Sorry, it's been such a long time since my last post. Work has just been insanely busy, thanks to Boris extending the Stamp Duty holiday for another three months. Roll on June 30th.
I finally got my jab. On Good Friday of all days. Astra Zeneca, so side effect whatsoever apart from a slightly sore arm (no worse than the flu jab). I do seem to be in the minority though as most of my younger friends have all had bad reactions to it. My parents have had both of their jabs now and they had no side effects either.
The UK is slowly opening up. They actually had a live audience (limited capacity) at The Brit Awards the other night. We are allowed to travel anywhere in the UK, so I finally visited England for the first time last week. Only a day trip to Lydney. It was a warm day but with scattered hailstorms (I know!) so I had to find somewhere with a marquee to eat as indoor dining is not open yet (another week to go before that's allowed).
I went to what I thought was a Mexican restaurant called Amigos, but it turns out it's a pub that serves Mexican food. As I entered the beer garden there were just four other customers, all inebriated old men with mental health issues. I was ravenous though, so I found a seat against the back wall and ordered my food and half a cider. I didn't feel particularly safe when the manager asked me to write my details on the clipboard for the purposes of Track n Trace. Mine was the first name on there and it was already 2.00pm and I could see four people in front of me.
The one man was saying 'fuck' or 'fucking' at least once per sentence. Then his mate nudged him to tell him that there was a lady present. He slowly turned round and apologise for his language, I told him he needs to try harder.
He wanted to chat so I obliged, it was preferable to listening to him moan about how shit the pub was and how we just wanted to go to Gloucester as Lydney was a shithole. He told me that he used to work on the oil rigs up in the North Sea and how he used to have three steaks for breakfast. Then went on to tell me what he considered to be a funny story which involved him standing on the deck of the oil rig having a fag and flicking the butt into the sea only for a sea lion to pop up it's head and eat it. I'm assuming he meant seal, I wasn't impressed.
Next he was rude to the lovely Polish waitress and refused to pay for his drinks so she had to get the manager. He thought this was hilarious and then spoke to the manager like a dickhead as well. The whole atmosphere was horrible and I couldn't wait to leave. I asked for a doggy bag to take my second burrito home and whilst I waited the old man kept asking me for my phone number. Or for me to give them a lift to Barry. When I refused he said 'Well, how am I going to see you again?". In your dreams, I told him. For god's sake, I'm 51 I thought getting harassed in pubs was something I could resign to the past.
So that was my first trip to a pub since October 22nd and it was awful.
Covid wise things are not good in other parts of the world. There is a new Indian variant which is spreading like wildfire over there and Nepal says that all of its emergency rooms are full. The Indian variant has also caused a spike of cases in Bolton, so they are about to start vaccinating the over 18s there this week.
My friend in Dublin says that they just started vaccinating the 57 year olds over there. I don't think we realise how lucky we are with our vaccination programme over here.
Three countries were added to the UK's green list last week meaning that holiday makers don't need to quarantine on their return. The countries are Portugal, Gibraltar, Israel. Apparently booking for Portugal are through the roof. Funnily enough the same cannot be said about Israel as it looks like they are on the verge of a full scale war. The Israeli's are being total dicks again and evicting Palestinians from their homes so that settlers can move in. Those settlers are normally super religious Americans who have come to Israel because they think it is their right and it makes me sick. All extreme religions need to be banned in my opinion.
Anyhow, not much more to report. The weather absolutely sucks, I think it's set to rain for the next week, so the flower beds will be happy. I had two randy hedgehogs in there last week making a helluva noise. I've also had two coaltits visiting the bird feeders for the first ever time. Exciting. I wonder if I'll get to see fledgling coal tits this year.
Right, I'm off to watch Mare of Easton on my brand new Sony Bravia TV, I treated myself last week and it just arrived this morning. It's sooooooooo beautiful.
Ciao for now.
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