Christmas in the time of Covid

After a lapse of almost seven years due to an unexpected blip in family health, it's time to review and renew the blog. I have cast about for a new name to signal fresh beginnings, but as I'm still writing fiction set in Fiji, Sulus in Somerset will stick! 

There is much to exercise our minds in 2020; latterly the approaching festive season and the logistics involved when trying to co-ordinate family spread over the UK. Do you know which #Zone, #Tier or #Lockdown state you're in? It's hard to keep up sometimes: the introduction of a tier system in Scotland, a variant of the same in England, Northern Ireland introducing a lockdown whilst the rest of us were wondering where Summer had gone and Wales being understandably cautious, meant that for a while we were unsure whether our local tier matched that of our daughter in Scotland. Would we be permitted to visit? Big Nick, as she is known in our household, soon put us right, 'no foreigners beyond the wall!' Would a son be allowed to visit his girlfriend in another part of the country - same tier - but with a journey involving travel through circuit-breaking Wales, also appealing for, 'English, stay away'?  

#Boris, with his usual dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards suave look, solved it all by placing England in another lockdown. Although not one as we knew it. No emergency trips to retrieve offspring from university this time and schools are still open, along with DIY stores, Garden Centres and anyone else who has plonked a spanner or a pot-plant in their shop-front. I'm delighted that the dishwasher repair man will be here in a fortnight, better than the month I'd envisaged, and the car can be MOT'd later this week, but explaining to elderly parents who are isolating with dementia, Parkinson's and all the paraphernalia of old age, that I can't see them until early December, and then we're at the mercy of statistics and graphs, seems a little topsy-turvy. Necessary for their physical health whilst their mental health deteriorates. 

Will students have to clutch a certificate of competence in order to exit their university town? Who will monitor when/if they do? Will a failure to do so result in some sort of reprimand from their seat of learning or an additional credit if they wave the QR code in front of the relevant person? Too many questions, but if travel is needed for Christmas, Vision Express, SpecSavers - & other opticians available on a high street near you - will be deserted as thousands test their eyesight the #Dominic Cummings' way!