A New Start – Hopefully.

All in all, a quiet New Year.  Andrew was at home looking after Connor and John came here to stay overnight as he generally does. Annabell stayed up with us until “The

Bells”  then she went off to bed. John and I watched “70 Years of the Edinburgh Tattoo” since the actual Tattoo was cancelled. We also gave a little bit of a scare to a Elderly Gentleman from Glenmorangie.

It’s been an interesting week, really. Annabell continues to improve and gain strength. I have continued cooking and looking after things. We have been out but not too much since there are now Covid-19  (Omicron) cases here  and in Port Augusta. Started at the Port then moved here and we now have about 115 cases between both places Masks are still mandatory at the shopping centre  because of the overall number of cases. These continue to escalate  throughout the State. Elsewhere, there have been serious floods in Queensland and loss of life :  major fires  with property and lives lost, followed by major snowstorms in Colorado. I was worried about people in Denver for a while then I remembered that they had gone to Texas and the newsfeed hasn’t told us anything about Texas. Europe is not doing so well , France less so, and I understand that “what’s her name”

has all but closed down Scotland. If I am reading the figures correctly, Scotland has over 100,000 cases. Like many people I thought 2022 would bring some relief. I never for a moment believed that it would happen instantly – that’s just silly – but I did believe that it would show a light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel. However, I  am beginning to fear that the light we see is not an exit but  that of an on-coming train.

In the beginning of this  pandemic people were panic buying. Not so now because the  produce is not there to panic buy. Woolworths have announced that they  have a 12% absence of warehouse staff and  almost 22% absence  of shop staff  and produce is not arriving because of the shortages of staff to load and transport the produce to the stores. Coles  (the other major supermarket) have put restrictions on what amounts of certain produce that people can purchase at one time. But it is not just Covid that is responsible for the

shortage of shop staff. People are leaving because they would rather be unemployed than  accept the daily abuse from customers. This is bad in some instances and people are blaming the shop staff for the shortages and the long wait at the checkout.   The speed of the spread of this variant has caught everyone by surprize.  The Prime Minister underwent a 7 day isolation as did the Premier of South Australia and the leader of the Opposition. Doctors locally are not “seeing” patients but are conducting telephone consultations. I still take Benji out but I stay local and not during the day. Nothing to do with Covid – the temperature is up around 35c – 40c so the ground it too hot for his paws. Before I take him out in the evening, I go out and test the ground with the back of my hand and then decide if we are good to go.

I am toying with the idea of a new computer. This one works very well but it is old and has come to the end of upgrades. Howeffer— I have only recently updated my mobile (cell) phone, so a new computer might be pushing things a tad much  :o)