It’s all gone pear-shaped

 



No-one is as surprised as I am about the sudden resumption of this blog. Everything was going so well when I wrote my last post on June 16. COVID-19 figures were down, lockdowns were easing and people were emerging, blinky-eyed, into the sunlight. So where did it all go wrong?

 

July 4 

Pubs and restaurants reopened at long last but Brian and I managed to contain our excitement until July 9 (my birthday) when we’d planned a cultural walk around historic Greenwich. But when we arrived, Brian said: “Shall we just go to the pub?” So our tour of Greenwich consisted of the Admiral Hardy and the Trafalgar Tavern.

 

August 1

The Eat out to Help Out scheme began in the UK and we obligingly trotted along to various pubs to be served with discount meals, just as Rishi ordered.

 

September 24

It turns out that Eating Out to Help Out can spread COVID-19, who knew? The figures started to rise and by September, all pubs and restaurants had to close by 10pm and everyone had to be masked up before entering.

 

November 5

Surprise surprise, the virus remained blithely unaware of the 10pm curfew and continued to rage on unabated. A new national lockdown kicked in on November 5, but don’t worry, we were told: it would end on December 2 so we could still plan for Christmas.

 

December 2

The lockdown ended - hurrah! - but was replaced with tiers. In Tier One (Cornwall and the Scillies) the pubs were open as usual, but most of the UK was in Tier Two apart from a few northern enclaves in Tier Three where hospitality had to close altogether.  In Tier Two we could go to restaurants and pubs where “substantial meals” were served. So not ideal, but better than nothing. And the rules were due to be reviewed on December 16, so perhaps we would attain Tier One status by Christmas?

 

December 14

We never even made it to December 16. On the 14th it was announced that the entire South East had been hit by a new variant of COVID and was moving to Tier Three. Brian and I had planned a weekend in Dorset and went ahead with it anyway,  cancelling our pub plans for fear of infecting the nice Tier Two countryfolk.

 

December 19.

Halfway through our weekend away came the new announcement – the entire South East was moving to a newly-created Tier Four. It was basically, Lockdown 3.0. So we packed up the car and headed back to Chorleywood to await Armageddon. 

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