A Variety of Virus and Vaccine Vacuities and some very important advice before you travel.
Well, who'd have thought it eh? Just as it was getting safe to go out again, along comes a 'mutant virus' (technically a 'variant') to spoil everything again. Typical! At least this time it was British. None of that Chinese muck for us now. Bigger, stronger, very sociable and just the ticket to take us into the new era of Boris's Brexit Britain. Someone up there must have a sense of humour, not to mention a keen ironic bent, even if I haven't.
But now here comes another one...and another! South Africa, Brazil, and I've heard that the Turks and Caicos Islands (Hello everyone!) are developing a Caribbean version. They've already got a Novichok variant in Russia. Just as well that there are so many vaccines being developed, too.
Mrs. S. and I have already chosen the 'Oxford' vaccine because it's British, it sounds so intelligent and traditional, and John Lewis are stocking it. No side effects so far!
A long time ago in December, when Mrs. Sánchez and I completed our 2 weeks in quarantine at home, following our stay in Álora, we couldn´t wait to run out and buy the biggest Christmas tree we could find and put our Christmas lights up outside to show our neighbours how optimistic we were that things were going to get better soon. They didn't, did they?
I must say we were expecting to get a visit or a phone call from Boris Johnson or somebody official to make sure we were staying in. No such luck! They were only kidding about checking up on quarantine after all! We didn't realise it was just a Christmas prank. Oh, that Boris! he doesn't know when to stop. How we laughed! Monty was not amused.
They say that an optimist is 'someone who isn't in full possession of the facts'. They were right this time.
Luckily we managed to cram the car with cheap Spanish wine from Hipercor in Santander on the way back from Spain so the days haven´t seemed so long. We're back to 'duty free allowances' the next time we go - whenever that might be.
I don't know about you, dear reader, but I'm getting fed up with turning on the telly just to see some scruffy, unshaven, homebound, lockdown-fatigued loner poking his big, fat, distorted face at me to tell me how bad things still are.
It´s
February now and the red wine is running out faster than Dominic
Cummings (remember him?) legging it down Downing Street on his way to
Barnard Castle to get his eyes tested. We're back where were were in March. It's like deja vu all over again for the second time, again.
Last Spring and Summer weren't too bad at all, when I look back, even if we could only go out once a day unless we were going out to buy food. We spent most of the time in our palatial, well-stocked English garden.
We hardly go out at all now, even though we are are partly protected against the Coronavirus. There´s nowhere to go anyway and it's too cold and wet to sit in the garden.
At least the weather is good in Álora. They had a bit of rain there a few weeks ago, which was good for the olives but it's been warm and sunny since. They've only just shut down the bars and restaurants there, as Covid cases have started rising rapidly. I hope it's not the 'British Variant'. We're in enough trouble there for leaving the EU without taking the blame for el lockdown number two as well. The Scots have wasted no time in distancing themselves from any blame by going for independence again. Did you know that the centre of Great Britain is at Haltwhistle, by Hadrian's Wall? Well it is, so the UK stands to lose half its geographical area to Scotland....and all because of Brexit. Can things get any worse?
They did yesterday when I dropped my mobile phone and smashed the screen. There was nobody around to blame, which was bad enough, but all the mobile phone shops are shut and my new online replacement will take a week to get here from Hangzhou.
Apart from not being able to WhatsApp funny videos and argue with strangers on Facebook, this catastrophe has seriously affected my lockdown Spanish-learning plans.
I have just built up a team of Spanish speakers from all over the world who want to help me with my Spanish skills. I downloaded the TANDEM app., entered a bit of personal information and the language I was learning and, Bob's your uncle, I am now chatting with Spanish speakers in Columbia, Bolivia, Peru and Columbia ...there seem to be a lot of people in Columbia wanting to help me with my Spanish.
Many of my new friends are quite young and all the ladies are very attractive although so far not one of them has replied to me after my initial message asking them where they live and what they are wearing. I think something has been lost in translation.
We were quick off the mark to try and renew our EHIC cards before the deadline. No luck, but on Friday Mrs. Sánchez received her shiny new all- British Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) which appears to give the same cover,
