The rain hammered down on the roof in the early hours of the morning. I reset my alarm for a little later than usual. When the alarm rang I lay for a while contemplating whether I was going out for a run or not. I considered spending some time instead on the rowing machine and then doing some bending and stretching exercise, almost yoga on my fashion. In the end, having looked out of the door, I decided to go for a run after all. It wasn’t raining too hard, just a bit drizzly by then, but the bridle paths were all back to being a fairly muddy mess. At least three people put walking their dogs, some of my nodding acquaintances, told me with a wry smile that we are “back to normal”.
The day improved as the morning progressed. By late morning there was even some sunshine.
Our daughter came round to drop off some bits and bobs she had bought for us and to pick up some different bits and bobs that I had promised to pass on the granddaughter number one. The plan was to walk into the village so that our daughter could go to the post office. After that she would go and drop stuff off at her oldest daughter’s house. Her youngest daughter has been hankering after a walk with grandma all week but it’s been difficult to arrange as the smallest grandson is supposed to be isolating because of Covid problems at the nursery. This has meant not even popping him in his car-seat and driving over here for a walk in his buggy. This morning the tiny boy was left with his teenage sister, unbelievably almost 18!!, and the four and half year old was able to come along for a walk with grandma, organising an episode of the “Bess and Keira” game, where she is a cat and I am a dog, having adventures as we walk along.This is what modern grandmother’s do!
This modern grandmother has received another letter from the NHS inviting me to make an appointment for a Covid vaccine. In the middle of the night my phone pinged. It was a text from our local medical practice inviting me to make an appointment for ... yes, a Covid vaccine. Then at some point while I was out and about another text arrived, this time from Greenbank Medical Practice, one of the places closer to the centre of Oldham where I was originally invited to go to for the vaccination. And yes, this was yet another invitation to make an appointment.
Now, it’s not quite two weeks since I had my first dose of the vaccine. So these were clearly not invitations to go for my second dose. No, somewhere an algorithm thinks I have not received my first dose. However, I have a little card to prove that I have done so! If lots of already vaccinated people are receiving such invitations isn’t this a waste of postage costs? More importantly, does this mean that others have not yet received their first invitation? I wonder!
We have also received a letter from Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They realise that many of us are finding life “heavy going” (their inverted commas, not mine) and reassure us that they are there for us. They go on to apologise for not being able to knock on our doors and offer their help and reassurance, not to mention the good news, face to face. Nobody has told them how little I miss such visits. I could email them and tell them this but I don’t think I’ll bother.
Among all the other stuff about the possibility or not of holidays this summer, I read that Barcelona is banning smoking of four of the city’s most popular beaches. This is part of their policy to try to improve the city’s poor air quality and “to advance towards a healthy, smoke-free city, and that includes tobacco smoke”, as Gemma Tarafa, the council’s health spokesperson said. If it works they will move on to include other beaches and parks and bus stops next year. In the meantime, you will be able to smoke on Sant Sebastià, the popular nudist beach. So if you want to smoke on the beach you will need to strip off. There’s a thought!
From time to time my brother-in-law sends us links to articles about various musical items, usually something in the folk music field. He didn’t send us this link but he might have done. Some of the photos in the article reminded me of some of the folk events I have seen in Galicia. But it was a language item that attracted my attention as I read. Over the last year, well even before the last year, we have watched rather a lot of Scandi or Nordic detective series. And they have been very good on the whole. And the language has always been tantalisingly on the edge of comprehensible, something linguists always enjoy. One of the groups in this article is bringing out a new album called “Kvitravn”. It means “White Raven”, obviously! Well, it seems obvious to me.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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