Stay in till we’re shot of Covid- 19
WELL, Christmas certainly left the building early this week. Boris didn’t even wait for Twelfth Night before he chucked the tree and fairy lights out of the front door.
Not that it was much of a party at our place this year, just the two of us alone with a turkey crown and a mini Christmas pud. There’s nothing more forlorn than pulling crackers with only two of you to put on the silly hats and try to laugh at the terrible jokes.
Good job we stuck rigidly to the new rules though – our son and his wife tested positive last week ( strange how no one mistakes that for a pregnancy test any more). They reckon they got infected on Christmas Eve, meeting a couple of friends for a drink outside at their local park.
Because Boris had cancelled Christmas they didn’t come to us on Boxing Day as we’d planned, so, unknowingly, we were spared a visit from the virus, thank God.
They’re OK – it just feels like nasty flu to them. I feel sorry for them, but they’re young and we’re not.
And that worryingly close shave is one reason I’m not knocking lockdown. I get quite cross when I hear people moaning that it doesn’t work and is an affront to our human rights.
Of course lockdown is horrible and can’t destroy the virus; but it’s the only way we can manage the wretched thing until the vaccine effect kicks in. The new mutant strain is vicious; I know of more people infected now than all of last year. And to prevent hospitals having to treat patients in the car park, which is scarily close, we’ve simply got to put up with staying at home.
Look, I’m fed up with the Government telling us to “Protect the NHS.” I know the NHS should be protecting US, and it’s unbelievable that 10 months after the first lockdown, the Health Service still hasn’t got its act together. It hasn’t learnt lessons, but we have.
The NHS is full of saints and heroes, as we see every night on the news, and I weep for the shattered nurses, but the institution is no longer fit for purpose. It’s a shambles, as politicians will learn to their cost when this is all over.
For the moment, though, we’re stuck with lockdown until Boris gets that vaccine jabbed into our arms at superhuman speed. And if he doesn’t, heaven help him.
IN A week where I seem to be writing paeans of praise for women in the media, Jenna Coleman should not go unmentioned. I have yet to see all of The Serpent, in which she plays the French- Canadian lover of a 1970s serial killer, but she acts her socks off in the scenes I have watched so far. I scent a Bafta in the offing.