Happy Easter

 

 

 

Post cruise

 On the morning if the last full day of our cruise we woke to find ourselves sailing through the brown waters of the Rio de la Plata estuary, even though we were four hours away from docking in Buenos Aires. Quite a change from the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean. For us that last day on board was spent relaxing and packing, as we were to be up very early the following morning to disembark, then travel to the airport for a flight to the Iguazu Falls.

We arrived at our hotel on the Argentinian side of the falls late morning and this  was our first view of the falls from our hotel.

After freshening up and having lunch  that afternoon we walked to the magnificent Devil's Throat.

 

 

The following morning we were up early for the drive to the Brazilian side of the falls.

 

 

Another morning and four of us went for a walk in the Iguazu National Park to see yet another aspect of these amazing falls

while the more intrepid in our group did the boat trip into the falls.

That evening we flew back to Buenos Aires, several hours later than scheduled because of a strike, earlier in the day, by airport workers. This meant that we had to cancel the tango show that we had booked for that evening. Fortunately a group of tango dancers had given a performance on board the ship, the evening before we disembarked. So, we didn't feel too hard done by.

Our sight seeing wasn't over yet and we were up again the next morning to see the highlights of Buenos Aires. First stop Recoleta Cemetery and the grave of Eva Peron.

 Next it was on to the Casa Rosada and the Boca area with its brightly painted houses.

 We finished with a typical Argentinian meal of large portions washed down by a good Malbec, before returning to our hotel for a well earned rest and final pack, ready for our flight home the following morning.

Pre-cruise

Some of you maybe wondering where I have been and did I manage to return home without any problems. In the past when we have gone away February/March time, to get away from the UK's miserable winter, we have gone east to South Africa, India or Australia and New Zealand, but luckily this year we went west to Brazil and Argentina. So, no problems flying home. A year ago it would have been  a very different story when we flew from Singapore via Dubai to Manchester on March 7.

 A cruise from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires or vice versa had been on our bucket list for some time. We started in Rio with three nights, before the cruise, staying in an hotel over looking Copacabana Beach.

 While we were there we did an excursion to Christ the Redeemer

 and to Sugar Loaf Mountain, but by the time we got there it was dark and all that we could see were the lights of Rio in the distance.

For the first two nights of the cruise the ship was docked in Rio, which gave us the opportunity to go to the Rio Carnaval on the second night. This had to be the highlight of the whole holiday and an opportunity not to be missed. Before the carnaval itself started there was a lights show and fireworks. Then came the samba dancers 

 

and the floats. 

 

 

 

 

(I have had to be very selective with the hundred or so photos that I took). 

It was a very late night and an amazing experience. The following afternoon the ship set sail south towards are eventual destination of Buenos Aires. During the cruise we had good weather and visited some interesting places but they were not worth writing about.

Sailing the high seas

 

Cheshire wife is enjoying herself on a cruise ship at the moment. Back soon.

Things can only get better

2025 started well enough. This time last year we were cruising down the east coast of New Zealand after boarding in Auckland on February 2. Stopping off at Christchurch we had a stroll around the now largely rebuilt city, after the devastating earthquake of 2011. Then went to visit my mother in law’s ninety year old cousin, who lives the outskirts of Christchurch. After sailing round the southern end of South Island we headed to Tasmania via Milford Sound

After Tasmania our next port of call was Sydney, where we sailed out early evening under the bridge with the Opera House in the background.

From Sydney we sailed up the east coat of Australia, visiting the Great Barrier Reef and taking a trip on a glass bottomed boat on a miserable wet and windy day, when the visibility wasn’t

Then it was onto Darwin - the hottest and most humid place that I have ever been followed by Bali and Semarang before arriving at our final destination of Singapore from where we flew home.

Once home there was plenty of catching up to do and things were moving along nicely until I hurt my right hand on our warped back door, bringing back the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, which a steroid injection the previous summer, had successfully treated. A second steroid injection was not so successful and surgery was needed at the end of July. This meant limited use of my right hand for six weeks, but my recovery was pretty good.

 In the meantime a cyst had appeared on my left eye. When this didn’t go away, more surgery was required at the beginning of October. This time the recovery was not so good and I needed antibiotics for an inflamed eye lid.

Problems come in threes and the next things was a swollen right knee, which an MRI scan showed is due to old injuries and is best left alone at the moment. A year ago I had no idea that all of this was around the corner. Now it is behind me and hopefully this year will be better.

New Year to remember or maybe forget

We have been to Funchal, Madeira to see in the New Year. We first went in 2014/15 and have been several times since, although not every year. This was our seventh time. We did not go the previous year. 

At home over the new year period we missed being in Funchal, especially as friends who also go were celebrating a big birthday. To combat our withdrawal symptoms, we booked our recent visit on 2 January 2025. Having looked forward to this holiday for essentially two years, we were disappointed to see the weather forecast for our week in Funchal was for rain everyday. It was fine but windy when we arrived, although the rain soon started. Our first evening was a wet walk to our chosen restaurant, which was not too far away.

Surprisingly we woke the next morning to blues sky and sun. Were the doom mongering forecasts wrong? That day stayed dry. By the next morning, December 31, the rain had set. Bad weather was forecast and worse was to come.

There were yellow and orange weather warnings for the next few days and there was talk of changing the timing of the New Year's Eve midnight fireworks. The decision was made to stick to the usual midnight timing. The last few hours of 2025 saw heavy showers. By midnight it was dry, but windy. The fireworks went ahead as planned. Some of the cruise ships scheduled to come into the bay to see the fireworks did not make it, because of the rough seas. 

New Year's day was a wet and miserable day, which was spent trying to keep dry. The following day was pretty much the same. For our evening meal we had booked a restaurant down in Funchal which is a 40 minute walk away and a chance to see the Christmas lights. 

Luckily it was dry for our walk down into Funchal, but for our walk back we were not so fortunate. We could have got taxi, but at the point where we walked past the taxi rank it wasn't raining and we felt that we could do with the exercise, having enjoyed a good meal.

The weather did improve and we hoped that it had turned a corner, but how wrong we were. Seven days after arriving we were enjoying what we thought would be our last Happy Hour drink, sitting outside as the sun set, when my husband received a text message from our tour operator Jet2, to say that our flight the following day had been postponed, because high winds were forecast for Funchal airport. We were to check out as normal the following day and would be taken to our accommodation for that night. This is not unusual for Madeira, but it had not happened to us before in nine visits.

On day eight, of a seven day holiday, we were taken by taxi to another hotel about a five minute drive away. Luckily we were amongst the first to arrive, so were spared the long queue that some endured to check in. This was not the sort of hotel that we would ever book ourselves. The reception area looked bare, dated and cheap. The bedroom was functional, but spartan by comparison with where we had been staying. Early evening a complimentary meal was provided. All I can say was that it was food. Breakfast the next morning was equally uninspiring.

Instead of being at Funchal airport we were busy watching its' website and were surprised to see that it was functioning normally, with flights landing and taking off as scheduled. Jet2 was the only airline to have cancelled flights that day. If the weather is bad - high winds or poor visibility- the airport is essentially closed and there are no flights.  Why did Jet2 think that the weather was going to be so bad that they needed to cancel all their flights?

Mid morning of day nine we found ourselves in the hotel's reception area with scores of other disgruntled holiday makers jostling to board the coach to take us to the airport, where we arrived in what appeared to be plenty of time, which was just as well. The check in queue was snaking around the check in area, being about a mile long. It moved at a snail's pace and it took two hours to get to the front of the queue.

 I have to say this was certainly different. It was the worst weather that we have had in seven New Year visits. Will we go again at New Year? No, but not because of the weather. Every time has cost a bit more, but next year would be a lot more. If we skip New Year and go at the beginning of January the price will be substantially less. The hotel will still be decorated for Christmas and the Christmas lights will still be on in Funchal. And if the weather isn't up to much we won't feel so hard done by.

Happy New Year

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Scissor happy

 Just like the girl in the image above I happily went to the hairdresser for a trim and came out scalped.

Over the last few weeks my layered bob had got a bit long and untidy. The shape was fine but some of the layers were a too long and it was lop sided. So, unusually for me I had been looking forward to getting it tidied up. Normally I do not look forward to going to the hairdresser, which is probably the result of too many bad haircuts. In fact I would rather go to the dentist than the hairdresser.

 

The hairdresser suggested just taking the ends off it, as it was what she called an interim cut. This was a dry cut. Usually I have it cut wet. I said that I thought half an inch would be better with just the ends off the fringe and length of the sides. She set to work initially appearing to cut half an inch off as requested. When the scissors keep cutting I thought that she was just tidying up the ends, but she keep cutting and 

cutting. Once one side is short the other side needs to be cut to the same length. There isn't much that you can do when you are in the hairdresser's chair. All I could do was hope that it didn't look as bad as I thought it did.

 

Eventually she stopped. There wasn't much left of on my head. My layered bob now looked like a cross between as mullet and a short back and sides. Oh, but the back had been left long. Maybe more of a mullet. I muttered that she had taken off more than I had expected. Quickly paid and left - out into a cold afternoon, which to my scalped head felt very cold indeed.

 

When I got home my husband was horrified by my shorn locks. In 35 years he has never said any thing negative about my hair and there have been other awful cuts. He suggested finding a new hairdresser. Not easy in the run up to Christmas, when they are all booked up weeks ahead. Now do I risk going back to her or do I cut it myself?

A World of Change

I know that it has been some time since I last posted. I keep looking at that last post and think how much the world has changed in the intervening twenty months.

In March of last year we knew that a General Election was imminent for the UK and also it was election year for the US.  At that time it was not clear when a General Election would be called in the UK, but the date of the US presidential election is fixed in stone.While the US election could have gone either way at that point, it was looking increasingly clear in the UK that the current Conservative government was likely to lose to the opposition Labour party.

So, it was not a great surprise when in the UK the Labour party won the General Election by a large, but shallow majority - meaning that many of the victorious Labour MPs won their seats by only a handful of votes. Consequently it won't take much of a swing away from Labour for them to loose their seats at the next election.

In the US the presidential election was won by the Republican candidate Donald Trump, beating the Democrat Kamala Harris. American politics are very different from those in the UK and I think that on this side of the Atlantic we watched with some amazement at the way in which the campaign unfolded there.

In France Macron clings on and in Italy Giorgia Meloni remains as prime minister, while in Germany Olaf Scholz has been has been replaced by Friedrich Merz. And after the death of Pope Francis, the Vatican also has a new man in charge - Pope Leo XIV. Quite a lot of change in a short time.

After a worldwide period of relative stability, recently there as been a tremendous amount of turmoil, with the wars in Gaza and Ukraine causing many of the international problems. Interventions to try to put a halt to these conflicts are being met with resistance by the aggressors and lives continue to be lost.

Away from these conflict,  politics in the US appears to have become divisive and feudal. One of my university friends who is British, married an American and moved to the US. Now she is afraid to come home to the UK in case she won't be allowed to return to the US. Never mind the tariffs and the trade wars that have dominated the world economy this year.

In the UK the unpopular Labour government has been mired in scandals almost from the day that they came to power. Initially there was the who ha over MPs, including the prime minister Keir Starmer, receiving gifts and hospitality from donors. More recently the deputy prime minister Angela Rayner had to resign over her dubious property dealings.

Yesterday we had the delights of the annual budget. Much of which had been leaked in advance. But after weeks of speculation over what the budget would contain, the event itself proved not to hold many surprises. The reception of the budget has been mixed, but overall the verdict is a thumbs down.

And so the world continues to rotate and life goes on.

Happy Easter

 

As time goes by - review of 2021

Now that we are past Twelfth Night and the Christmas festivities are behind it sees like a good time to take a look at back at the last year.

And so the year that seemed to be never ending has finally come to a close. At times, time appeared to be standing still. Here, in the north west of England, we had a bitterly cold start to the year with sub zero night time temperatures for most of the month. Irrespective of the weather, work commenced on the building of the new village hall, partly funded by a Big Lottery Fund grant. The old village hall was a second hand building acquired around 1950 with a design life of 15 years and for some years had been badly in need of replacement. It had take several years of painstaking work for the Big Lottery Fund team, comprising six of the village hall committee members, to jump through all the necessary hoops to satisfy the Big Lottery Fund that it was a worthy cause and for the grant from them, to be approved.

Sadly in the second week of January our village lost two of its' elder statesmen on consecutive days. The whole country was in hard lockdown. Numbers at funerals were severely restricted. Unable to attend their funerals, villagers rallied round and we were organised to line the route of their funeral corteges as a mark of respect, which was appreciated by their families.

Storm Christoph arrived in the third week of January, affecting most of the country with strong winds and heavy rain. The North West was  particularly badly hit with 24 hours of non stop rain, leaving all of the roads in and out of the village flooded. Fortunately the flood waters soon subsided.

By the start of February the coronavirus vaccination programme was in full swing. Husband and I had our first one at beginning of the month and the second one 12 weeks later. With coronavirus restrictions still in place, life and time moved slowly on. Spring arrived and with it the lifting of some of the lockdown restrictions. However, holidays booked for May and June were cancelled. For the May holiday we took a refund. The June holiday we rebooked for September.

With the arrival of Spring came the start of the gardening year and the delivery of the new greenhouse that I had ordered the previous Autumn. The old one was 18 years old and had served us well, but had never been the same since the neighbour's tree had fallen onto it during a storm, some years before. Having had the second coronavirus vaccination I was suffering from side effects of an upset stomach and problems sleeping, which were to haunt me intermittently for about four months.

With the gradual lifting of the lockdown restrictions I was able to have my first hair cut of the year in May. Through out May and June the lockdown restrictions continued to be eased until July 19 which was dubbed Freedom Day. Life was now as normal as it was going to get for the foreseeable future.

At the end of July life for us took on a different perspective when my brother announced that he had had to had a kidney removed because of a cancerous growth on it. Fortunately he made a good recovery and the cancer was a very low grade tumour requiring no further treatment. Around this time what looked like a spot appeared on husband's nose. When antibiotics did not clear it up, a squamous cell carcinoma was diagnosed. This was seven days before we were due to go to Crete for a two week holiday. After thinking about it over the weekend we decide to cancel the holiday and get his nose sorted out. For a time we were in limbo. By mid September we had the biopsy result through. The squamous cell carcinoma was in fact benign. This news allowed us to rebook our holiday to Crete for the beginning of October. As they say things come in threes. In the middle of all this husband's brother-in-law was diagnosed with lung cancer.

By now the new village hall was built, finished and ready to be handed over to the village hall committee with the opening event planned for mid October. We returned from our holiday in Crete the night before to attend the grand opening. The following week husband managed to catch a cold which he of course passed to me. It was quite a shock to the system after two years of having nothing, as the result of lockdown and social distancing etc.

The next thing up for us was our coronavirus booster vaccination on November 1 - thankfully no side effects this time. When the weather permitted, we were out in the garden putting it to bed for the winter. Black Friday bought with it Storm Arwen, taking out our power for 47 hours. To say that those 47 hours were grim would be an under statement. On the second night without power we had a hard frost. Now at least the dahlias could be lifted! Sadly, the previous weekend husband's brother in law had died.

December heralded the Omicron variant of coronavirus, which meant that the government imposed some restrictions on our lives. Now the press and the media whipped things up into a frenzy, trying to guess what the governments next move should be. We had back bench MPs voting against the government, while the press and media reported what they wanted to see, rather than what was really happening. That died down over Christmas, but in the absence of real news, we now seem to be back to the press and media making the news, instead of reporting what is happening. Hopefully things will improve and 2022 does not turn out to be the year that we were governed by the press and media.

 Merry Christmas

More records broken

I have never paid too much attention to the viewing statistics for my blog, but now the way blogger have set things up it is hard to avoid them.  Last month I could not help but notice that my blog's viewing figures were going up by leaps and bounds until on consecutive days the number of views hit over one thousand. I am certain that this has never happened before. After that hiatus the viewing figures continued to be high for several days. However, they have now dropped back to what I consider to be normal levels. It is hard to work out why I was getting so many hits, as they are not all reading my latest post and it is not as if the views are translating into comments. That is partly because I have set things up so that  comments can only be made on the last three posts that I have published, which is to prevent the undesirable comments that get left on my blog now and again.

Several of my posts have had more than one thousands views, but it has taken months, if not years for them to achieve that many views. For some time my most viewed post was Where's the tooth fairy? which is about my experiences of the initial stages of a dental implant procedure. I had intended to write a follow up post when the work was finished, but somehow never got round to it and now it is too long ago for me to remember all the detail. Currently my the post with the most views is The home strait about my elderly mother and her care home, which is an experience that a lot of us have had to cope with. These post were published in 2011 and 2010 respectively. Thankfully there have been no more dental implants and my mother died nearly ten years ago.

Life still has its' ups and downs. Currently we are having a down and are in limbo. When I know the direction of travel I shall post about it.

Hitting the ton

Here in the UK we are having a heatwave and the temperature on our patio is regularly reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I have to say that I quite like the heat and I am enjoying myself pottering around in the garden, dressed for the beach. So while some of Europe is mopping up after torrential rain and floods, we are basking in the sun. It is usually the other way round. We have the rain and floods and Europe has the heat. If this is anything to do with Brexit, I am all for it. I know that this good weather will not last. It never does in this country. Thunderstorms are forecast for the weekend. The rain will be good for the garden, although our lawn has not turned brown, probably because we have had an awful lot of rain this year. The baking heat has turned our wettest flowerbed with its bog like clay soil into something which is more like a rock than soil with a small earthquake thrown in for good measure. Thankfully we only have one flower bed like that. The other flower beds do not have such heavy soil.

Shortly I shall be out to catch some more rays as this maybe the closest we are going to get to a holiday in the sun this year, although we do have a holiday booked for a few weeks time.

1066 or 1966?

It was 1966. 30 July 1966 to be precise, when England won the World Cup.

Some of us can still remember it. And for my generation, I am sure that England winning the World Cup in 1966 is a feat that can not be beaten.That is not to take anything away from the achievements of the current England team. I wish them luck for this evening.

In case you were wondering......

 

In the absence of anything else to do I have been spending time in the garden.

No need for social distancing or to wear a mask. 

The easing of restrictions has not made much difference to us. As we are usually away a lot, when we are at home we do not go out much. Consequently there has not been very little to write about recently.

The way we are

Spring is in the air but, I am not entirely sure that Winter is done with us. Some days have been pleasant and sunny, while others have been cloudy and windy. However, we have managed to spend some welcome time in the garden.

Today is a year since England went into its first lockdown and it has being marked by a National Day of Reflection. We are now starting to ease our way out of our third lockdown. Schools went back two weeks ago and we have a timetable for the opening of  hairdressers, non-essential shops, gyms and hospitality etc. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have their own plans, which are similar but different to England’s plans. During the coronavirus pandemic the three devolved governments have gone out of their way to be awkward and do things differently to England. However, their tactics have not given them a better outcome from the pandemic, with regard to infection rates and the number of deaths. My feelings are that it would have been better if the UK’s response to the pandemic had been managed from London. Then the whole country would have moved in and out of lockdown at the same time. Northern Ireland have managed things in the only the way that the Irish would - you probably need to be British to understand that sentiment. Scotland’s response has been chaotic and difficult to fathom with Nicola Sturgeon showing her true colours. While Wales have flipped in and out of lockdown as often as most people change their socks. Why am I bothered by this? - because we  live near Chester, two miles from the border with Wales and whatever the Welsh do has an impact on us. People from Chester work in Wales and vice versa. So if infection rates go up over the border, they will probably also go up over here. Last week Wales eased its lockdown ahead of Mother’s Day allowing families to meet up. Something we were not allowed to do here in England. In two to three weeks time, Wales will probably have a spike in infections resulting from Mother’s Day socialising. I see that Anglesey already has seen increased infection rates. I can't wait for the hairdressers to open, as I just want to get my hair cut.

Coronavirus vaccinations continue to be a hot topic of conversation with the shenangihans in the European Union causing concern not only in Europe, but worldwide. Mainland Europe is currently experiencing a third wave of infections leading to more lockdowns and restrictions. All exacerbated by the slow rollout of the vaccine there. Delayed supplies of the vaccines and worries about side effects being the most recent excuses to poke a political finger at the UK. This carton from The Times of Wednesday 17 March 2021 says it all.

The problem is the contract that the EU have with AstraZeneca. They negotiated on price which has put them at the back of the queue whereas the UK negotiated on vaccine availability, putting them at the front of the queue. The Europeans clearly do not understand the concept of queueing. We all know about the German towels on the sunbed.

Meanwhile back in the UK, the hiatus after the murder of Sarah Everard seems to have died down. I am not saying that her death was not a tragedy, but I seem to be missing something. At the time of her murder the whole country was in lockdown and we are still not allowed to meet anyone indoors. We can only meet one person outdoors, so what was she doing visiting a friend?  When I was around her age I too lived in London and probably walked home alone late at night, but I lived in a different area of London. I would never have walked around Brixton alone, even in daylight. The vigil on the Saturday evening broke the coronavirus regulations. The police were right to break up the crowds and despite all the fuss about their tactics, only four people were arrested.

The other issue still rumbling on is the Meg and Haz side show. Here in the UK people are not that interested. We are currently lockdown in a pandemic and have more important things to think about than two self centred and privileged individuals complaining about how badly life has treated them. After all, we lived through the events and saw then reported in the media at the time. I watched the interview, if you could call it an interview, so that I could make up my own mind about what they had to say. It was more like a conversation with Meghan steering it in the direction that she wanted it to go. It had taken them 15 months to write the script and learn their lines. Everything was twisted to fit the distorted narrative that they want to peddle. If Meghan had ever read a Jane Austen novel she would have understood the lot of a younger son, but she realised too late that she had signed up for a bit part rather than the starring role. The media is awash with stories of Meghan's erratic behaviour - they can't all be wrong. Every time I see her petulant face I see Wallis Simpson - that other American divorcee who caused the last constitutional crisis in 1936. One can only imagine how unbelievably let down and betrayed Prince William must feel. These tell all interviews rarely end well. They are probably already, regretting that they did it.

Getting the needle

 

Here at the moment, the hot conversation topic seems to be the coronavirus vaccine roll out. Well it is either that or the more depressing infection rate or daily death toll. Last week's spat with the EU over the export of vaccines to the UK has spiced things up and shown the EU bullies that the world is watching them and is not impressed with their behaviour. The UK continues with its' speedy rollout - showing the rest of the world how it should be done. Their aim is to have offered every over 70 their first vaccination by mid February and it is looking as if they are on target to meet that deadline.

 

Ten days ago husband's brother in law, who was 72 last month and is seven months older than husband, received his appointment to have his first vaccination on Monday of this week. So, of course husband started to wonder when he would get his invite. On Tuesday a letter arrived for husband from the NHS, providing him with the information that he needed to make an appointment for his first vaccination. He wasted no time in logging into the necessary website, only to find that appointments were only available at a branch of Boots in the centre of Chester. Alternatively, the letter said that he could wait until his GP practice contacted him, which is what he decided to do, as we had heard that they were using a vaccination centre, which had been set up in a church hall nearer to us than the centre of Chester. Well, he did not have long to wait as on Tuesday lunchtime our GP surgery telephoned  offering him an appointment late on Wednesday afternoon. After a bit of dithering, as it was a slightly inconvenient time, he accepted and asked if I could go with him, although I am not over 70. So, it was agreed that we could go together. Really he needed me to hold his hand, because he does not like needles.

 

We left home at 5 pm on Wednesday afternoon for the 20 minute drive to the vaccination centre and were back home before 6 pm. Arriving early for our 5.30 appointment, marshalls in the car park indicated the parking options and explained the one way system in operation. At the door to the church hall we were greeted by a volunteer with hand sanitiser. Then another volunteer directed us to the desk handling our GP practice. Several GP practices are using this vaccination centre. Once checked in we were handed a questionnaire and shepherded into a queue for the vaccination. The queue moved remarkably quicky and within five minutes of arriving we had both been injected with the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine. But we were not quite done, we then had to spend 15 minutes in the post vaccination observation area. Before we could access this area a label with our exit time was stuck to the sleeve of our anoraks by another volunteer. This area was in a draughty marquee that had been erected at the back of the hall and was the worst bit of the whole process. Just to take our mind off things we had been given a leaflet about the vaccine to read. It was 5.30 in the evening, in the middle of the UK Winter with the outside temperture being five degrees Celsius. After that it took me all night to get warm! 

Now we just have to wait for the antibodies to do their business and the appointment for the second vaccination.

 

All in all, it was an impressively slick operation.

2020 hindsight

Here in the UK we are lockdown once again, so I thought that I would look back on some of the events of the last twelve months.

Well, what a year it was! I am not sure that hindsight is of much use now. Foresight would have been more useful a year ago, but if any of us had seen in a crystal ball what 2020 had to offer,  how many of us would even have got out of bed last January?

About a year ago we set off for Cape Town. So as the pandemic kicked off in China we were reliant on the internet for news as we travelled around South Africa. I am sure that everywhere that we stayed had a television in the bedroom but we do not usually watch television when we are away from home. In fact we do not even watch much television when we are at home. We were aware of the situation in China but had no idea of what it would escalate into. No one did. Initially the weather was good and we enjoyed the blue skies and sunshine of the Western Cape. We didn't have a care in the world as we enjoyed a day's wine tour around Franschhoek with lunch at Richard Branson's Mont Rochelle vineyard, where the scenery is absolutely stunning.

The good weather was not to last. During our drive along the Garden Route the weather gods decided to end South Africa's drought with spectacular thunderstorms, torrential rain and power cuts. Maybe we should have seen this as a harbinger of what was to come. After Port Elizabeth we flew to the Victoria Falls for a couple of days. There the weather was dry. At Johannesburg airport we saw a group of Chinese people being taken to one side.  I think by now the whole world saw all Chinese as carriers of this virus which had infected so many people in China. The last six nights of our holiday were spent in the Seychelles, where every day we had yet more thunderstorms and rain. After nearly four weeks away we were glad to return home on February 1, to a UK that had just left the EU although there were no obvious changes at Manchester airport. We had managed to avoid delayed flights and quarantine and no one seemed to be bothered about where we had been, but then Big Brother Emirates knew exactly when and where we were flying to and from. I just hoped that we did not get burgled.

Back in the UK it was cold, grey and wet. We seemed to have brought the South African rain back with us. From the edge of our seats, we watched the television news as coronavirus spread west from China. Here life was normal. We could socialise, shop for non essential items and go to the hairdresser. But for how long? Countries in Europe were locking down.  Horrified we watched as hospitals in Italy, Spain and France were overwhelmed by cases of the virus. It was only a matter of time before coronavirus reached our shores. We are an island. Someone would kindly import it for us even though the government set up isolation centres for travellers returning to the UK from hot spots, in an attempt to contain the virus. By the third week in March the battle was lost and the UK was also locked down as the number of coronavirus infections started to climb.

At first lockdown was a bit of a novelty. There was not much traffic on the roads, people were polite and kept their distance and restricted numbers in the supermarket made shopping a less unpleasant experience and the weather played its' part by being dry and sunny. This meant that we could spend time in the garden in addition to our allowed essential exercise of a walk around the village. Away from our Cheshire bubble things were grim, as the number of infections and deaths continued to rise. And so life went on. Holidays which had been booked and looked forward to for some time were cancelled and re-arranged. We naively thought that it would all be over in a few months and that life would return to normal. Then when we thought that things were improving as the infection rate dropped, we were instructed to wear face masks in shops, public transport and enclosed spaces. I am not a fan of mask wearing, but maybe the powers that be were right to insist on us wearing them. Everyday different scientists would pop up advising on what we should and shouldn't be doing. All seemed to be experts in their fields. Who knew that we had so many professors?

Over the summer the lockdown was relaxed, as the number of coronavirus infections fell and life became a bit more normal. We were even allowed to have a foreign holiday and we were fortunate enough to manage a week away on the Greek island of Crete at the beginning of September. But there were still rules to be abided by and that was the problem. Many did not follow the rules. In particular the young, who in general get away with an asymptomatic or mild dose of the virus. We were lucky enough to return from Crete just hours before England brought in quarantine rules for travellers returning from Crete, which had been necessitated by young people returning from the island with the virus, having partied the night away while on holiday. By mid September the second wave of the pandemic was starting in the UK as infection rate began to go up again and some parts of the country were under local restrictions. In October a tiered system of restrictions was brought in covering all of England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had their own restrictions set out by their devolved governments. My husband and I had been shocked to see on the TV, places where people were partying in the street, hugging and kissing one another against all the rules. And the authorities were letting them get away with it. Infection rates continued to climb resulting in a one month lockdown during Novmber, in the hope of saving Christmas. It did bring the numbers down, only for them to go up again in December.

In the run up to Christmas the restrictions were tightened as the number of infections rose, but there were still plans to relax the rules for five days over the Christmas bank holiday. Then the weekend before Christmas the bombshell was dropped that a new more infectious variant had been identified and was spreading rapidly around London and the south east of England. These areas were effectively lockdown overnight leaving Christmas plans in ruins. As the news of this new variant spread countries in Europe and around the world banned travellers from the leper colony that was the UK. Within a day the Frog President Macron, while suffering from coronavirus himself, took the knee jerk decision to close the French border with the UK, leaving hundreds of EU nationals stranded in England. Most of those stranded were not coronavirus carrying Brits trying to cross the English Channel to France, but eastern European lorry drivers wanting to get home for Christmas.

This caused chaos around the channel ports in Kent as thousands of lorries, trying to cross the Channel, ended up blocking the roads. Some lorry drivers ended up spending Christmas in their cab. The French  will not be forgiven for their stupid actions and will live to regret them. This household for one will no longer buy anything French including wine. Other countries produce equally drinkable wine.

Within days several other countries admitted that the new variant, termed the UK or Kent variant, was already present in their country and had been present before the UK announcement. When you take into account the fact the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic started in Europe weeks ahead of the second wave in the UK, then it is quite likely that the new variant actually originated in Europe. The UK simply identified it and alerted the world, as we lead the world in genome testing.

All year the Brexit talks had continued between the UK and the EU, finally coming to an agreement just before Christmas. In the US it had been a presidential election year with the Democrat candidate Joe Biden defeating the Republican incumbent president Donald Trump. But everything, in this strangest of years, was overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and I am wondering how many hours we have spent watching government briefings about how the pandemic has progressed and changes to the lockdown restrictions. I am also wondering how many times husband and I have walked around our village for exercise!