Staying Home Part 2: Day 20

With the short days, we seem to be falling into a pattern of working in the morning, taking a walk after lunch, and then I go back to work for a while in the afternoon. I must admit I find it hard to get going again after a long break, but if we wait until after M has collected TG from school it is almost starting to get dark. Today we drove into town then did a circular walk which took us through the park and back up past the church to the High Street, where a Christmas tree and lights had appeared since Sunday. I had a voucher for a "buy one, get one free" coffee, so bought seasonal coffees to take home for myself and H - M is not a coffee drinker and TG was still at school (TG was trained early in the art of drinking coffee by H, and at 14 starts her day with a double espresso!)

M has been signed off work for the time being, at least until the Covid outbreak in his office is well under control, and possibly until the New Year. Who knows! He had a notification yesterday that they are starting to roll out lateral flow antigen testing kits to 111 staff, so when he does go back he should get his own rapid testing kit with enough supplies for twice weekly home testing for 12 weeks - I say should, because who knows how efficiently the roll out of kits will be organised! With testing at that level, it should be possible to able to stop any further outbreaks very early on. 

At national level the government has confirmed that the current semi-lockdown will end on Wednesday next week and England will go back to a tiered system. Each area will be in Tier 1, 2 or 3, with more stringent measures in the higher tiers. They want to leave it as late as possible to make the decision allow the effect of the current lockdown to work through the system, and areas are going to be allocated to tiers on Thursday. The likelihood is that many places will go into higher tiers than they were in before this lockdown, in order to keep suppressing the transmission rate. I am hoping that we will stay in Tier 1, as the rate for our local authority is well below the national average. It will not make a lot of difference to us, but would be easier for H and her BF, and would mean we can see R indoors. Whatever tier we are in I will still be working at home, and M will go back whenever they decide it is safe. I haven't heard yet whether we will be able to start brass band rehearsals again - it will probably depend on what tier we end up in - but TG's dance school have confirmed they will be restarting classes at their studios again for the last couple of weeks of term after a month of classes on Zoom. 

It was my turn to cook dinner tonight - ling from the fish box with home made potato wedges (healthy fish and chips!), then the girls and I watched the final of Great British Bake Off.