the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke

My usual Thursday scribble here was put off as I had a day out down in Shoreham to visit an airline simulator for a couple of hours playing with a virtual Boeing 737-800. This was a belated birthday present and had to be fitted in around various issues with the lockdown and travel restrictions plus those that apply to the leisure sector.

Nearly three hours driving each way plus an intensive couple of hours concentrating on flying 70 odd tons of aeroplane mostly manually took up my whole day and I was too knackered by the time that I got home to be able to focus on this blog so it has had to be put off until today.

The sun is shining and I had planned to get an exercise walk in this morning, but I am making soda bread and we have number one daughter on the ‘phone from Down Under too so maybe I will get out later. I am well on track to beat the 1020 km target by the end of December, but I would like to get at least a couple of km in today. As it is the holiday season I have given up on the diet for a couple of weeks, relaxed my eating regime a little and am avoiding the scales. Normal service will resume in January.

The news continues to frustrate me, especially the desire to blame the government for all ills. IOt is the people who are causing the problem here by mixing too much and unless the government introduce draconian penalties they will not behave. Perhaps putting troops on the streets with orders to shoot on sight might do the trick…

Similarly Brextit: Why is it our fault that the EU do not understand what out means? We are leaving and that means that they should have no control over us. It is that alone that is at the centre of the problem regardless of how they dress it up. What with that intransigence and the Remain camp trying to put a spoke in at every opportunity it is no wonder that things have dragged on.

In health terms all is well here with us. Possibly the mask wearing whilst out and much hand sanitising has helped in avoiding catching anything else as well. We had out ‘flu jabs a while back now just in case and will welcome the chance of a Covid jab when they become available to us. Vaccination is the only way that we can beat this thing and get back to some semblance of what we used to have. I doubt whether we will ever get back to the way that we were because change is constantly happening. The last ten months have seen much change in, for example, shopping habits and accelerated the death of the High Street.

Christmas is almost upon us and this time next week it will all be over. As usual for us we have no decorations up beyond the rows of cards from friends (there are a couple of Christmas robin ornaments, but they stay out all year because we like them). No-one will visit and we will stay put here. Any contact with the outside world will be by ‘phone or Skype and that suits us. There is food in the ‘fridge, freezer and larder and we have some booze too so we will be happy with just us and the cats.

We know that others would prefer to have larger gatherings. They will do what they think right and we hope that, if they do gather, that no harm will come to them from it. Other than that, as always, stay safe out there wherever you are.