welsh hills again

On the 28th March we were at last allowed to stop "staying local" and travel within Wales.  Two of our children and their families live in Wales and two in England.  We had managed to see our North Wales daughter and her family through the lockdown from time to time, for childcare or, as things relaxed a bit further, outside for a walk or a play in the park.  The South Wales family we had not seen for months although we facetime and talk pretty often.  We would have to stay outside if we made the four hour journey down the border.  So Emma and I plotted together.  We could bring the campervan which would be our place to sleep and retire to.  She would buy a firepit so we could spend the evenings together outside on their terrace.  The weather forecast was consulted and two or three days of unseasonal warmth were predicted with winds from the south bringing some sunshine and higher temperatures so that was when we would travel.  Plan made. On ...

Has it really been a year since the first lockdown struck and we all retreated to our homes?  I went back and read my first blog about coronavirus  and see that I wrote it on 28th March 2020, so yes, a year ago almost exactly.  How long ago it seems.  This long slow year has chugged away and here we are now, with the vaccination roll out offering hope and the emergence of new variants reminding us that maybe, in some ways, coronavirus is here to stay and the world must adapt to it with annual vaccinations perhaps, as for flu.  We shall see.  I hear people talking about getting back to normal and I wonder what that will look like.  Somehow I find it hard to believe that it will be exactly as life was before the pandemic hit. A walk through the churchyard But there are lots of things to lift the spirits, chiefly from today that here in Wales we are allowed to travel anywhere in the country.  By "country" I do mean Wales as the rest of the UK is stil...

So here we are: the last day of 2020.  What a strange year and what a strange point we have reached with the virus.  Yesterday the Oxford Vaccine was cleared for use in the UK by the medicines regulator. On the same day new cases exceeded  50,000 and there were 981 deaths of people within 28 days of a positive test for covid 19.  So a strange tension between the hope that comes with the roll out of the vaccine and the tightening of restrictions to try to prevent the NHS from being totally overwhelmed by the increasing demand.  Here in Wales we have been in virtual lockdown since just before Christmas with an easing just on Christmas Day to allow a visit from only one household.  Yesterday it was announced that many more areas of England would go into Tier 4, not quite national lockdown but very close with all non essential retail closed and hospitality businesses open only for take away food.  It feels as if we are at a hugely significant point in...

Today I found myself struggling to remember exactly what I had done this week and I realised that one effect for me of this protracted period of lockdown and semi lockdown is that the weeks blur into each other.  Tomorrow we are expecting an announcement to the effect that there will be what is being called a circuit breaker lockdown in Wales, a shorter period (but exactly how long?) of serious restrictions in an attempt to reverse the trend of rising infections and hospitalisations. So in this week's blog I am going to pin down exactly what I have been doing over the last seven days to try to stop the weeks blurring into months! Sunday 11th October I went for a run about lunchtime and in the afternoon younger daughter and all her family (the only part of our family within reach at the moment as they live in the same county) came to spend the afternoon with us.  It was a lovely day, warm enough to sit outside, as we must right now.  We have two horse chestnut trees and mu...

 Last time I blogged I said we were on the Welsh Government's Amber list up here which meant that the numbers of coronavirus cases were rising and a return to more restrictions was possible.  Well on 1st October at 6pm local restrictions were imposed here in Flintshire and also in the neighbouring counties in North Wales of Denbighshire, Conwy and Wrexham.  This means that we are not supposed to cross the county boundaries unless for a "reasonable excuse" such as travelling for work or for a medical appointment.  Living as we do very close to the border with Denbighshire that has meant a change in our normal shopping habits so we are now going eastward to Mold rather than west to Denbigh or south to Ruthin.    A greater impact has been made by the suspension of the "extended household" rules which now means we cannot meet anyone inside from outside our own household of two.  So our weekly meet up with friends has disappeared for now which I am missing....

Three weeks since I last blogged.  Why?  I don't know.  That is the reason, I think, that I don't know.  I don't know what is happening with the virus and what we should and should not be doing.  Following each twist and turn of what is happening is impossible.  One moment it seems that some sort of normality is reappearing - yoga classes restart, we spend a weekend with older son and his family.  The next it is clear that numbers of cases of the virus are surging up again.  Friday saw the largest number of new confirmed cases since the peak of the outbreak with 6,874 people testing positive.  At the moment hospital admissions and mortality figures are not rising as steeply, perhaps partly because the age profile of those testing positive remains much younger than it was in the earlier peak in the pandemic here in the UK and younger people do not tend to be as severely hit.  The Chief Scientific and Medical Officers, however, are predict...

Well here, rather extraordinarily, is a week with lots of post coronavirus firsts in it!  Some restrictions have been eased and while new cases have risen, both here and in England,  there has as yet been no increase in hospital admissions and only small numbers of new deaths.  Many of the new cases seem to be in younger people so it is possible that, however unpleasant the virus may be, young people are not as badly affected as the over fifties and that might account for a different profile in the new cases. So this week had three new experiences for me since the onset of lockdown:  first of all on Tuesday I went to see the hygienist at the dentist for the first time since January.  This was quite a strange feeling.  I had been asked to wear a mask and to wait outside the dental surgery when I arrived.  A young dental nurse, gowned and wearing a visor, came out to take my temperature and ask a variety of questions to establish whether I might be suffe...

Time to generate a bit more energy.  While things have opened up a lot in England, life here stays pretty much the same.  One change still to come in Wales is the reopening of the housing market which should happen tomorrow, 27th July.  Will that mean that we get viewings after such a long fallow period when Ian and I are the only people who  have been coming in through the door?  Part of me is excited about that because selling the house is a necessary step on the big adventure of building our new house.  Part of me doesn't want it to happen.  We have always loved this house and it has sheltered us and given us a beautiful refuge during these last months.  Incompatible priorities.  I want to stay and I want to move on.  I can't have it both ways! So I am shaking myself up a bit as I often do when I feel stuck.  Since much of day to day living is necessarily the same here I have to look around for ways of doing that which are compat...

On Monday 6th July the rules in Wales restricting travel to the local area were lifted and we set off down to South Wales to visit our elder daughter and her family.  It was February since we had seen them although very frequent facetime or other calls had made me feel very much in touch.  The thing is that virtual contact is fine for adults but works much less well for children.  And the younger the child the more you need the real in-the-flesh communication.  I was longing to see them.   Of course it has not really gone back to normal.  We spent the day at Emma's outside, only going in to use the bathroom.  This was helped by the fact that they have just had a stone terrace built outside the sitting room with loads of room to play, sit, eat and chat.  It was just so lovely to see them, to catch up and walk round admiring their lockdown achievements, with the construction of a shelter to sit in or sleep in and a fire pit in the field.  ...

Well tomorrow is the day that we in Wales are released from the "stay local" restriction which has generally been taken to be five miles with a little leeway for those people living in rural locations.  We already have trips planned to the three of our four children who do not live locally.  We haven't seen them and their families since February which feels like a very long time.  In Wales other restrictions remain in place with hospitality businesses, hairdressers and many non essential retailers still closed although schools reopened on a part time basis here at the beginning of this week.  In practical terms this means that ten year old grandson had one day in school this week and another one planned the week after next before school breaks up for the summer.  Nearly five year old granddaughter will have two days in school this week.  While it is nothing like full time education it is a start and a way of being back in touch with friends and teachers bef...

Is it easing a little now?  Watching the news on television it certainly looks like it.  Living up here under Welsh rules in a rural part of the country it doesn't seem very different.  Hospital admissions are slowly decreasing as is the daily death total.  There is more traffic on the roads.   I have given up watching the daily press conference from Westminster.  This is partly news overload, and partly an irritation with politician speak.  There seems to be a refusal to admit mistakes, and a weird tendency not to make changes in a clear way but to trail changes that will be made as though testing to see if they will be palatable.  I read an article in the Times about the money being spent on polling at present by government and it seemed to fit that sense of a government which is almost too reactive, being led by rather than leading public opinion.  I am not making a party political point here.  I remember having a similar sense w...

What's new here up our hill in North Wales? Not a lot.  Last week we had a socially distanced cup of tea outside in the garden with some friends.  On Friday we bought take away fish and chips from our local cafe, brought it home and had a post fish and chips zoom call.  This was the first food we had eaten since lockdown which had not come out of our kitchen.  It is a good job that I generally like cooking.  On Friday lunchtime we sat down to listen to the First Minister's press conference, hoping to hear of some further relaxations to lockdown rules, only to realise that it is another week until the review date.  If we lived in England we would now be able to see our children and grandchildren, in a socially distanced way and outside, but here very local restrictions remain in place.  I don't generally have a problem with the slow and cautious way in which Wales is approaching its lockdown rules, indeed whether you agree or not, there does seem to be ...

Big differences at the moment between Wales and England:  Welsh lockdown continues with the minor tweaks which allow you to meet one household outside within five miles of home.  England has greater freedoms with fewer restrictions on travel although many businesses in both countries remain closed.  Schools are reopening partially in England with wide variations throughout the country.  It is planned that schools in Wales will reopen from 29th June for all ages but with much reduced numbers allowing only part time attendance.  Our own children are considering the position for their children.  Each family is differently affected and the parts of the country they are live in might also lead them to make different choices. Face masks will become compulsory on public transport in England.  Wales is still considering its own position but we have made facemasks for ourselves having done some reading and research of our own.  There does seem to be some p...

If this blog is to be any kind of record of these times for me and my family, this week we have to record the furore around Dominic Cummings.  Cummings has been a trusted advisor to the Prime Minister through the referendum campaign and the General Election of 2019.  He is not an elected representative but chosen by the Prime Minister and only capable of dismissal by him.  It emerged some ten days ago that Cummings and his wife had driven to Durham where his parents live while they both had symptons of coronavirus.  They self isolated in a separate property on his parents' farm.  Prior to returning to London Cummings and his wife and son drove some thirty miles to Barnard Castle in order, he claimed, to test his eyesight before making the return journey to London.  The trip to Barnard Castle incontrovertibly broke the rules of lockdown.  He justified the journey to Durham on the grounds of concern about childcare for his son providing "exceptional circ...