Alarming news

Locally, the news has been seeping out for a few days - an outbreak of Covid-19 at nearby Inchmarlo Care Home (where Lucy used to work). The stories started that a handful of the staff had contracted it but the more recent news is that more than 70 now have it - that's very worrying in an area that until now has had low infection rates. Coming on top of last week's news of cases at a Portlethen food factory and continually disappointing results from the north of our shire, I fear it's almost inevitable that Aberdeenshire (and probably Aberdeen) will be moving out of Tier 2 this coming week - especially after the warning shots fired by the First Minister last week. On the other hand, news of an approval for one of the vaccines gives some hope that there is an end to all this. The priority lists have been publicised - I'll be in Level 4, it seems, with Jo in Level 5. We'll probably receive our first dose in January, but we'll have to wait until the whole population is innoculated before life becomes a bit more normal. After that, I wonder if they'll have to start issuing vaccination and test certificates to potential travellers? In other matters, we woke up yesterday (Friday) morning to our first snow of the winter:

It's gone now - replaced by rain - the drains out in the street are struggling to cope with the volume of water. Jo has, however, done her bit to help brighten up the street a little:

A nice photo of Cade and Audrey, publicising their recent engagement on FB:

I don't know what their plans are for getting married but I hope that, by then, we'll be able to travel and attend the ceremony. We had a nice meal - another curry - at the Jewel in the Crown with Ross on Tuesday. He's waiting to hear about a possible opportunity in Edinburgh but tells us he'll be with us before Christmas anyway. This afternoon (Saturday), we've got a beer tasting on Zoom with Burnside Brewery and, later on, our gourmet meal arrives from the Strong Water Company - Hand Dived Orkney Scallops, Venison Fillet, Salted Chocolate Fondant - Dine @ Home. Looking forward to it.

Plus ca change

Another couple of weeks pass by - 8 months now since we made a dash home from Australia. Realistic prospects now of vaccinations on the horizon but the practicalities and the logistics of the rollout to the population at large mean it's likely to be some time yet until we're out of this mess. Meanwhile, our routine life goes on. It's not really too bad for us - we're comfortable and careful here. The main thing we're missing out on is travel, of course. Who knows when we'll be able to go and see Kelly and Lucy again - we don't even see Gary and Ross very much, although we did travel through to Inverurie on Tuesday and had an Indian meal with Gary, Carole and Luca:

We're planning to do the same with Ross this week - and it looks like he will be coming back to Banchory soon, given the dire current employment prospects. Zoom/Facetime/Messenger video calls occupy a good bit of our days. Between me and Jo, a typical week will have 10-11 calls, including the odd remote wine or beer tasting, the latest of which was on Friday night - the Family Brewers of Britain. Very educational and entertaining, with 3 experts and another 45 ordinary CAMRA members from all over the UK joining in. This coming Saturday, I have arranged a smaller one with Burnside Brewery (Laurencekirk) for our local branch members. I'm also experimenting with a new technology in home brewing - the Pinter (https://thegreatergood.co.uk/). It's been brewing for the last 5 days and yesterday I removed the bottom part of the vessel containing the yeast, turned the remainder of the unit horizontal and put it in to the fridge for a few days' conditioning:

As a complete aside, the small tree/bush that stood in our rockery at the front of the house was cut back by Jo earlier this year. I had thought she intended to do a bit of judicious pruning on it, but Jo suprised me by how severe she was, leaving just this:

Do you think this is Jo's message to the world? Passing strangers must wonder. Not much else to say just now. Keep safe.