Only three more days?!

We've only got three more days in our Cornish home. Boohoo. Ann loves it here. We haven't actually done a great deal in the last month or so. I certainly haven't been on the mammoth walks that I go on when I'm in Edinburgh in lock down. But it's been fun nevertheless and I usually get to play on the beach at least once a day. Yay!

This morning I went to the beach at about 7.30am and had a good run about. And then can you believe what Ann has been doing for the rest of the day OK for 4 and a half hours of the day?............................ I got left 'home alone' and she popped up to 'STAR' (where 5 years ago, she was the office administrator/PA) to help them out. They have one member of staff who is making up all the linen orders. Its manic!!!

5 years ago Ann ran the STAR office all by herself. Today they have two full time office staff, more than 10 STAR vehicles and STAR units in St Ives and Penzance. The STAR empire has grown out of all proportion. Steve first started the STAR business in 2012. See here. Ann always knew that Steve would become the St Ives equivalent of Sir Alan Sugar. Lol!

Every single business in St Ives is struggling to get staff. Think it's a combination of people being furloughed and then not wanting to go back to work or hospitality staff finding other jobs, ie in call centres or as delivery drivers.

Pretty much every single restaurant/pub/shop in town have notices up in their windows looking for staff, which isn't actually good considering that the hospitality industry has pretty much been closed for 8 months of the past year??!! Oh and Ann and her friends were due to go out for lunch tomorrow but she's just had a phone call from the restaurant to say that two of the chefs have tested positive for Covid so the rest of the staff have to self isolate and now the restaurant is closed. Boohoo.

To be honest, life seems a lot harder now than it was a year ago.

A year ago we were all going out and about and doing the 'eat out to help out' scheme. Most people Ann's age have been double vaccinated but she has a lot of friends who are more scared to go out now then they were last year. WHY?

PS – When Ann came home from working at STAR I went into the field for a play with my ball. Playing with my ball exhausts me so after I've flopped down three times; that's game over. This is a photo of me flopped down underneath the bench. I went home after this.