My brother-in-law sent a message saying that the weather forecast continues bad. He was hoping that earlier forecasts were going to turn out to be mistaken - it does happen sometimes! - but it was not the case for today. Reading between the lines, I think he had a plan for another Chippy Hike. It’ll have to be another Friday; today is definitely a stay at home Friday. Besides, the cheese and biscuits lady was unable to set up her stall at Wednesday’s market (the fruit and veg man explained that if it’s too wet and windy she often opts not to turn up as it’s difficult to prevent her muffins - aka bread rolls - from getting soggy and nobody wants to buy soggy muffins) and so I have been unable to replenish my supply of “oat flips”, the gluten free biscuits that we offer him with an after-hike coffee sitting on the garden wall. So it goes!
It was International Women’s Day on Monday. I need to choose an impressive woman to talk about in my Italian conversation class next Monday. It’s not too hard to find an impressive woman; the difficulty is choosing one that the rest of the class won’t have also chosen. Ah, well! It keeps me put of mischief, I suppose.
I didn’t hear the item in question but I have been told that Health Minister Nadine Dorries suggested on Women’s Hour that the proposed 1% pay increase for nurses is somehow made okay by their husband’s pay. Long ago they used to use that argument for paying women teachers less than men - a whole different pay-scale. But in the 21st century such a remark beggars belief! And this was a woman speaking? Perhaps she believes we should all have our husband’s permission to open a bank account or to have a job in the first place.
Maybe I should speak to my Italian class about Nadine Dorries as a kind of reverse impressive woman.
I read this morning that Italy is going back into lockdown. TV journalist Sima Kotecha tweeted:
“Gosh, it was this day last yr I was deployed to Rome to cover outbreak. UK was life as normal while Italy was in lockdown. How much pain world has endured since. Who knew ..”
And now, a year on,comes this report about a new lockdown:-
“Italy will be placed under a nationwide lockdown for the Easter weekend, according to a draft law decree seen by Reuters.
Non-essential shops will be shuttered nationwide from 3-5 April. On those days, Italians will be allowed to leave their homes only for work, health or emergency reasons.
The draft decree also said that as of Monday curbs will be tightened in the country’s low-risk “yellow” regions, where movement between towns will be severely limited and restaurants and bars will be closed.
Along with nationwide measures, Italy calibrates restrictions in its 20 regions according to a four-tier colour-coded system (white, yellow, orange and red) based on infection levels and revised every week.
The decree is expected to be approved later today.”
Thinking back, when the first Italian lockdown was proposed, just a partial lockdown hoping to contain the virus in one part of the country, and then leaked, masses of people fled the region concerned and all unwittingly took the virus to other parts of the country. Easter is one of those times when families get together and those working in the big cities travel to the places they came from originally, in a kind of mass exodus. So with almost 26,000 new Covid-19 cases and 373 deaths recorded yesterday I guess they want to tighten things up and try to avoid even bigger problems.
Even though Sicily is in the really low category of yellow, I don’t think our trip to that delightful island is going to take place this May!
Sardinia by the way is a new category, white, with almost no restrictions. This must reflect the benefits of being an island rather cut off from the rest of the country!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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