Yesterday, the Covid-19 restrictions were eased a little. We are now, officially, able to go into other people’s houses and can mix in groups of six or three families. We can also go inside a pub or restaurant (table service only), we can hug each other, and we can go on holiday to a select number of destinations – basically Malta, Portugal and the Falkland Islands! Also, our government says we can visit New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, but their governments won’t allow us in!
I didn’t
dash off to the Falklands (or even the pub) and while we welcome the easing of
lockdown (it means I can visit Max without breaking any laws) we are now unlikely
to make any major changes very quickly.
There is a
new Covid variant in the UK, which seems to have a significantly higher
transmission rate than previous variants (including the so-called Kent
variant). This one has come from India where it has ravaged the country with up
to 4,000 victims per day dying and grim scenes on the television news of people
desperately trying to get hold of oxygen for sick relatives.
The scenes
from India were frightening, but the government didn’t put it on the red list
(which would require people to quarantine), so people were still travelling to
and from India and just had to say they would quarantine at home for 11 days.
Pakistan and Bangladesh were placed in the red list, despite not having as high
an infection rate as India. So why was that? The suspicion is that Boris
Johnson wanted to do a quick trade deal with India and wasn’t keen to upset the
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. That’s plausible, but it could also be
because the government is a shower of incompetent idiots who have got pretty
much every decision wrong or delayed during the whole history of this pandemic.
They did put
India on the red list, eventually, but gave five days’ notice so everyone who
was able to grab a flight got on a plane to the UK.
Two weeks
later, we have 400,000 confirmed cases of the India variant, which is raging
through Asian communities in Bolton, Blackburn and Bedford, where vaccination
rates have been relatively low.
So the
lockdown easing continued, despite this new variant, and we now risk a third
wave … a third wave that could have easily been avoided. Scientists are saying
it’s crazy that we’re able to go on holiday abroad, that we’re opening pubs and
restaurants and the government’s response is to put the onus of responsibility
back to people saying: just because you can go to the pub, it doesn’t mean you
should do so. What a shower of fuckwits!
In other
news, the weather has been excessively cold at nights with frosts and easterly
or northern winds throughout April. May has started with milder weather, but
lots of rain. This has been playing havoc with my gardening. I’ve lost lots of
bedding plants – salvias, coleus and begonias, while others have been knocked
back. It’s been a frustrating spring.
I do have my
base ready for the new greenhouse and the garden is actually looking quite
good, so it’s not all doom and gloom. I’ve also been helping Max and Sam in
their gardens. We repaired Max’s fence and tidied up his raised planters, two
of which are now planted with bedding dahlias, salvias, geraniums and also a
few echeveria and hibiscus. I’m waiting for some begonias to become big enough
to transplant, perhaps another couple of weeks, to complete the final bed.
Sam had his
lawn relaid and it’s now ready to be mowed. He did one cut about a week ago and
I went on Friday to give it a second with my mower. It had grown substantially,
and I had to empty the grassbox about 20 times. I’ve almost filled one of his
compost bins with just one cut! The lawn does look good. We have also fixed
some rain barrels, set some flags and some general tidying. Oh! We also put up
a rope swing in the garden for Arthur which has been a huge success.
Tom has been
getting a little more work – one or two days per week – but it is still less
than he needs. He says he may go back to Ecuador to be with his family and try
again later in the year. The problem with that is that he may lose what
momentum he has, but also he would have to spent the best part of £2,000 in a
quarantine hotel because Ecuador is on the red list. The pandemic has caused a
lot more trouble for some people than others. I’m missing seeing Lucy and my
grandchildren; it must be ten times worse for Tom.
Will things
ever be the same? I’m beginning to think that they won’t!
Sam's new lawn
