Year End

 I am writing this in the last few hours of the most extraordinary year of my life - 2020.

From March onwards it's been dominated by the dreadful COVID virus that has killed tens of thousands of people in Britain and several million more worldwide. Which is all horrifying and dramatic.

The actual reality of the year has been sitting quietly indoors, in my case working long hours, and avoiding people and places as much as possible. I have heard of one person in my street dying of COVID, she was an elderly lady with some pre-existing conditions and I didn't know her. 

I know one person who's actually had COVID, a genial member of the tennis club who probably caught it at a crowded amateur music event in early March. He and he wife both got it - I don't know her. For him, the only scary part of the disease was the way it sapped his strength - for one or two days he had to literally crawl from his bed to the toilet and back. in a week or two he'd largely recovered, and by the time I spoke to him three or four months later he was fit enough to beat me 6-0, 6-0.

My only other independent source of information on COVID is a doctor at Ipswich hospital. Back in April or May, when things were pretty bad, he told me that the patients who died from COVID were old fat men and if they had existing ailments and/or came from Black or minority ethnic backgrounds their chances were even worse. 

And that's it. Everything else I know has come from the same sources as everyone else - predominately in my case the BBC and The Guardian. 

What will I remember of this year? Here's what comes to mind in random order:

• Not seeing a good friend. We last met face to face in December 2019 in a garden centre near Cambridge. Normally I'd have seen her at least six, perhaps as many as a dozen times since then. This year it's been zero

• Wearing a mask in all the shops - once I've had to go home, collect my face mask and then go back because I didn't want to enter a shop without wearing a mask

• The sound of birdsong during the first lock-down in the late Spring. That lockdown was pretty severe and obeyed, at least in this area, and it was lovely to hear the birds not being drowned out by traffic (we live on a very busy road)

• Worrying about the economy and what the future will be like. I've lived through five recessions, including the very tough early 1980s one and the so called 'great recession' of 2008. I don't want to go through any more

• Working from home. I dislike working from home, but being forced to for nearly nine months has forced me to adapt. And my work can be done from home - I knew that already, but the meeting technology such as WebEx and Zoom and the others is just about good enough to work. I still miss my colleagues though, some of whom I count as friends

• Saving money. Normally I spend somewhere between £250 and £350 on petrol commuting to and from work, and taking trips to various places for leisure and enjoyment. From mid March to now my total commuting bill has been about £30 at most, or about £3.33 per month. Then me and M go out for lunch and or dinner a few times each month - for the past nine months we've been out precisely three times. This all saves a lot of money, which I have been saving

• Wimbledon was cancelled for the first time ever in peace time. Me and M generally manage to get some tickets and its always a highlight of our year. We both missed it and it brought home to us just how unusual this year was

• The huge sense of relief when Donald Trump lost the election, and a few days later the first of three effective vaccines was announced. I've already dealt with my feelings about these events, but it's worth repeating the huge sense of joy and relief that the virus could be defeated, and a rational man could re-occupy the White House

• The relief that 2020 is finally over, and the hope and expectation that 2021 is going to be a much better year

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Deal is Done

 About an hour ago, it was announced that Britain and EU have done the Brexit deal.

This ends a disconcerting four and half year period when Brexit (how I've grown to hate that word) completely dominated the British media. It was hell for editors - the most important news story for a generation was also the most complex and boring one. 

I'm no fan of Boris Johnson, but at least he, or at least his former special advisor Dominic Cummings knew something about negotiation. That something is that in order to negotiate from a position of weakness you have to appear slightly crazy. Downright insane at times and willing to do the unthinkable like walk away and go for a non-deal Brixit. 

That was Teresa May's problem - she was far too sane and rational to make that threat look real, so the EU negotiators didn't take her seriously enough. Boris Johnson is a bit of flake and isn't ashamed to show it - a much more volatile and impulsive character and in the Brexit negotiations that counted for a lot.

Sadly those traits are rubbish when it comes to the applied science of COVID repression. Here Boris is weak and plodding cautious methodical Teresa May would have been outstanding. Ipswich is joining the rest of the South East in Tier 4 from the first minute of Boxing Day. Thankfully there are no fewer than three effective vaccines available soon so I'm hoping at some point in the late Spring of 2021 Britain will return to something like normal. 

The task of rebuilding the economy and coming to terms with what the Brexit deal really means will consume the country for the next few years. 

Cancelled Christmas (almost)

 So the Boris Johnson the Prime Minister appeared on television at 4pm today.

He announced a new type of restriction on London and the South East called a Tier 4. It basically puts those areas back into lockdown.

For purely selfish reasons this is a nasty event for me and M because M's daughter J was due to visit us over Christmas. J is a bright happy soul and we always look forward to her visits. Now J and her boyfriend will have to stay at home, and Christmas will be a quiet affair of me, M's younger daughter who lives with us, and M's parents. 

M's younger daughter is very upset by this news. It's a cliché that sisters are close, but J and L really are very close. L was so looking forward to seeing Big Sis - it's such a bitter disappointment for her.

*     *     *

The government is clearly rattled by the first significant mutation of the virus that apparently started in Kent in mid November. It doesn't seem to be any more dangerous than the original virus, but this one is far more infectious, possibly by up to 70%. That's really bad news, as the original was always described as 'highly infectious.'

I remain cautiously optimistic. Nobody is saying the new vaccines won't be able to hit this new strain, and I went to Bristol on Thursday to be my parents' chauffer. I took them to the vaccination centre where they received their first of two vaccination injections. It was a relief that they were among the first 350,000 or so people in the country to receive the vaccine, I hope to return to Bristol in January when they get their 2nd (final) injection that should give them a 90% chance of immunity. 

Let's hope the rest of us get vaccinated soon.