Sunday January 31st 2021

07:30 Lois and I tumble out of bed - we don't feel that great: I think it's feeling generally a bit washed out after yesterday' coronavirus vaccination.

We can't sleep in, however, because our younger daughter Sarah, who lives in Perth, Australia with Francis and their 7-year-old twins Lily and Jessie, is going to be doing her weekly zoom call with us at 8:30 am. Yikes - there's hardly time to wash/dress/have breakfast before it's time for the call - oh dear!

08:30 The call begins. The twins are delightful as usual. Sarah has some news on the coronavirus front. The prime minister of Western Australia has declared a 5-day lockdown starting 6 pm local time today. They've had an outbreak at one of Perth's quarantine hotels. I must say they've been very tough in WA about their restrictions and lockdowns, and it seems to have paid off, to put it mildly.

This particular move will work in the twins' favour. Sarah and Francis were uncertain what to do about the twins' schooling, after Ocean Reef Primary School, the state primary school they had put the girls' names down for, refused to put the girls in the same class when the new school year starts tomorrow. This news , only received on Friday, caused a lot of anguish for the poor twins. But the 5-day lockdown will give Sarah and Francis a chance to research alternative options, including sending them back to their previous school, a private Catholic school near where they live in Lower Chittering.

The twins play a game of "Pairs" with us, with a set of cards depicting various dog breeds. Lois and I do our best, but fail to find any pairs: we don't know about dogs, and the cards are too small for us to really take in on our little laptop screen - oh dear! Still the girls have a lot of fun beating us, that's for sure.

Lois and I try to play "pairs" with the girls' set of doggie cards

without much success - we need a bigger screen, no doubt about that!

Jessie shows us drawings of some of the clothes she has been designing. It's fascinating for Lois and me to see her taking up this interest. Years ago, before the family moved to Australia, we used to look after them 2 days a week, and Jessie's interest in clothes was apparent from an early age.

Jessie showcases some of the clothes she has designed today - bless her!!!

flashback to 2015 - Jessie's interest in clothes was apparent from an early age

09:30 All too soon it's time to say goodbye so Sarah can get the twins their tea.

time to wave goodbye and blow kisses - sob sob!!!!

16:00 Lois and I are feeling a bit rough today, so we don't do much. We order a Valentine's Day meal for two from CookShop to cheer ourselves up - oh dear!

It'll be delivered the day before - Feb 13th. What can I say other than "Yum yum" ?????

We're feeling low in energy, I feel shivery and Lois has aches and pains including a headache. I guess these are the side-effects of the vaccination that they were telling us about - oh dear! Still it's worth it, no doubt about that!

20:00 We watch the fourth episode in the new Danish crime series "The Investigation", based on the true-life murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall by Danish billionaire Peter Madsen on board his private submarine in 2017.

Another fascinating episode, all the more fascinating because it all actually happened! 

Kim's torso has been washed ashore in Denmark, but the torso shows no evidence of the cause of death. Jens Moller and his team of detective have arrested the submarine-owner Peter Madsen and they have four weeks to come up with a case they can put before a court.

Police diving teams toil for weeks trying to find Kim's other remains: the head and limbs, and her clothes. A fruitless search, with police on the point of abandoning the search - the suspect Madsen apparently fantasized about committing "the perfect crime". Maybe he has succeeded?

The breakthrough comes eventually, thanks to Kim's father, Joachim Wall, who puts pressure on the Swedish authorities to cooperate more fully with the Danes in releasing details about the sub's movements at the time of the murder. Joachim also suggests to Jens Moller's team that they employ Swedish "cadaver dogs", which can detect the presence of corpses in water. These dogs have been used extensively by Swedish police but they have never been used by the Danes - until now.

These dogs, if taken in open boats start whimpering and wagging their tails when they detect the presence of a corpse under the water. Jens's team borrow one of these dogs from the Swedes, and after a couple of frustrating weeks, they eventually have a success - the dog has detected a corpse way out in the Baltic. 

This jubilation is followed by frustration, however, when police divers fail to find anything at the location concerned.

Then it's realised that the corpse may not necessarily be where the dog started whimpering. Swedish police tend to use these dogs when looking for bodies in Swedish lakes, but out in the Baltic the effects of wind and current have to be factored in. What the dogs are reacting to is the traces of the fat coming from the human remains, so the strength and direction of the current makes a big difference.

Just as this fourth episode is drawing to a close, the divers come up with some significant finds: a head, a leg and a bag of clothes, including an orange sweater of the kind Kim was known to be wearing the night she disappeared. It is now about 2 months since the search began - my god!

Gripping stuff!!!

21:00 We go to bed early - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!

Saturday January 30th 2021

It's here - the day of our first coronavirus vaccination dose. Our appointments aren't till just after 2pm, but that means it's hard to concentrate much on anything during the morning. 

I feel incredibly nervous - and I think that's just because these days we just never ever go out into the town to do anything specific that involves other people. 

No wonder that Alison, our elder daughter who lives in Haslemere, Surrey together with Ed and their 3 children and 2 pets, says that the family's pets get really stressed when anybody just comes to the front door - Sika the dog, and Dumbledore and Otto the cats. If the doorbell rings, Ali says the cats run away and hide under beds and that kind of thing, while Sika goes into a frenzy of barking - the poor things!!!

12:30 We have lunch and then leave for our appointments, which are at the Cheltenham East Fire Station, part of which has been made over to process the vaccination programme. 

As usual I have imagined to myself various things that might go wrong this afternoon - there may be heavy snow, for instance: in fact despite the forecast for sleet we just get rain in the morning, rain which begins to slacken off in the afternoon, with occasional glimpses of sun, which is nice.

The other major problem in my head is paying for parking. Various people have reported on social media that they found long queues at the ticket-machines in the lido car-park, because the machines weren't working properly or people were having trouble with them. It took so long that they missed their appointments, they implied.

But when Lois and I arrive this afternoon there are no queues - but I don't have to use the machines anyway. I have downloaded the paybyphone app on to my phone, and it works just perfectly. Within 20 seconds of arriving in the car-park and getting the phone out of my pocket, I have paid for parking there for the next hour - simples!!!

We cross Keynsham Road into the Fire Station, and are directed along a wide corridor to 4 desk where you can sign in, giving name, NHS number, date of birth and first line of address. Then you continue on along the corridor to the vaccination bays. After that you sit in a big space for 15 minutes - the chairs are all about 6 ft apart. And then you can go home - simples (again) !!!!

They tell us it's the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine that we're getting, and we'll have to go back for the second dose in a few weeks' time. It takes a week or two for our bodies to build up some protections from the first dose. And the second dose extends the protection time-wise. Vaccination doesn't completely rule out the chances of catching the virus but the effects should be less severe, which is reassuring.

we park in the Lido Car-park opposite the Fire Station..

.. and then enter the Fire Station building...

...we sign in at one of the 4 sign-in desks...

we walk 50 feet down the corridor, taking coats and jackets off along the way...

...then we are directed into one of the four vaccination bays

if you're a driver, you're asked to sit in a sitting area for 15 minutes

...and then you can go home - simples !!!!

All the above pictures were taken off a reassuring educational  video that the local NHS put on YouTube, a video which Lois and watch before we set off this afternoon, so that we know exactly what to expect. Not that we're inclined to be over- cautious or anything haha!

this is me sitting in the sitting-area after my jab -

I'm actually smiling behind the mask, but it's a bit hard to tell.

Next time I'll paint big lips and a smile on, like clowns do haha!

[I really wouldn't do that if I were you. You look creepy enough just with a plain mask - a big painted smile will just make it worse haha - Ed]

how a typical clown looks after he's been vaccinated

Everybody in attendance there was very kind and helpful, and there were plenty of marshals and other volunteer helpers around to make sure nobody had any problems, which was nice.

Steve, our American brother-in-law, sent us an interesting chart showing that the UK is actually doing quite well in getting through its vaccinations quickly - it's always a surprise to me when the UK does something right for a change. 

The EU countries are a bit behind us I see. Lois read in her copy of "The Week" today that the EU made a lot of bad decisions over the last few month. Apparently under French pressure, the EU invested heavily in a vaccine being developed in France, which isn't going to be ready till the end of 2021. I don't know how true this is.

14:45 We arrive home, but we are feeling a bit like limp rags due to the sudden disappearance of stress and tension, so we have a cup of tea and a hot cross bun, before going to bed for a couple of hours. Oh dear, we're certainly getting old, no doubt about that!

20:00 We settle down on the couch to watch some TV, the third episode in the new Danish real-life crime series, "The Investigation", about the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall on board Danish billionaire Peter Madsen's private submarine in 2017.

Journalist Kim's headless, limbless torso has been washed ashore, but the torso doesn't show the cause of death. So the search for the rest of her body parts continues.

Journalist Kim's torso has been found, but the search continues 

for her head and limbs - yikes!!!!

This is another episode where detective Jens Moller and his team make little progress - this would never happen in a fictional series, but you get the impression that this is what real life is like in crime investigations. Finding Kim's head or limbs is like looking for a needle in a haystack. One of the team in charge of the diving expeditions tells Jens that he's never seen him at so much of a loss before. 

The submarine owner, Peter Madsen, has been arrested, and starting from that time of arrest police have 4 weeks before they need to bring Madsen to court and show their evidence to a judge. 

I think that this is quite a bit longer than in the UK - here I think police can only detain you for 24 hours: if they want to hold you for longer, they have to bring you before a JP or magistrate with some prima facie evidence. Detective Jens, however, has had Madsen in jail for 2 weeks already, and still hasn't found any evidence - oh dear!

What gripping stuff !

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!

Friday January 29th 2021

07:30 The time of our coronavirus vaccination is now only about 30 hours away, and tension is mounting. I've downloaded the paybyphone app, but I'm still not confident about using it, so we plan to take a sackful of coins with us tomorrow in case the phone and the credit cards refuse to work for some reason. Not that we're pessimists or anything haha!

We've ordered some special extra-strong masks on the Amazon website. We think they're going to arrive today or next week, but even if they comes today we can't open the box till tomorrow, in case the masks are contaminated by a virus - it seems unlikely, but you can't be too careful nowadays, that's for sure: yikes!

08:00 Lois has had a bad night and she wants to sleep in today, and not join me in the shower: she agrees to clean up in the shower when she comes out, however, even though it's strictly my turn. I don't mind this, but I feel I have to agree to do an extra clean next week on top of my normal cleaning load - she drives a hard bargain, no doubt about that!

09:00 We get a few messages today from Sarah, our younger daughter, who lives in Perth, Australia with Francis and their 7-year-old twins Lily and Jessie. 

This is the last week of the summer holidays over there, and the twins are due to start the new school year on Monday, February 1st. The plan was for them to go back to their old school at Ocean Reef after a year or two at the catholic Immaculate Heart College School in Lower Chittering.

the twins'  school last year - the Catholic school Immaculate Heart College

the school planned for them to return to this February 1st - 

Ocean Reef Primary School: flashback to our last visit

in 2018: Lois in front of the school name-board

Sarah and Lily at the school playground

Sarah is not pleased today, however - she gets a message today to say that the twins have been put into different classes, which she and Francis had specifically asked should not happen. They've decided to have a rethink and maybe send the twins to another school, but that will take some research.

Lois and I have heard that some schools have a definite policy of separating twins. But we sympathise with Sarah and Francis: given that the twins were going to be going to a different school on Monday from the one they left in December, it would be very unsettling for them not to have each other's company. Oh dear!

Lois says she's read that it's generally considered inappropriate for schools to make the decision whether to separate twins or not and not make an arbitrary choice themselves, and we agree. Nobody's told this to Ocean Reef, evidently. What madness!!!

10:30 It's bright and sunny today although there's a chilly wind a-blowing as we take a walk on the local football field. Brrrrr!!! It's kept a lot of people indoors so we don't have to dodge around too much to avoid any close contacts, which is nice. Only two dog-walkers and a couple of elderly ramblers - that' a level of contact we can cope with haha!

we take a chilly walk on the local football field - brrrrr!!!!

16:00 We have a cup of tea and listen to the radio, an interesting programme called "Last Word". We try and catch this programme every Friday afternoon, so we can find out if anybody's died recently or not. As usual, another 4 have gone in the last week, sadly.

Catherine "Cathy" Ennis, the organist, has died, sadly. She was organist and director of music for many years at St Lawrence Jewry church in the City of London since 1985.

Catherine Ennis (1955-2020), the organist, has died, unfortunately

Like all celebrity organists she relied on page-turners to be sure of putting on a great performance at concerts, and she was known to bawl out any page-turners who didn't turn the page at the right moment. 

Lois and I sympathise with her on this - with page-turning, timing is of the essence, we believe. Turning a page with a flourish or a dramatic gesture counts for nothing, we think, if the timing is wrong. Call us old-fashioned if you like !!!

I mean, who's the star here, the page-turner or the organist? Sheer insanity!!!

Gerry Cottle (1945-2021), circus-owner

Gerry Cottle, the circus-owner has also died. Strangely he went to the same school in Cheam, Surrey, as John Major, the future politician.

Even more strangely, John Major was the son of a circus-performer, but went on to become UK Prime Minister, whereas Gerry was the son of a stockbroker, but went on to become a circus-owner. What a topsy-turvy world we live in !!!!

Cottle believed that all publicity was good publicity. In an era when clowns were normally male and white (under all the make-up), Cottle made the decision to hire a tiny black woman clown from the U.S. To make sure of maximum publicity for his new hiring, he is suspected of organising an apparently spontaneous "protest demonstration" at Heathrow by white male clowns, at the same time as his American woman clown was landing in Britain to take up her job. 

With signs screaming "Cottle mean to British clowns", "Cottle knocking British clowns" and shouts of "We've already got plenty of good working clowns in this country", they ensured maximum publicity for Cottle's next tour. What a crazy country we live in !!!!

demonstration by British clowns against the hiring of American Danise Payne

What madness!!!!

20:00 We settle down on the couch to watch a bit of TV, the last in the present series of "Winterwatch", which monitors the activities of wildlife in the UK, with the help of a team of presenters and a network of hidden cameras.

Lois and I didn't know that in the last 50 years, foxes' heads have changed shape - their skulls themselves have changed shape, according to a study by scientists published last June. For their report the scientists collected 111 skulls from around London, 75 from the city itself and the rest from the surrounding countryside.

They found that the urban fox has a shorter nose, but it's broader: the rural fox has a longer, narrower nose. And the urban fox's skull seems to have shrunk - this doesn't mean a smaller brain, but perhaps indicates that the skull has changed shape to adapt to the musculature wrapped around it, which perhaps is being used to manipulate the jaws.

It's thought that this astonishing evolution over such a short period of time (50 years) can be attributed to changes in diet for that very modern phenomenon, the urban fox. The rural fox with its longer snout is still trying to find live food, and the longer snout gives it a faster closing time helping it to catch live prey. 

The urban fox has a shorter, broader snout, probably because most of its diet comes from food that humans leave around, sometimes packaged food. And it's thought that the shorter snout also helps it get into the modern packaging.

I like the sound of that idea: maybe I myself need a short, broad snout, I can see that now  - modern packaging is the bane of my life, trying to get it off the stuff I've bought. I swear that one of these days I'm going to really injure myself trying to get the packaging off the printer cartridges I buy, for example: I fear it's only a matter of time before I end up in A&E after one of these desperate trials of strength - oh dear!

a crazy modern urban "foxy momma" "bringing home the shopping" 

for its cubs - what madness !!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!