Staying Local

 

In light of the request to remain local,  many people in the village have been walking along the various lanes and footpaths that surround us. In joining them, Mister E and I have noticed two phenomena: 

Firstly, we appear to have exhausted the number of new sights and changes to comment on, meaning that on Monday which is refuse collection day, and in what must have been sheer desperation, we found ourselves commenting on people's wheelie bins. Can you actually imagine wanting to waste your breath talking about such things especially when they bear no resemblance to the pretty coloured ones in the photograph that I snapped on a stop in Inveraray last year?

Secondly, a trend seems to  have grown whereby fellow residents promenade just before the sun goes down. I imagine it has more to do with the shortening of the days than a linked desire to socialise at 3.30 pm whilst keeping one's distance. 

Anyway I am pleased to report that time has moved on and the second phenomenon has today thwarted the first. Whilst we may have had little new to speak about as we picked our way along a muddy bridleway over open countryside, our return in the early stages of twilight revealed the first Christmas lights twinkling from windows and gardens. We were once again in our element, offering our personal critiques of the tastefulness or not of the various illuminations. Now there really is a reason to wander around the village in late afternoon, noting the new lights, although presumably, in a couple of weeks, the conversation will descend into, "Look, there used to be a red lamp on the left but I think the bulb must have gone."

Happily, we haven't completely been consumed by a lack of stimulating material on our doostep. Indeed, I enlivened my life today with a trip to the surgery for a biennial wellness check and left with a hole in my right arm where blood had been withdrawn for sampling and in my left where I received a flu jab. There I was, bemoaning the fact that despite all the Government hype and promises our medical practice still hasn't received supplies to immunise the 50 to 65 age group when, based on the immunosuppressant that I stopped taking in February, I was eligible on vulnerability grounds, or so a letter written to me from NHS London advised. 

Of course, that has me wondering if it means I shall also be moved up the queue for one of the shots of the Covid vaccine that the news this evening showed being loaded up for transport. Knowing the way these things work, Brexit will intervene just as I'm due my innoculation and what do you bet the jab with my name on it gets stuck in a lorry park somewhere in Calais or Dover. As one wit pointed out today, the UK had to approve the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine quickly to try to ensure supplies are received whilst goods from the EU can still pass freely across our borders.

It really doesn't do to think about these things too much; it just sends the blood pressure reeling and, of course, that was the one area of concern from today's check-up. However, and because of Covid, the Surgery can no longer loan its patients monitors. I guess I should avoid politics and stick to pondering about wheeliebins after all.