Tommy again...on winter solstice

Every morning we wake up to more doom and gloom in the news. Things in the UK are pretty rubbish at the moment - Covid cases rising so new lockdown measures, Brexit unresolved by the deadline date (which keeps getting extended), a new Covid variant frightening the bejesus out of everyone, a horrible winter due to global warming (wet and mild), Avian flu affecting the poultry farmers, and now to top it all the UK is being treated like a leper colony by the rest of the world and our borders are effectively closed. This will inevitably lead to food shortages unless the trucks can travel across the tunnel from France, so the supermarkets are going to be even more busy than usual as people panic buy. The media are already warning us of the items that we won't be able to get which is mainly fresh green vegetables.

I find it hard to believe that the UK is the only country to have the new variant of the virus. Viruses mutate, that is what they naturally do, so how come it is only present in the UK? I sometimes think the UK is too honest - we overstated our Covid deaths whereas other countries deliberately understated them, and now our scientists have announced this new variant - has the virus really chosen not to mutate in other countries where the cases are as high?

More rain today, another muddy walk...but Gavin, Luke and Adam did manage to get out for a round of golf as the course opened today, and they had a great morning playing golf in horrible weather. Tommy has been working on his university studies since he came home from university - learning coding and more coding as he thinks he would like to specialise in information engineering. He is my blip again today - this is the 'after the haircut' photo, not sure if it looks any different from the before the haircut! Ironically he was working standing at the small bar we have in the house, and it seems strange to be working in a bar. (Btw, his T shirt logo is a fireman hugging California)

I decided to make some Christmas biscuits, so made some Zimtsterne - cinnamon stars - as having a German mother I always associate Christmas with treats like this. They look very unprofessional (see extra), it was so tricky cutting the sticky pastry with the star cutter but they tasted delicious and I could eat them too as they are gluten free (almonds, hazel nuts, egg white and icing sugar)

So after all this depressing news, here is something positive - the team at Oxford University working on the Covid vaccine have also been working on a malaria vaccine, and have had a positive breakthrough that is about to move on to phase 3 of trials. There has been a century of research on malaria and to date no vaccine has been found. Scientists in London have also developed a blood test that can predict whether a Covid 19 patient is likely to have mild symptoms or will need intensive care, which is a huge benefit in knowing how to treat patients to prevent deaths.