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.