Christmas Eve

There would not have been a meeting today as everyone would have been busy preparing for Christmas, I guess.

So, I hope that everyone has fantastic Christmas and a Happy... er... Happier New Year!

It certainly has been a different year so far.

Shop local

It's beginning to look a lot like er... Christmas?

What a strange time. Well, we shopped locally as always. Though it was very different this year but the shops had gone to great lengths to provide a true local service. 

Who needs the utterly loathsome Amazon when the local Clevedon bookshop will get orders in and deliver to your door? 

And though they are not very local but West Country based, we did get Miles coffee and tea to send as presents.

It was just a shame not to be able to browse around as normal with Christmas lights and songs and crowds of other folks doing the same.

 

A hospital visit

 I had an appointment at Weston General Hospital early in the afternoon yesterday,

My wife came with me and we took the opportunity to go round Weston shops in the morning (for essentials of course).

Whatever anyone thinks of Weston, we have always enjoyed going. As well as some of the chain stores and national coffee shops, Weston has quite a number of independent shops cafe's.

It was very sad to see them closed due to the lockdown and even more depressing to see that some are now permanently shut.

Some have closed because of online shopping. Is there anything worse than buying from an internet site, particularly Amazon. Owned by someone set to be a trillionaire whilst his employees work for just above the minimum wage. 

The staff at the hospital were excellent and my appointment was on time and everything would have seemed normal apart from the mask wearing and screens.

And now North Somerset is going to be a Tier 3.

It's the final lockdown???

 Did anyone have fireworks and a bonfire on November 5th? 

At least Halloween didn't happen, one of the very small pluses from this rotten second lockdown.

Rainy Month

Wow, what a lot of rain this month. About a fifth of the years total rain fell in this month.

I have not seen any reports of hosepipe bans!

Fifteenth October

Half way through another month and what is different? Er...

Fortunately we have managed to get fairly regular supermarket deliveries but it is disheartening to read of panic buyers every so often. We used to walk to the supermarket to get our groceries, topping up using the local shop but since all the lockdown started we began ordering online.

I despise the internet. Luddite? Far from it, I was excited by the internet when it first started but as time has gone on, there are dreadful companies such as Amazon which do nothing for honest retailers and surely the very worst of a bad bunch - Facebook, the most rotten and corrupt company to have existed and which is gradually destroying humanity in a way that Covid will never achieve.

October already

Is it really October? The days/weeks/months do seem to blend into one.

Whilst the days indeed seem to be almost identical, there surely will never be another year like this one.

I am reminded of Dickens... It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... except it is more... It was the oddest of times, it was the dullest of times.

Any other suggestions?