Some Enforced Rest

Last week was just as busy as the week before, if not more so. TG got her braces fitted by the orthodontist on Monday morning, then had to go back in the afternoon because a couple of the fixings detached themselves. It settled down until today when a couple became loose again - we think because the teeth are set a bit behind the others - so she has to go back again on Monday. She is readjusting to the limitations.  Not being able to eat whole apples is a particular annoyance, as she usually eats at least one every day (there was a time when we had to restrict her to no more than two as she would probably have eaten them by the bowlful!). On Tuesday R came over for dinner, Wednesday was band practice, I took Thursday off from orchestra because I needed a free evening, then on Friday friends came over for dinner and H and M2 came for a roast dinner on Sunday evening.  

Saturday was the highlight of the week for myself and TG. Back in June I booked tickets for us to see Hairspray on stage in London. It was fantastic - warm, funny, energetic, superbly staged and performed. We had tickets for the matinee, and I had also booked lunch at the theatre as they were offering a fun, themed menu for a very reasonable price. I had a waffle with fried chicken, and TG had one with pulled pork; desert was chocolate brownie ice cream sundae for her and key lime pie for me. The menu also included a cocktail each (alcoholic for me, mocktail for her) and tubs of popcorn to take into the theatre. The whole package really added to our enjoyment of the afternoon, and also meant we got into the theatre early and didn't have to queue. 

This was our third visit to a theatre over the last couple of months (and our last for a while - we don't have anything else booked) and it was very noticeable that hardly anyone was wearing a mask in the auditorium. On our first trip a majority of people were, and the previous time it was probably about 50:50. A good number of people put them on to move around the theatre, but then took them off again when they sat down. It did feel as though the air flow was pretty good, and presumably the vast majority of people were vaccinated, so hopefully the covid risk wasn't too high. It does seem as though we are at the stage where we are learning to live with it. Encouragingly, case rates overall are seeming pretty static, despite a big bulge in cases in school kids following the beginning of term and despite people mixing more and masking less. 

Another encouraging thing is that booster vaccine doses are happening for people over 50, clinically vulnerable or in front line roles who had their second dose more than 6 months ago. M had his on Friday morning - I will have to wait until November for mine. Also the government have finally decided to authorise vaccines for 12 to 15 year olds, starting this week. They are being given through schools, and TG got hers today. She's feeling a little fragile this evening, but at least it is done. The school had such a good take up rate that they couldn't get through everyone in one day and are having to arrange to get the vaccination team back another day to finish the job. For now they are just giving younger teens one jab, to minimise the risk of pericarditis, I think. My best guess is they will boost it with a second jab later on in the winter. 

The enforced rest bit? TG picked up the nasty non-covid cold that is going round at school, brought it home and shared it with us. M felt pretty bad on Friday night and Saturday - cold plus post-vaccine effects wasn't a good combination - and had to phone in sick from his Saturday 111 shift. I had it mildly until Sunday when it started to get much worse, and by Monday morning it was well on its way to a chest infection (unfortunately a fairly common pattern for me if a cold gets out of hand). I realised what was happening, and M kindly went down to the doctor's surgery first thing to see if he could sort out a telephone appointment for me. By 8.20 the asthma nurse had phoned me, offered a face-to-face appointment if I wanted it (in the end we decided it wasn't necessary) and prescribed steroids and antibiotics, which M had picked up from the pharmacy by 10. I had to take Monday and Tuesday off work, and spent 48 hours either in bed or on the sofa, resting and hydrating according to the nurse's instructions. The medication has now kicked in and I have felt a lot better today, but think I will be mostly resting for the rest of the week. At least it happened this week and not last! 

Summer Travels: Caldey Island

I am way behind with posting these summer holiday pictures, but I want to keep a record and they are a nice reminder of lovely sunny days as I listen to the rain pouring down outside! 

During our holiday in Wales we took a short boat trip out to Caldey Island. The landing stage is at the edge of a beautiful sandy beach which could easily be mistaken for somewhere far more exotic than the UK. 

At the centre of Caldey is a large Trappist monastery. Originally founded as an Anglican Benedictine abbey in the early 20th century, most of the monks converted to Roman Catholicism just before the 1st World War. In the 1920s the Catholic Benedictines moved to Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire and were replaced by the Trappists in 1929. The large Italian style monastery is very different to the small village of Caldey, which has around 40 permanent inhabitants. 

We enjoyed a walk around part of the island, with some impressive views, then grabbed sandwiches for lunch from the cafe which is on the far side of the green from the monastery. 

The Abbey isn't open to the public, and even the Abbey Church was closed due to the pandemic, but we went into the small parish church which has some rather lovely modern stained glass. The island also has the remains of a 12th century priory, which itself replaced an early Celtic monastery. 

The island is known for its red squirrels, but I didn't manage to spot any live ones, only this wooden squirrel decorating a bench. 

We spent a bit of time enjoying the sun on the beach before catching the boat back to town. On our last day we went back out to sea on a seal spotting boat trip, which circumnavigated both Caldey and its uninhabited sister island, St. Margaret's, which is now a nature reserve. At the right time of year its cliffs are full of puffins, but they are migrants and had gone off to northern climes for the summer. We did see plenty of seals  - look closely at the photo below and you may be able to see some grey blobs on the rock. It needed a camera with more range than my iPhone to get a decent picture. The layers of colour in the rock came out well though! 

Both trips were a treat. I am a sea lover and to spend time out on the waves with spray on my face just makes me happy. 

A Little Love for Afghanistan

As we walked along the beach into the town one morning while we were in Wales, we walked past a group making a giant heart in the sand with Afghanistan written inside. Sometimes there seems so very little one can do except watch a horrible situation from afar, and seeing people writing a little love into the sand ... well, love is never wasted. If nothing else, it acted as a brief reminder to people walking past. 

While we were away M's synagogue sent out an appeal for clothing, toys and so on for some Afghani refugee families that had arrived locally. We wanted to help, but by the time we arrived home they had already received more items than they needed . A week or so ago they asked for donations of consumable items, particularly nappies, baby wipes and toiletries. M bought a batch and mentioned it to a neighbour who was also keen to help. He then put a note onto the WhatsApp group we share with about half a dozen of our nearest neighbours. Thanks to their generosity this was the pile that M delivered to the synagogue yesterday. We really do have lovely neighbours! 

Last week was busy. Life really does seem to have stepped up into high gear again, with TG back at school, work, music and time spent catching up with friends. On Friday evening a dear friend and her fiancé came over for dinner, the first time we had seen them since before the pandemic - there was lots of talk and lots of laughter. Today I spent part of the morning helping move band music to a different storage area, then this afternoon played my violin at an orchestra rehearsal. I gave another old friend a lift, which gave us a chance to catch up with each other properly. Next week is looking busy again, kicking off with a trip to the orthodontist for TG in the morning to get braces. She had braces for several months a few years ago, to straighten a very crooked front tooth, but she has had to wait until now to have full braces put in as her baby teeth were very slow to fall out. While obviously not looking forward to the discomfort, she is glad to finally be able to get it done. 

Summer Travels: Tenby

I spent a holiday at Tenby once when I was a child - probably aged about 8 - but all I could remember was that it had nice beaches. As we decided we wanted to visit South Wales, I put Tenby into Booking.com as a location, found a hotel that looked good and could be booked with free cancellation (this was during peak covid and we had no idea what the summer would bring) and that decided our destination. We simply could not have chosen better. Everything exceeded our expectations - we thought Tenby would be nice, but it is stunning. The hotel was pretty much perfect, situated at the top of a cliff overlooking the North Bay. There was a terrace with a magnificent view right cross the bay to the town, good food in the hotel restaurant, an outside pool (and good enough weather to swim in it!), helpful and friendly staff, and even an electric car charger in the car park.  

The pictures speak for themselves. Pretty painted houses round the harbour and quirky little streets. 

 

It is also a walled town, with most of its historic walls still standing. Not surprisingly given how lovely Tenby is and that it was August it was busy. Most of the restaurants had queues in the evening, and we discovered that if we wanted to eat in the town it was best to eat early. We had a couple of excellent meals, there but most of the time relied on the hotel restaurant rather than risk getting stuck in a long queue - no hardship as the food was very good. 

Then there were the beaches. This was the beach which began just below our hotel. There was a private path down, a steep zigzag that M and I were very unsure of the first couple of times we went down it, relying on TG to help us round the most dodgy corners, but by the end of the holiday we had mastered it! Most days we went down the scary path and walked into town along the beach rather than round by the road. 

The view below is looking along the beach in the other direction. Our hotel was the white building on the left. The weather really was as lovely as it looks. We didn't swim in the sea, but we paddled and swam in the slightly warmer hotel pool instead.

On the other side of the headland behind the harbour was another very long beach, which I think was the one I remember from my childhood visit. It was possible to take various boat trips from the harbour, but during low tide - which was much of the day while we were there - the boats ran from this makeshift landing stage which was towed up and down the beach by a tractor. 

It really was a lovely holiday and we definitely hope to go back again. We did quite a bit of walking and exploring, but also spent time just sitting on the beach and relaxing in the hotel. I think we all felt that we got the balance about right and came home feeling that our batteries had been recharged. I'll write another post about some of the places we explored. 

Summer Travels: Cardiff

Our first port of call on our Welsh trip was Cardiff. I once went to a short academic conference at the university there but had never visited the city itself, and neither had M or TG. Tenby was quite a long drive so we decided we would spend a night in Cardiff to break the journey and have a look round the city. A long trip meant dealing with the ups and downs of charging the car while away from home. We stopped at a motorway service station on the M4 a bit before Cardiff only to find we were third in a queue of cars waiting to use a single charger. By the time we had bought and eaten pasties of lunch we were second but another car was also waiting. We all had a grumble about the inadequacies of the motorway charging network, then as we still had plenty of juice in our battery and the next car was down to 10% we left them to it and went on to Cardiff where the Zap Map app directed us to some on street chargers near the main shopping street. These turned out to be brand new, worked like a dream, and included free parking, so we had a wander around the shops while the car was doing its thing.  

With the battery looking healthier, we drove down to Cardiff Bay, which has been redeveloped from old docks into a vibrant waterfront area. I assumed it was sea, but Google tells me it is a large freshwater lake at the mouth of a river estuary. After fuelling ourselves on some gazillion calorie traybake slices from a cafe we did a circular walk around the Bay. 

We walked past the Welsh Senedd (parliament) building and this pretty Norwegian Church which is now an arts centre and coffee shop. Unfortunately it was closing just as we got there so we didn't get a chance to look round.  

There was lots of street art including a series of sculptures representing the people of Cardiff, likely this miner leaning against a cart. 

We ended up at the Wales Millennium Centre, where a couple of entertainers in inflatable dinosaur suits were entertaining children in front of the entrance. I didn't manage to photograph it very well, but the curved wall carved in both Welsh and English was very impressive. To the right in the picture above in Roald Dahl Plass (Dahl was born in the city) was a small fairground leading down to a large Ferris wheel at the edge of the water. 

After our stroll it was time for dinner in a waterfront pub before heading off to a Premier Inn on the northern edge of the city for the night. In the morning there was torrential rain, so we waited for it to ease a bit before setting off for Tenby. By the time we arrived it had stopped raining, and unbelievably (Wales is not renowned for being dry!) that was the last rain we saw all week. 

Back from an August break (or two)

Whoa! What happened there! That is my longest break in blogging since I started writing regularly back in March 2020. Mainly it is due to holidays. We had two trips away. First the three of us went to South Wales  for a week, then I went with H and TG to Paris and Disneyland for four days. Back in July I was pretty much convinced that we would not be going - any one returning to the UK from France had to quarantine for 10 days, plus the rules about covid tests and so on just sounded complicated - but in the end we decided to go for it and were very glad we did. I'll write separate posts about both trips with photos next week. For now I just want to get caught up and back into writing. 

We got home from Paris late on Sunday night after a slight delay to the flight due to all the extra paper work that had to be checked before we could board. To travel back into the UK we needed negative covid test certificates, booking reference numbers for another test to be taken within two days of getting home, and a passenger locator form, all of which were inspected by the Air France staff. That did at least mean that we breezed through border control at Heathrow when we arrived in London. After the late night H and I both had early starts the next morning as we were working. TG was able to enjoy a couple of days of relaxing days as she didn't go back to school until Wednesday. 

So now life is very much back to normal. It really does seem to be pretty much back to pre-pandemic life for us, apart from a bit of mask wearing and regular lateral flow (antigen) tests for M and TG who have to take them for work and school. Brass band and my regular Thursday evening orchestra have started up again, and today TG and I went to the cinema to see Shang Chi and the Ten Rings. The two of us have been binging on Marvel movies over the last month, and only have the most recent Spiderman movie left to watch. Then we plan to work our way through the various Marvel series now available on Disney Plus, including a re-watch of Wandavision now we have more context. 

I'm trying to think what else I should record ... we were all horrified by what has been happening in Afghanistan. M's synagogue have been collecting various things for Afghan refugees and are asking particularly for nappies and baby wipes, so there are now batches of both in the boot of the car waiting for M to drop them off. Our government continues its usual level of incompetence, burying its head in the sand over a major shortage of lorry drivers caused largely by Brexit which is causing problems in many areas - for example, our garden waste is not being collected because the council don't have enough drivers.   Coronavirus rates are still higher than we would all like to see, but despite everything now being open and all restrictions lifted, they are pretty stable. High vaccination levels have massively reduced the number of people being hospitalised, but again, both hospitalisations and deaths are still at significant levels and not really coming down. Many people are pessimistic about the winter, but I'm feeling moderately optimistic that immunity levels are now high enough to stop case rates getting out of control. I hope I'm right.