Back to Not-Normal

We officially moved into Tier 2 today, with lots of restrictions but a lot less of them than we had yesterday.  We also woke up to the news that the medical authorities have officially approved the Pfizer vaccine for use in the UK, and vaccinations are likely to begin next week. The original plan was to vaccinate care home residents and staff first, but because of the cold storage conditions required for the this particular vaccine it is unlikely to be possible to distribute it to care homes. The initial vaccinations will take place at hospitals, with over 80s, care and health workers getting priority. As M's role is considered front line (although he doesn't see patients in person), there is a real possibility that he could get vaccinated before Christmas. What a gift that would be. 

I switched my routine round today to take an early walk while the weather was nice, and we drove to a local country park. A few years ago they opened a larger visitor centre and cafe, with a different entrance and a larger car park, but today we started our walk at the original entrance at the other end of the park. This was always one of our favourite places to visit when the girls were young.

These stones mark the hours for a human sundial. The girls always loved this, though more for clambering on the stones than telling the time. This part of the park was originally the grounds of a country house, with a manmade lake. I was taking photographs of a swan family on the lake when one of the adults kindly did this for me! Shortly afterwards the swans  - all five of them, parents and young adult offspring - got very agitated when an excitable dog ran down to the lakeshore. There was much hissing until the dog backed off. 

The beetle below is one of a number of wooden sculptures in the newer area of the country park. After we got home from our walk I got on with my archive work while M went for a swim. He normally swims once or twice a week, but obviously had to stop when everything shut down in the spring. The pool reopened in the summer, but he never got round to going back. Over the last few weeks he has been getting backache - not at all unusual for him as he suffers from severe scoliosis, but this was a particular muscular ache which he suspected may be down to the lack of swimming exercise. The pool was open again today, so he booked himself a slot for late morning. 

 

I had to work through the afternoon to get everything done, but did manage an hour or so of downtime to read and carry on with the socks I am knitting as a Christmas present for a friend. I also poured myself today's gin to drink while I relaxed. Advent calendar gin number 2 was "moonshot". I just looked it up and it was made with botanicals and moon rock that had been sent into (near) space. What? Really? It seems so! I can't imagine how someone thought that one up. It was good gin, but I would have appreciated it even more if I had discovered its origins before drinking it. 

This evening TG had in-person dance classes, H had a Zoom quiz with her work colleagues and I had Zoom band. We now know that we can go back to in-person rehearsals, under stringent conditions, but the guidance came out too late to organise it for this week. I actually quite enjoy the Zoom band. We use breakout rooms which allow for more direct coaching than we would get normally. I am also lazy enough to appreciate not having to go out in the cold and drive to a rehearsal!