Tavira the day after tomorrow!

Excitement mounts as the 2 week holiday in Portugal approaches!

Today we took the grandchildren out to Durham since their teachers were on strike demanding pay rises in line with inflation. Seems perfectly reasonable to rational people ... which clearly does not include the Tory government. Now, the government's rationale is balancing the books, so public services take the hit. The 2020 lockdown is blamed for the overspending that year, conveniently forgetting that they massively overspent in support of martial law, declared around the "civilised" world!

Hey ho, dear readers, when will we ever learn not to trust politicians? !! Well, the mainstream media were dragooned into supporting governments falling into line ... notably, notoriously the good old BBC ... ... A Social Experiment as a friend observed. As for the BBC, well they're in the shit after trying to silence Gary Lineker, well known football pundit. His crime ? A tweet about Tories using immigration of refugees as a political football as a General Election approaches. His tongue in cheek comment comparing the Tories to Hitler upset the incumbent government and co-incidently the BBC Director General and the Chair of the Trustees are both Tories. Lineker, on the other hand is more inclined to socialism (otherwise known as compassion and common sense)!

Enough of politics dear readers ... it's all a game.

Eyemouth and back ...

Snow in March is not unusual in Scotland and England. We arranged to meet the elder daughter and her baby son in Duns, where she lives with her wife, a police officer. We found a bed and breakfast guest house in Eyemouth nearby, since their house is rather small and stayed there for two nights, which was delightful.

Wednesday we went over to Duns to see the family and had a lovely day, including a decent walk in the countryside. .. then returned to the b&b in Eyemouth and supper in The Ship Inn. The seafood lingiuni was quite delicious(and nutritious !) ...

Thus the week before Tavira passed peacefully, including a trip to see the partner's daughter and new grandson.

The snow today and yesterday was heavy enough and disruptive in places, including Stanhope, though only at the high places. This morning there's snow laying and Sun shining ... beautiful! !!

So, dear readers, just a week before the flight from Newcastle to Faro on the Algarve coast of Portugal ... no snow expected there next week ...

Lockdown exposed and other events ...

Well well dear readers, as you may recall from previous posts during 2020, there was consternation in the world over an outbreak of an illness known as Sars-cov-2, a serious disease though not lethal to the reasonably healthy. Death, as we know, comes in various guises, and in the end we all succumb for one reason or other. The key is to try to stay fit and take some chances in life since a life spent in constant fear of death is hardly worth living!

Your old blogger has certainly lived a full life this time round, having fun, making friends, being lucky enough to have two lovely daughters and recently a grandson too. The history of this life is the subject of an autobiography being prepared for anyone interested, notably for my daughters and grandson, and indeed as an aide memoire as memory fades!

This brings us back to the subject of the pandemic of 2020-21 ... a strange time indeed dear readers, as fear of death was stoked up by governments worldwide. Why, is the question of course. Somehow this fundamental question was left aside by many otherwise intelligent folks who reverted to fight or flight and buried their heads in the sand or up their own arses and fell out with those who examined the evidence and found a conspiracy against the people by those supposed to defend our interests!

Now Matt Hancock is involved in a row with Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist hired to help the hapless ex-minister write his book. Emails shared with her show government ministers joking about Partygate, quarantine hotels and generally deriding the public for falling for the story!

Will we never learn dear readers, not to trust politicians? !