Home

I'm home after three weeks, the house is still standing and it's warm, that'll do to be going on with.

I had intended to post once or twice over Christmas, while popping down the road from my mother's to visit my sister, but that turned out to be an exercise in futility. No problems getting on the net, the problem was 11 kilos of hyperactive cocker spaniel worming her way into your lap to help! At 11kg Poppy's pretty much fully grown, but still definitely an adolescent in her behaviour. OTOH it's nice to be greeted by someone wagging her tail so hard it starts at her nose.

It snowed lightly the day after I got up to Durham, enough to last overnight, then was ridiculously mild until this week, with a touch of snow on Monday that's still on the ground in places, and then the last couple of nights were down to -4C. And of course it started to snow heavily just as we started to load the car to take me to the station. We were unexpectedly entertained while waiting at the station, there's a piano in the waiting room, and one of the three young lads who work at the station was playing a medley of Abba tunes, and was surprisingly good. There was a somewhat alarming announcement on the train south "Sorry for the delayed departure from Doncaster there, that was due to having to wait for some assistance from the British Transport Police" Eek! The snow petered out somewhere south of York though, so I got home in drizzly rain just as the light was fading. Not exactly the way to see Chatham at its best. (Not that Chatham's best amounts to much at the best of times).

It was a quiet Christmas as we mostly weren't going out - Omicron! - and Christmas dinner courtesy of my sister and brother-in-law had to count as non-traditional - no turkey! I wasn't consulted on this, but I think I'm the only one in the family who really likes turkey, so I can't complain too hard. OTOH beef instead of turkey is very much a first world problem. The exception to the mostly not going out was my brother-in-law, who was popping down the local pub regularly. As he wanted to see his brother last Sunday we popped over to Hartlepool, kicked him out at his brother's local, and the rest of us went on to Seaton Carew, where Poppy took my sister for a walk on the beach and my mother and I spent an hour in an amusement arcade. We'd expected there not to be many people about, but apparently everyone else had had the same idea so it was packed like it was Midsummer.

The three of us being the only people I saw wearing masks on the street may explain why the North East's Omicron figures are rapidly catching up with the rest of the country, though it was a bit better in the arcade. And then of course the inevitable happened. Not only did my brother-in-law's brother test positive on Monday, but so did whoever he'd sat next to when he popped out to the pub on New Year's Eve, So breakfast on Tuesday morning was lateral flow tests all round. Fortunately we all tested negative and have stayed that way. (Covid also worked its way through my brother-in-law's son, daughter-in-law, both grandkids, and his daughter's husband over the holidays).

Anyway, I hope everyone else had a happy and covid-free Christmas and New Year, and that we can get (mostly) shot of the bloody thing this year!