Christmas is cancelled!

What a shower we have running this country. I can forgive stupid statements such as “it will all be over by Christmas” as they were made back in spring and there was little information to go on.

However, this past week, the government has threatened to take legal action against councils for closing schools early and, at Prime Minster’s Questions on Wednesday, Bojo the Clown lambasted the opposition for “wanting to cancel Christmas”.

Guess what? Everyone else could see what was coming, except those in charge.

Now, Kent, London, big chunks of the home counties (and Peterborough) have been placed into a new, stricter Tier 4, while the rest of the country have had new restrictions applied over Christmas. Instead of a five-day holiday from lock-downs, we have one day to see family (Christmas Day).

For us, in Tier 4, Christmas is cancelled. We are not allowed to travel into a lower tier area, which means we can’t go to Sam’s for Christmas Day (Soham is in Tier 2) and we can’t go to Max’s to see baby Alice – not even through the window (Syston is in Tier 3).

It’s quite depressing. I’m sure the measures are required, but the government is always behind the game. They are a complete shower!

Margaret said last night (the restrictions were announced just after 4pm yesterday) that this would be the first Christmas in over 40 years that we have spent on our own. I’m not even sure that’s true. I can’t remember a Christmas all alone – it always seemed that before we had children of our own, we spent the holiday at my dad’s and visited Margaret’s parents and my aunts.

Anyway, there is nothing we can do. We should be grateful, at least, that we’re healthy, warm and safe and have no money worries. Peterborough does have a high rate of Covid-19 infection, although Thorney has very little. We can’t go to Whittlesey (four miles south), Crowland (five miles north) or Thorney Toll (five miles east).

These certainly are strange times. The one bit of good news is that vaccinations are being rolled out slowly. The over-80s are the first group to get them and several people we know have been vaccinated – Bert and Irene (both in their 90s – went to Peterborough City Hospital to have theirs. They need a second jab in the new year to be fully covered. We hope new vaccines will get approval soon and we will all be offered one in the coming year.