Another quiet week – it’s almost as if we were in a perpetual lockdown or something. It’s also been bitterly, bitterly cold. Not as cold as the conditions my siblings in the great northeast are obliged to endure but colder than we like it to be. And, we also had snow in the week – again, more snow than we like to be bothered with and no way of sending it on to those of you who like such things. Thankfully, the weather is supposed to improve a bit in the coming week. Yes, please.
We enjoyed another Red Letter Day this week. On Thursday Lady Penelope received her first Covid vaccination jab. That’s both of us through Phase one – roll on Phase Two.
When writing last week about my own Red Letter Day, I wondered, as I sometimes do, about the derivation of the expression. I probably should have known this but, of course, if I ever did know it I’d forgotten.
The first explicit reference to the term in print comes from America. This is a simple use of the term “Red letter day” in the diary of Sarah Knight – The journals of Madam Knight, and Rev. Mr. Buckingham … written in 1704 & 1710.
The practice is much earlier than that though. William Caxton, referred to it in The boke of Eneydos, translated and printed in 1490:
We wryte yet in oure kalenders the hyghe festes wyth rede lettres of coloure of purpre.
The term came into wider use in 1549 when the first Book of Common Prayer included a calendar with holy days marked in red ink; for example, Annunciation (Lady Day), 25th March, was designated in the book as a red-letter day.
There you go – I will remember that until at least the end of the week.
Our Chinese family also enjoyed a Red Letter Day of their own this week – Friday marked the beginning of Spring Festival and the Chinese New Year – this year it’s the year of the Ox. Clearly, they celebrated in style – we’re looking forward to being able to join them in next year’s celebrations.
This week I have been mainly “enjoying” a mixture of climbing and endurance rides on the bike. Once again, I’ve been in some fabulous places – Jamaica and Grand Cayman for the endurance rides and in Colorado for some mountain climbing.
I’m not entirely sure which I prefer. The endurance rides are basically going “flat out” for forty-five minutes or so. The ride is lovely and it is essentially flat as we streak alongside a lovely beach – hard work to maintain the pace, to be sure – but so too is the climbing. On and on and on as the road/trail snakes relentlessly skywards! At least with the climbing, though, I can latch on to the autobus and get dragged up the hill with all the other no-hopers.
Meanwhile, Ms Playchute has been cycling in Glacier National Park in Montana. She’s raced alongside Lake McDonald, sprinted along to the Hungry Horse Dam and climbed the heck out of Logan Pass. And, alongside all that she’s also been busy with a plethora of stretching and yoga sessions. Good job!
A friend shared these lovely photos on Facebook. Ronald is a chap we met in China, a friend of Adam and Ava’s. He ran the hotel we stayed in on our last couple of visits. He’s now at home in the Netherlands – not sure whether he’ll be going back once the pandemic has receded.
Any day now, just about a year too late, the UK is finally going to introduce some “tight” border controls to guard against the importation of some of the more virulent Covid mutations. So, everyone flying into the UK direct from one of the 30-something “Red List” countries, will have to quarantine in a hotel for ten days. Terrific! Too bad it will have such little impact – folks can still, apparently, fly into the UK via a connecting flight from a non-Red List country and stroll through immigration without any problem.
The government says it is setting up one of the toughest border policies in the world. From the vantage point of an Australian working in UK public policy, it is difficult to take these claims seriously. East Asian countries, along with Australia and New Zealand, set up hotel quarantine in March and April last year. These have been applied to all, or nearly all, overseas arrivals. A year later, the UK is set to end up with only a partial quarantine system.
Sarah Nickson, Huffington Post
And while we’re busy introducing measures which sound great but aren’t really, let’s kick off another distraction – how about a reorganisation of the NHS in the midst of a pandemic. Yep, you couldn’t make that up if you tried.
Ministers are understandably loth to publicly acknowledge mistakes made by predecessors from their own party. But much of Thursday’s announcement was a conscious unravelling of the legacy of Andrew Lansley, the architect of the 2012 act, whose ghost, albeit unnamed, stalks the white paper.
Getting rid of the Cameron/Lansley reforms are long overdue but is now the best time to undertake such a significant reorganisation?
No prizes for guessing why the PM might welcome the distraction of a reorganisation and the undoing of some of the more ludicrous changes brought in by Cameron and Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary at the time. Boris is especially loathe to wait until the inevitable public enquiry into his mismanagement of the pandemic. That has to wait – “Now is not the time . . .” according to Boris but reorganising the NHS before one learns the lessons of this government’s disastrous handling of the pandemic is, apparently, perfectly sensible. I guess it makes about as much sense as any of the other catastrophic decisions they’ve taken.
Quell surprise! Brexit cost will be four times greater for the UK than the EU.
While the FTA [Free Trade Agreement] improves the situation as compared to an outcome with no trade agreement between the EU and the UK, it cannot come close to matching the benefits of the trading relations provided by EU membership.
European Commission, Winter Economic Forecast
Of course, they would say that, wouldn’t they? But, so too does every other economic forecast.
You’ve got to laugh. If you didn’t you would end up crying.
Finally, we strolled down to the bottom of Brook Street in the bitterly, bitterly cold wind the other day in search of snowdrops. Fortunately, they were there in abundance. Surely spring cannot be far away?
And finally, finally, Happy Valentines Day to you all and especially to my secret Valentine. In my case, I cannot think of anyone with whom I’d rather be stuck in isolation!
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, keep isolating as much as you can, wear a facemask when you go out and keep your distance. And keep safe.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg