What a poser!

Yikes it was cold this morning when we went for our walk, it was 2C but sunny and bright, one of those lovely crisp winter days. Xena happily posed for the camera on this bench, and the extra made me laugh. We met a sweet Pointer puppy, and a little later we noticed it was running around rather frantically looking for its owner. We tried to catch him so we could get the phone number on his disc to phone the owner, but he was too quick and ran off. He kept coming back to the area where we were and then running off again, obviously looking for his owner. We never heard the owner calling for it and despite hanging around in the area for a while she never came back to find her puppy, so we hope it was reunited with its owner.

While I made lunch Gavin put up the winter lights outside on the house and they look lovely, they are white lights so nothing too tacky and OTT.

We were very disappointed to find out that yesterday  Switzerland has changed their Covid entry travel restrictions which completely scupper our plans to go there after Christmas. From yesterday, arrivals from the UK who are fully vaccinated/have proof of a negative Covid test now have to self quarantine for 10 days on arrival. Previously if you complied with being fully vaccinated this was not required. We have booked flights for the boys and a Eurotunnel tunnel crossing for us - we won't cancel these bookings just yet as Switzerland seems to change their rules all the time. Today they are voting on whether to maintain Covid measures that are in place despite the many protests against these measures - with their rising cases it would be madness to do away with the restrictions, as with only two thirds of the population vaccinated they have one of the lowest vaccination rates in Western Europe.

Poor Luke and Meriel have had their annual holiday plans ruined not once, but twice, by Covid restrictions changing. For the past two years they have been forced to take annual leave and then do something not terribly exciting in the UK in poor weather which has been so disappointing. However, Luke found a fantastic holiday to Mauritius on the British Airways sale at the end of the summer, it was such a bargain and they were so looking forward to going - now with the new variant they are worried their plans will be ruined yet again and as it was at a bargain sale price Luke is not sure they will get refunded if it they cannot go due to possible quarantine measures being introduced...

I have now reached my personal goal of reading 50 books this year, and I still have 5 weeks to go until the end of the year! This was only achieved by listening to the books on Audible in addition to reading them. I tried to decide which was the best book I read this year, and that shortlist is too long - but Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles and The Tender Land by William Kent Krueger are certainly on that shortlist.