secretary Matt Hancock tried to distract from the Cummings story by changing the sign on the podium at the daily press conference announcing the NHS test and trace strategy to help ease the lockdown. He was ambushed by the video question from a member of the public asking if everyone who had been fined for travelling to arrange childcare would have the money refunded. Perhaps taken aback by the questioner being, as he so tweely described him, ‘a man of the cloth’, he desperately searched for an answer and promised to take it back and ask the treasury. The next day the answer came back – ‘no’.

At 9pm I logged onto the American businessman Elon Musk’s SpaceX website to watch a live stream of his Falcon 9 reusable rocket taking men into space in a Dragon spaceship that sits on top and carries astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. It will dock with the International Space Station (ISS) and then return to earth. This was the first time since 2011, and it was cancelled with 17 minutes to go due to storm clouds. I looked forward to the second try on Saturday.

The virus touched this event when a photo of people watching the launch from a road bridge nearby caused a social media storm around social distancing and accusations that the picture in USA Today was an old one. I read an account on the paper’s blog that showed the picture from 2011 and you can see not quite so many people, and some in the today’s one wearing masks.

We have watched the launch of a small rocket from a beach nearby the Kennedy Space Centre during a visit in 1994, so can understand the interest of locals in such a massive event.

Just before turning off my laptop to go to bed I made a sign parodying the one on the daily briefing podium. Having done so, I almost deleted it immediately, worrying if such a thing was ok. I posted it on Facebook and Tweeted it to Rev Helen Kirk, our own Chair of District or ‘woman of the cloth’!

Thursday 28th May

The tactics seemed to work as the prime minister’s special advisor was not the top headline on news bulletins. My ‘funny’ podium sign was retweeted by Helen and liked on Facebook, so guess it was ok. This was the exchange between Helen and me.

When we had a coffee via Skype with friends David & Janis it was something they were annoyed about. Janis knows the road to Barnard Castle where the now infamous ‘test drive’ was taken and thought it unsuitable as a check for the type of journey back to London.

It was another very warm day and we had meals outside and did more work on the garden.

The evening briefing, after the cabinet had done their legally required 3-weekly review, brought news of another ‘easing’ of the lockdown measures. From next Monday we will be able to meet in groups of six in a garden or outside space, some non-essential shops, outdoor markets and car show rooms can open from the 8th of June. Premier League matches would start from 17th June behind closed doors. Boris Johnson stated that he wanted to ‘draw a line’ under the Cummings affair and move on ‘as the country wanted’. Journalists had other ideas and asked more questions about the ‘illegal trip’, even trying to involve the Chief Scientist and Chief Medical Officer in the questions. There were questions about how people might hold ‘socially distancing barbecues’ in their gardens, and what if someone wanted to use a toilet in the house. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland announced different measures from England, just to add to the confusion.

The evening brought the tenth and final clap for carers. It was well supported and loud on our street, but it felt like the right time to end it.

Friday 29th May

We had planned to get up very early, have breakfast, drive to Delamere Forest, and see if we could manage a walk without getting too close to other people. We arrived at 8.45am and walked to a small isolated lake surrounded by some beautiful yellow orchids. It was not too busy with people, but there was a lot of litter from visitors over recent days. We resolved to take bags and collect it if we came again. We saw a lot of birds, went on a rope swing under a tree, and walked the parkrun course. We arrived home by mid-morning and sat in our warm garden for lunch.

Alyson commented during the walk that it seemed odd to be in such a peaceful place surrounded by life when there were thousands of people in hospital fighting for their lives. I said that most days were like that, but it had been heightened in the last three months.

Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the exchequer announced an extension of the furlough scheme and support for the self-employed until October. It was at a slightly lower rate and employers were going to contribute towards the costs. Employees can go back part-time under the scheme.

We watched the last of the daily BBC Two ‘Springwatch’ reports. It has been a joy to see all the birds nesting and trying to survive. Insights into nature, and a new section of ‘mindfulness’ where they show 90 seconds of pictures with no commentary. We have had river valleys, woodlands, seaside, and tonight’s was lakes and mountains. Wonderful.

This was followed by the satirical program Have I Got News For You, and we were back to Dominic Cummings again. The fun (laced with real anger) they had with the story reached new levels of satire. Apparently there is a Durham slang of ‘that’s a load Barney Castle’ meaning a pathetic excuse. It originates from medieval saying based on a siege in the castle. As one famous columnist is fond of saying ‘You couldn’t make it up!’.

Saturday 30th May

Another bright and sunny day. I got a new PB for my new regular ‘local parkrun’ and like every other week I finished in first place! Alyson was back on the frontline working a morning shift in a community pharmacy. It was again one where she felt safe with one patient at a time.

Two members of the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE) broke ranks to voice concern about easing lockdown restrictions too early, risking a second wave and peak of infections. There was a worry that having announced on Thursday that people could meet up in larger groups for a barbecue in gardens, some would start early with the forecast sunny weekend. Our neighbours had two families together in their garden with little evidence of social distancing, and on Alyson’s afternoon walk she saw a group of youths playing a football game.

I watched the SpaceX mission finally take off to the ISS at 8.22pm. It was a spectacular event.

Sunday 31st May

Harold Wilson, labour prime minister in the 1960’s is quoted telling lobbyists before a general election, when it wasn’t looking good, ‘a week is a long time in politics’. He won the election with an increased majority. Well, it is a week since the papers and television were full of stories and accusations about a trip to Durham. It felt at the time like Mr Cummings would be sacked, especially after another day trip to Barnard Castle came out. Boris Johnson decided to try to ride out the storm, pushback on any questions, and focus on getting the next steps of easing restrictions out. It appears to have worked. The news today was of opening schools and some shops tomorrow, and the overnight announcement that those who have been ‘shielding’, and locked in their own homes for the last ten weeks are to be allowed out for walks in the local area but still not to go to shops. They can meet up with one person from another household in the open air but must maintain social distancing. As the virus is around less than it was the chances of infection have gone from 1 in 40 at the start of their self-isolation to 1 in 1,000 now.

This Sunday in the church year is Pentecost (what used to be called Whitsun), the anniversary of the formation of the early church and the day the first ‘sermon’ was preached by Simon Peter after the coming of the Holy Spirit. Watching the service streamed from Methodist Central Hall, preacher Rev Howard Mellor reminded us that the disciples had been effectively in ‘lockdown’ for coming up to 50 days waiting for the next stage in their work. The image with tongues of fire raining down reminded me both of the fires burning in the US from the protests over the killings of the unarmed black man George Floyd by a white policemen in Minneapolis, and the power of the burning of kerosene and liquid oxygen that took the two NASA astronauts towards the ISS. The US riots had spread to many more cities overnight with more fires and looting. There was little social distancing going on there or at the protests in central London.

I watched the live stream of the docking manoeuvre on SpaceX’s web site as the Dragon-2 spacecraft gently attached to ISS. Despite the seemingly ‘slow and careful’ way the two vehicles came together; we were reminded by the commentator on the video that the two vehicles were travelling at 7.66km per second or over 17,000 miles per hour. As I watched the spaceship close in ‘slowly’ for the last 20 metres between the two vehicles which took just over a minute, they travelled over 300 miles or the distance from Crewe to Land’s End! All at 260 miles above the earth. Over 1.3 million people were watching live on-line. Docking happened at 3:16pm and the alarm on my phone went off. It is set to remind me of the famous Bible verse John 3:16. My mind went back to the time last November when I stood on steps on top of the Hulda Gate up to the temple at the centre of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Our guide told us that when astronaut Neil Armstrong stood on them he said

I am more excited stepping on these stones than I was stepping on the moon.”

It was seeing earth from the Apollo spacecraft and from the moon that reinforced Armstrong’s belief in something larger than humanity. He had been brought up in a Methodist family and on return from the moon he gave a speech in front of the U.S. Congress in which he thanked them for giving him the opportunity to see some of the grandest views of the Creator.

The final daily briefing of the week gave the figures for deaths on Saturday as 113 compared to 215 on Friday and 324 on Thursday. The total of deaths at the end of week 10 was 38,489.

We shared a weekly family Zoom with the boys. David was happy to be back on the river Avon after his second session of solo rowing from his club in Bath. He had also managed a short swim as he capsized his single-seater boat! Michael had been walking in Delamere again.

Alyson has arranged for a friend from her ‘knit & natter’ group to come around tomorrow and sit in our garden to share a coffee. We are planning to meet up with her sister and husband for a walk somewhere between our home and theirs in Coventry.

Next week I am planning to look at a single issue related to the pandemic, perhaps the future of the health and social care services, or the costs of repaying the huge financial debts the government support has built up.

Keep safe.

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 9 – easing the lockdown

We’re all in this together, again?

As I start this week’s account on Saturday afternoon, I wanted to resist commenting on the incident of government advisor Dominic Cummings trip to his parents’ home in Durham. But having just done so, I will leave it to the mainstream media, and the numerous self-appointed political commentators on social media, to report the story to what appears to be its inevitable conclusion as more details come out. It certainly appeared that the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps had been ‘thrown under the bus’ at the daily briefing.

Instead I will confess that, however people have interpreted the ‘rules/guidance’ both during lockdown and now, we too have stretched them, or to be correct ‘broken them’. I confess to ‘excusing myself’ about driving faster than 70mph on the motorway on the basis that almost everyone else does, and to drive at exactly 70 or below puts us in danger from all the other ‘idiots’ who are speeding. There always appears to be a ‘get out’ clause if you judge it to be right in your own mind.

This week Alyson and I took advantage of the new guidance to drive outside our local area to a country park near Northwich. It was Alyson’s birthday and she was desperate to go for a walk somewhere else, and it is a place we have been birdwatching. It is a 42-mile round-trip and it felt very strange to be driving even for half an hour. It felt very familiar as we queued in a traffic jam through roadworks over a closed bridge to get to the park. The car park was quite full and as we ate our picnic we wondered whether to come straight home. We didn’t need to pay & display as the machine was covered, presumably to avoid people touching the buttons, and everyone appeared to be keeping social distancing. The park is very large, so we walked to the birdwatching screen at the end of the lake. It was a sunny day and it appeared that there were family groups sitting alone enjoying the fresh air. We managed to pass other people with at least the required two metre gap. When we got to the bench seats at the screen which are about 15 metres long the only other person there, sat on the end, was our son Michael. He lives only two miles from the park, and I had text him to suggest he went as a birthday surprise for his mum. It worked, and Alyson was really pleased to see him. We chatted for a few minutes as he was on his lunch break from working at home. He looked healthy and happy. Alyson said afterwards that she just wanted to give him a hug. I ventured that Michael didn’t feel the same way! Have you spotted it yet? The current government guidance for this phase of easing the restrictions state;

I have highlighted the parts that make clear we broke the rules. Two of us met one other person outside our household to make a group larger than two. We excused ourselves as I sat two metres from Alyson and four from Michael and it ‘felt ok’. A lot of people will have done similar things over the weeks, using their own ‘excuses’. I know people who happen to have walked past their parents’ house with their child on their daily walk and stood at the end of the drive to talk to them, then later extended this by going through a garage (always keeping themselves two metres apart) to sit on chairs in the back garden and chat to grandparents. And if the young child who doesn’t understand social distancing happens to take a toy over to his grandparents, it doesn’t harm anyone else…. I have seen people who walk a dog in the morning and then the evening, presumably reasoning that it doesn’t do any harm.

There has been much discussion, some with a lot of hindsight, as to whether the lockdown was ‘too late’. It may have saved more lives, but even on the weekend of the 21st March, two days before lockdown was announced by the prime minister, I was emailing the owner of the lovely cottage in the north east we were staying in about renting it again the following weekend. I reasoned that it was so remote we could easily ‘self-isolate’, go for walks in the early morning from the door onto deserted moorland, take all the food we need, drive there and back on one tank of fuel etc etc. In the end we decided not to, which when we heard the ‘rules’ was the right thing. I even held out until the very end, that our week in Lanzarote could go ahead.

I have re-watched two issues of BBC’s Question Time from March and even ten weeks on there are some things that are now shocking. On 6th March after the first death in the UK when there were 100 cases, health secretary Matt Hancock said that the majority of people will get minor symptoms and a few will need some extra care. There was laughter in the audience when a panellist talked about elbow bumping instead of handshaking, and another joked about not being able to find toilet roll. To be fair there was worry about older people and those who might not be able to go to work and claim sick pay. Matt Hancock said that the evidence was that large-scale sporting gatherings outside were not places where widespread infection spreading would happen. It was in the ‘containment phase’ where the message was only people with symptoms had to self-isolate. Professor John Ashton, former head of public health in north west England was on the panel on the 13th March, the night after the Liverpool v Real Madrid match at Anfield. His accent gave him away as a Liverpool fan, but he had stayed away, frightened that the virus had come to Merseyside and spread through the bars before and after the match. I watched this live and, like host Fiona Bruce, remember getting quite cross at what seemed a hysterical reaction when he started shouting about wasting four or five weeks already.

The daily briefings had started, but in my opinion there was no appetite for a full lockdown and if it had been imposed at the start of March compliance would have been much lower. Ironically, if it had happened and after two weeks ‘only 100 people a day’ were dying, people would have said ‘it was all a hoax and businesses are going to the wall so let us go back to work and school’. It is also clear that there were not enough tests available as we seemed pleased to be testing 2,000 a day.

For me, this week has been a rollercoaster of hope. One day I hear that the cases may be falling quickly and caught a clip on the radio of a scientist who believed that in a few months the virus would just die out. I started checking the booking sites for the holiday cottage in the north east. The next day there was talk of the virus being ‘with us for years, and life would never get back to normal….’.

It does seem that there is cause for hope. You don’t need to understand much about the way viruses spread to know that if there are no cases in your local population, it can’t spread. The origins of it may have been transmission from a mammal to humans, but that doesn’t happen spontaneously on suburban estates in the UK. New Zealand earlier in the week and Guernsey on Saturday released lockdown completely. They are both islands that have managed to almost full close their borders, and done lots of testing and tracking. New Zealand has a population of 4.82 million and only 21 deaths and on several days in the last three weeks no new cases, despite carrying out an average of 4,400 daily tests. Guernsey, a very small island with a population of 67,000 had no new cases for 22 days. There were pictures of families actually hugging grandparents. Shocking! But to repeat myself, you can’t catch the virus from someone who hasn’t got it. They have been developing ‘household bubbles’, firstly just two then last week putting 2+2 to make four households that don’t have to maintain social distancing. This very simple 3-minute video explains the approach;

This could be the way the UK government(s) decide to go. Let’s stay optimistic.

Test, Test, Test! or Education, Education, Education?

When the head of the World Health Organisation was asked for a message to countries fighting to control the spread of Coronavirus Pandemic in early March, his answer was very clear ‘Test, test, test’. It does seem that those countries who had a good testing regime allied to a system to do contact tracing, asking people who had the virus to isolate themselves, have managed to control the spread.

Former prime minister Tony Blair at the ‘New Labour’ Party Conference at Blackpool in 1996 gave a speech about his top three priorities if they were able to form the next government. He said ‘Education, Education, Education’.

Following on from last week’s blog, these two phrases have collided as the country tries to start ‘the new normal’ with schools being asked to start opening to more pupils. Teaching unions met with scientists and data has been published and discussed. There is still some uncertainty and natural concerns, specifically around the ability to do local testing and tracing. If we wait for a vaccine or 100% guarantees of no risk we will never get schools open. But with a combination of good risk assessments, the ability for schools or local authorities to determine phased opening in conjunction with parents, no sanctions for parents not wanting to send their children back, and exemptions for ‘vulnerable’ children and adults, backed with local testing hubs, it could work. We might even decide to ask parents to form ‘household bubbles’ based on the friends of very young children so that they can hug and go to each other’s houses to play. Some schools will wait two weeks which is the current time for infection rates to halve.

Other news this week

The daily death count continued to fall even when ‘all situations’ were taken into account. The last four daily totals of 338, 351, 282 and 118 and the total of 36,793 appears to be a steeper decline than previous weeks.
We clapped for carers for the 9th week on Thursday. I was pleased to learn that Dutch-born Londoner Annemarie Plas responsible for starting this initiative, suggesting that this coming week should be the last and tenth time. This will allow us to stop, reflect on the sacrifice and set a date in the future to remember again, perhaps annually. This will stop it going on and on and simply petering out gradually.
President Trump was causing concerns again with his announcement that he had been taking the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for two weeks. This is not a recognised prophylactic for the virus causing problems now, and even the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) warn against its use. Being a pharmacist, Alyson has access to the online British National Formulary (BNF) of UK recommended drugs. She posted two pictures of the list of side effects on social media. I have highlighted two particular ones that President Trump should be aware of:
More worrying than President Trump’s personal medication was a warning from the White House’s coronavirus taskforce member Dr Anthony Fauci that new localized outbreaks were “inevitable” as mitigation measures are relaxed, leading to the need to put in place a further lockdown. Given the dependence of the world’s economy on that of the US, however much we wish it didn’t, the decisions of the administration are vital to the rest of us.
Airlines, travel agents, hotels and others in the tourism sector gave stark warnings of the economic effects on their businesses. Hertz Global Holdings Inc the US car hire firm, and Specialist Leisure Group, which owns coach company Shearings, both collapsed into administration. US business magazine Forbes stated;

Hertz was just another victim of the pandemic, people will say. It’s easy to blame the company’s misfortunes, as well as the other corporate casualties, on the pandemic. The reality is a different story. The failures of Hertz and the others have more to do with their own arrogant inertia and inability to recognize the fast-changing trends and a refusal to adapt their business models accordingly.

This is a narrative we will come back to when the whole economic story of the crisis is analysed. Some companies have been ‘found out’ by the pandemic while others have adapted in an economic equivalent of the evolutionary principle of ‘survival of the fittest’.

How has week 9 been for us?

We are conscious of the fortunate position we are in with regard to holidays. We have managed to get a full refund on our Lanzarote holiday, moved an Easter cottage and another Cottage in Ross-on-Wye, both with family, to the same weeks in 2021. This week the travel company moved a very expensive cruise in Norway to 2021, along with an upgrade and £45 credit.

We have been taking part in a UK Biobank project for over 12 years. They are a major national and international health resource, and a registered charity, with the aim of improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses – including cancer, heart diseases, stroke, diabetes. We have been scanned, had blood taken and completed endless questionnaires on lifestyles. This week I received an email from them on behalf of Professor Sir Patrick Vallance, UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser. I volunteered to send a sample of my blood monthly for six months to be tested for coronavirus antibodies. The project will help the scientists track the course of the infection across the population. As well as us ‘oldies’ aged 40-69 they needed some younger adults, so I sent invites to Michael and David.

This week I was very proud to wave Alyson off back to the ‘frontline’. It did feel a little like sending her off to war, as she set out with her mask, visor and hand gel to work a shift at a local community pharmacy. She had been desperate to play her part, but as she has a condition that would class her as vulnerable, she wanted to wait until safer conditions were in place. There was no way that she was going in at the start of the crisis with busy branches overwhelmed by customers and lots of other people working there. Her Saturday morning session was at a small local branch with screens between the customers and counter. You can see below pictures of some measures. There was only one other member of the team working so social distancing was easy to maintain. We have had a chat about her wishes should she contract Covid-19 and need to go into ICU.

Alyson also had an alarm on her phone go off as part of the local volunteering force. It was to call a lady recently discharged from hospital to check she was ok in terms of shopping, medication, loneliness and mental wellbeing. All was fine and she didn’t need to pass them on to anyone else.

Keep safe everyone and let’s see what the next week brings.

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 6 – light at the end of the tunnel.

Two narratives, but which do you believe?

This week’s total deaths has risen quite sharply as it now includes all deaths in the community (including care homes) and not just hospitals. At the end of the week the UK total is 28,446.

As I have gone through the last few weeks in this series of blogs, I note down topics that interest me and jot them down on my computer with some initial thoughts. On the Saturday I just start to write my blog and usually an idea comes to the fore, sometimes I write too much or go off in a particular direction and have to scrap large sections or keep them for another time. Often I am up against my own ‘deadline’ of Sunday evening and end up ‘rushing’ the last part. As I sit here this Saturday I am conflicted.

I have one narrative of the week’s events and my thoughts which some would describe as the ‘mainstream view’ as reported by the BBC and some on-line articles or extracted from large circulation newspapers. This view is dubbed by users on social media as ‘MSM’ or Mainstream Media. MSM as a term is often used in a pejorative sense as either left- or right-wing bias, depending on the political view of the person passing comment. In that sense it could be described as ‘balanced’ given that some agree, and some disagree. Coronavirus has taken over from last year’s key word ‘Brexit’ as a topic that divides the nation. The division appears not to be the same extent, but there are plenty of people asking hard questions of the government, and much finger-pointing at individuals or institutions/organisations who they consider don’t represent their particular viewpoint or stance.

I am also preparing this weekend for our Bible study group on the sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, under the title ‘A New Society?’. One of the main reasons I value my faith is the way that Jesus offers a ‘counter-cultural’ challenge to the accepted norm, and is not afraid to take the issue to the ‘powerful’ in society. As it says in the introduction of the book we are using:

Roman, Greek and Hebrew societies were heavily stratified. Fine, if you were a healthy wealthy, educated, well-mannered, pure-blooded male of noble descent and free citizenship; beneath that you were second class or worse all the way down to worthless slaves at the bottom…Samaritans and Gentiles were scum, the poor, the sick and the deformed, the tormented, well, they must have offended God so you avoided them; prostitutes and tax collectors were beneath contempt.

Jesus not only ignores these divisions but takes special delight in raising the status of the poor…..all may come irrespective of their status. The parable of the great banquet reveals that the self-satisfied will be excluded while the poor needy, the rejects of society, will be welcomed in.

Jesus came to abolish the man-made divisions of race, sex and class.

My second version of the review of the week takes is an alternative more ‘radical’, some would say political angle.

The ‘accepted/acceptable’ view…

The week started with Boris Johnson giving a speech on the steps of Downing Street, addressing the nation on his health and the possible steps that would be taken. Apart from being a little breathless he was full of his usual optimism and stressing words and phrases like ‘good’, ‘amazing’, ‘can-do’, heroes and ‘pressing on’. He said that the government were working ‘full-tilt’ to protect the NHS and save lives. He mentioned that it had been 50-50 at one point but that he was back to lead. The analogy he used was of having been in an alpine tunnel to avoid the peak and we could see the bright sunshine and the green pastures at the end of the tunnel.

Lots of people said he was the best communicator that the government have, and it was good to see him back. Things would get better and later in the week he would announce the next steps.

On Tuesday we had a special one minute’s silence to remember the heroes who had died at work in the NHS and care sectors.

Boris didn’t appear at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday when Keir Starmer asked searching questions of Dominic Raab. The press and social media were full of posts stating it was good that ‘the other lot’ hadn’t won the December election, and imagined the chaos that a Labour party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, would have made of the current crisis. We learned that Boris and Carrie had a baby boy and Boris had been by their side all the way through. Again, there was great rejoicing and congratulations and many political opponents wished them well. MPs across the spectrum suggested this joyous occasion would give a lift to the country.

Meanwhile Captain Tom, the war hero, managed to raise over £30 million for NHS charities in time for his 100th birthday. He got an honorary promotion to Colonel along with his card from the Queen and 120,000 from members of the public. Boris recorded a special message. Keeping the war theme going he had a flyover from the RAF of two WW2 fighter planes. Tom was even number one in the music chart. Tom has inspired many other people to raise funds for the NHS and Virgin Radio DJ Chris Evans held a ‘garage sale’ of a huge amount of expensive memorabilia and items from his self-admitted ‘excess times’ over the last 25 years. This raised just short of £500,000. The money will be going directly to the ‘Scrubs Glorious Scrubs’ who are coordinating the voluntary efforts from seamstresses making much-needed scrubs for NHS frontline staff or, the ‘heroes’.

The daily briefings continued and there was focus on the promised 100,000 daily test target which, by a huge effort and extending the range of people who could get the test, was met when 122,000 were done on Thursday 30th.

That evening Alyson and I joined in the weekly ‘clap for carers’ with most of the people on our street. Drums, pots and wooden spoons, hooters, whistles were used. We talked in slightly derogatory terms about those who have not been out for any of the five times we have done it.

The daily briefings feature a new section whereby members of the public could write or record a question to be put to the briefing. This was welcomed as often these questions cut through the ‘gotcha’ questions often put by the press to try and catch ministers out or show up errors or misjudgements. The first one from Lynne in Skipton simply asked, ‘When will I be able to cuddle my grandchildren, who I am missing terribly’. The minister said he understood the question but reinforced the need to ‘continue with the measures in place’.

When the journalists tried to ask about PPE and a BBC Panorama programme that exposed a shortage in the national stockpile, and an emergency exercise from 2016, the minister said he didn’t believe any of that and that we just needed to carry on. The press wanted to know more about the R-number and what value it needed to be for lockdown to be released. Professor Whitty was asked when we would learn the lessons of what had gone wrong. He said that would happen, but you don’t start in the middle of trying to focus on fighting the current crisis. When asked why our death total seems to be so much higher than the other European countries and second in the world, he pointed to what he described as a brilliant article in The Guardian by a professor of statistics on the difficulty of comparing countries.

Jeremy Hunt, former Health Secretary was very defensive when asked about the lack of PPE and ventilators. He said that President Macron had apologised for the lack of preparations but that he didn’t think Matt Hancock should and ‘now is not the time for the blame game’.

Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer was praised for putting in place a compensation scheme for the families of NHS and other frontline staff who had died as part of their duties dealing with Covid-19 patients. He also increased the guarantee for business loans from 80% to 100%. The week before he announced help for charities including foodbanks. On Saturday, a package of £76million to support vulnerable children, victims of domestic violence and modern slavery who were ‘trapped’ at home during lockdown. Pharmacies, who had previously been given £300Million to help with extra stock and deliveries, were to use consultation rooms as save havens for victims of domestic violence.

The ‘alternative/critical view’…

I can only imagine the Daily Mail headlines if Boris was the head of a taxpayer funded project managing an emergency caused by not taking the advice of experts from a few years before. Finding out that he had now fathered at least six children during two marriages and one extra marital affair, was not married to his current partner and had to deny several other similar allegations. He wrote a piece for The Spectator in 1995 where he attacked single mothers saying it was “outrageous” that married couples “should pay for ‘the single mothers’ desire to procreate independently of men”. Not only that but in two months he had taken several weeks paid sick leave from his £150,000 a year job, and now was going on paid paternity leave. He went to his paid for country mansion set in 1,000 acres of Buckinghamshire countryside for a couple of weeks. His bluff and bluster of a ‘Churchillian’ speech with its talk of light at the end of a tunnel might have been turned on him, and the question asked, ‘are you sure it’s not just an express train coming towards us…’?

The NHS is not a charity and should be fully funded by the government, the clue is in the name. It shouldn’t need Captain Tom or celebrities to get the general public to raise money for it during a ‘special season’. Of course there may well be a need to have a few ‘extras’ like toys/video games for the children’s wards or special luxury equipment for people in rehab or entertainment packages, but not vital equipment or PPE. Well done Captain Tom – only another £320million to go in order to fulfil the Brexit bus promise of £350million for the NHS for a week. It needs long-term guaranteed funding.

The NHS staff aren’t ‘heroes’ they are professional trained people who are willing to treat people in a system that has been underfunded and cut during 10 years of austerity. Some of the work they do is extremely stressful.

Some people are asking the question whether, once this is all over will the government be willing to continue to give the funding needed, and will those people who gave their donation to Captain Tom still be happy if they have to pay an equivalent amount of increased National Insurance every year? Will celebrities who earn tens or even hundreds times more than a nurse or senior doctor be willing to buy less ‘trinkets’ and support their heroes?

Certainly the pharmacy contractors, something I know a little about, will have their £300Million ‘gift’ (actually a loan) clawed back out of future payments. The sunk cost of all the PPE and extra staff they have had to take on and the small profit lost from reduced counter sales, will not be recovered. No doubt they will have to go back to providing unfunded services for quite some time yet.

The minute’s silence last Tuesday was on the annual International Workers Memorial Day. An initiative setup by trades unions worldwide to fight for safe working for people whose employers make them work in dangerous conditions or with hazardous substances. The 28th of April is officially recognised by the UK government as a day of remembrance around the world. So should we have an official act of remembrance on the 28th of April every year, not just 2020?

Now is the time to be challenging the government on how it was that emergency supplies of PPE were not replenished after Exercise Cygnus in 2016. Now is the time to make sure the government sets up a suitable commission to investigate and learn the lessons. A good question to the daily briefing might be;

If now is not the time to start learning the lessons of this crisis, is now the time to commit to setting up a wide-ranging independent group to look at it and report 6 months after the crisis is declared by the WHO to have ended. And is now the time to commit to ‘getting done’ all the recommendations and to fund them ‘whatever it takes‘?

Those ‘Masters of the Universe’ the bankers, who don’t appear to have changed much since they were supported after the 2008 market crash, will continue to control the supply of much needed loans. Some managed to bring forward their bonuses paid early, despite the Bank of England asking them to delay. Despite being given huge guarantees by the government (again) they will charge huge fees and take a lot of security from the owners of small businesses.

Returning briefly to Jesus, there was a time when people wore badges emblazoned WWJD, meaning ‘What would Jesus do?’ I think the first thing Jesus might have done was to ask the question ‘who are the people that will suffer most from this crisis and the long-term aftereffects?’ He might have decided the following priority list;

Take the homeless off the streets and put them all in hotels not currently being used for tourists, give them health screening and mental health support.
Before panic buying, make sure the supermarket stocks of food and necessary essential supplies go to foodbanks. Or better still, miss out the food banks and give £5,000 to every person or family with less than £1,000 of savings in the bank, along with guaranteed delivery of essential food and other items for the duration of the crisis.
Guarantee a payment of the average weekly wage to anyone on a zero hours or part-time flexible contract.
Provide support to the people who care for our most vulnerable people in care homes or their own homes.
Make sure every child living in a poor household is taken to school every day, given a full education, access to technology and two free meals.
Pay for all the care needed to support children or adults with a range of special needs for the duration.

Only after that has been done and ‘maximum effort’ has been given to them, and others identified as in danger of potential harm, can civil servants start to plan and implement the type of support package given by the treasury early in this crisis.

So, which narrative would you choose to believe…?

Thoughts at the end of week 6.

The relatively wet weather has confined us indoors. Alyson has been reading Terry Waite’s book Taken on Trust, sewing masks for us all and going for long walks every day.

I have had many more Zoom meetings and took part in an online quiz for Christian Aid. I have two quizzes to write in the coming week. I attended my weekly streamed service from Methodist Central Hall.

We had a family Zoom with 15 of us who should have been at a large house in Ross on Wye for the weekend.

Alyson practiced her skills as a home hairdresser on me with clippers and special scissors I had bought from Amazon.

I managed to put another shelf in my shed and am confident I can now do the last one in under an hour!

Stay safe everyone.