After Arwen, let’s hope the Omicron threat blows over

STORM Arwen crashed through Airedale with blizzards and high winds, leaving a trail of devastation.

The snow has gone, and it’s quiet, but I’m still picking up the pieces.

I got back from a weekend away to find glass scattered all over the grass under my allotment plum tree. The gales had smashed six panes in the greenhouse.

I cut my hand collecting the shards, some of which had pierced a plastic sheet, so powerful was the wind. It’s a retro project – if that means old – and the panes are all plate glass, of different sizes. Thank heaven I kept the sale brochure.

The temporary repairs I have done with bits of string and a demolished planter until I find a glazier would win the Heath Robinson award. Still, at least I had closed the door, or the whole lot would have been in the next village.

And we now have bigger things to worry about, with the new Covid regulations. I agree with them, but there might have to be big changes round here.

Life goes on, but at a more cautious pace. I’m with the health experts, not the Prime Minister, on the wisdom of limited indoor socialising.

Infection rates for our postcode of Sutton and Cross Hills have risen again, and stood at 739 per 100,000 in the most recent weekly reading – almost twice the national average.

Christmas is still on, with just a family bubble of three, and fingers crossed that the vax-campaign will halt the new virus variant in its tracks.

By the way, when I learned classical Greek at school, it was pronounced o-mycron, not Omm-icron, as the BBC says it.

Oh my sacred aunt, they can’t even get that right.