Two days into this new year and I am still not fully recovered from some sort of virus thing that has had me coughing, congested, sleepy and just not my usual healthy self. I haven't been inside a pub in several days. I guess this condition has hung about me for two weeks now. Sleep disturbed and my taste buds malfunctioning.
In case you were wondering, it's not COVID. I have taken two lateral flow tests and both proved negative.
At least I can rest, stay warm, sleep in a comfortable bed, blow my nose and drink water. But what if I were homeless with this wintry health condition? There'd be nowhere for that kind of relief and it would be challenging to get better. It would be hard enough to be homeless in summer weather but in winter with a virus that brings you down, it doesn't bear thinking about.
We were up pretty early this morning. Stew, Frances and Phoebe arrived just after nine and we were driven out into Derbyshire, through the Chatsworth estate and on to Rowsley for breakfast at The Peak Village shopping outlet. I couldn't face a full English breakfast so I chose eggs royale and tea instead. As you probably know, eggs royale involves a toasted muffin and poached eggs on smoked salmon with hollandaise sauce. It was a really nice treat.
Stew begins a new job tomorrow in the world of software development and coding. Phoebe will transfer to a new nursery school and Frances will simply be back at work in her home office. Next week, fingers crossed, they'll be moving to their new house half a mile from here. They were supposed to move in just before Christmas but there was a not uncommon legal spanner in the works.
Out in the wider world, I am not too optimistic about how things will go. The crazy Ukraine war will continue unless Putin is overthrown and I cannot see that happening. Many more innocent people will die including young Russian soldiers who don't even know what they are fighting for.
Here in Great Britain we will continue to suffer the bitter consequences of Brexit that so far seems to have brought us no benefits whatsoever. What was Clown Johnson thinking of when he flipped his coin and chose that disastrous path back in 2016? So many thoughtless voters followed his lead, tipping the balance.
One of the things that Brexit voters most certainly wished to see was a reduction in immigration but since the referendum, illegal immigration into Britain has actually increased! Sending small numbers of our arrivals to Rwanda at great expense is certainly not the solution. In fact that is just plain crazy - like The Home Secretary who hatched the plan.
And the world's enormous human population will continue to grow alarmingly in 2023. Did you know that we are now way past eight billion! As I publish this blogpost our planet's population has just risen to 8,008,918,975. Below, with her grandparents this very morning is one of the more recent additions to this sea of humanity - Little Phoebe:-
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/By9r7b6
