Another Surprise

I also received this surprise yesterday from my sister A, she's such a good knitter. It's hiding a surprise, can you guess what it is?............the reveal is in the Extra. I finished digging over the 'wild' plot today. I decided to dig what will be a small path out towards the pond as in digging the small bit at the end of it I unearthed a full brick. I'd also noticed this bit wasn't draining well. No more bricks, but lots of fist sized stones and one nearly the size of my foot. I'll leave the path until the Spring as I want to cement in the paver edges. I also cleared the bits I'd put on the raised planter, removed lots of weeds, forked in a bag of compost and covered it over with a porous membrane for the Winter. I now need to think of a few small evergreen shrubs to put in the wild garden so it won't be bare in Winter when the wild flowers have died back, please feel free to make suggestions. Then I watched the Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol, the best version in my opinion, although the quality seems quite poor now, it needs to be digitally remastered. 

Day 280 / Day 1 of the 4 Tiers (for my record only)
UK deaths up 326 to 67,401 (revised basis), with 35,928 new cases, 18,771 patients in hospital and 1,364 on ventilation. The number of new cases is a daily record and up 95% from the 18,447 reported last Sunday. The number in England alone is 32,155. It's a shocking rise, particularly looking at the graph by specimen date rather than date reported. This dramatic rise is also extremely recent, so I suspect the move to a Tier 4 was taken before this dramatic surge was clear. PHE have also said that there is a higher viral load in people with this new variant and they are studying the effect on those in hospital with this variant. I have to say it's not looking good re this new variant and I'm not surprised Matt Hancock said the virus was now 'out of control' and indicated that areas might be in Tier 4 for several months until the most vulnerable have been vaccinated. I wouldn't be surprised if an even tougher Tier 5 were needed with universities and secondary schools closed. Unsurprisingly several countries are banning flights from the UK including Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria and SKY news is reporting meeting taking place to discuss the situation in Ireland, France and Germany. TUI has cancelled flights from Luton airport. Inevitably there was a rush to head out of London last night and the Eurostar has also been very busy and extra Police are being deployed at railway stations to stop non-essential Tier 4 travel - people are so irresponsible. The minutes from NERVTAG have been released and include the very worrying line that 'It was noted that VUI-202012/01 has demonstrated exponential growth during a period when national lockdown measures were in place.'