Political shenanigans have upset my equilibrium today (along with many other people). The Prime Minister's chief advisor Dominic Cummings was exposed in the press as having travelled 250 miles from London to Durham while both he and his wife had Covid, supposedly so that his family could take care of their four year old if necessary, flagrantly breaching the spirit of the lockdown rules and in most reasonable interpretations the letter of the rules too. The government spin machine is trying to make out that what he did was only what any decent father should have done, making a mockery of all those people who cared for their own children while sick to protect others, who stayed home and missed relative's funerals, who kept their distance from sick friends and relatives, and obeyed the government's instructions to stay home. The Prime Minister has doubled down behind Cummings. I am furious! There are other accusations which the government isn't even bothering to address. Apparently we should be acting according to instinct rather than being socially responsible and obeying the lockdown regulations. The whole thing is just beyond ridiculous. I usually avoid watching the news and the government's rather hollow daily briefings, but today M and I watched a morning politics show and the Prime Minister's briefing this evening. Given how angry and discombobulated I now am, perhaps I shouldn't have done.
After watching TV this morning I had a long, lazy bath and read my book. After lunch I went outside to lie in the hammock and read, but fell asleep instead. We went for a slightly shorter walk today, mostly through built up areas but with a short stretch along the canal. One of the boats we saw had lots of painted canal art items on its roof.
I have always rather liked this house, with its arched entrance and windows It was originally the signalman's cottage for a railway branch line that ran alongside. The line closed in the 1960s and parts have been built over, although there is still a section that is now a footpath. On the way home we stopped at the pub to buy fruit. They threw in some extras and a loaf of bread for free as they were about to close and they would otherwise have gone to waste.
H cooked dinner - herb crusted lamb steaks, roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli - and we then watched the second half of Coco (one of Disney's best in our view). Then we had a long family FaceTime call with R, who seems to be enjoying her new job role in marketing though is finding getting up earlier in the mornings a challenge! It is only a temporary secondment, but she is hoping it will eventually lead to a permanent move.
I now need to spend some time distracting myself from thinking about the Cummings debacle, so that I don't go to bed feeling stressed and angry!
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