At the time of publishing we are a month away from Christmas and Christmas remains a major uncertainty for many of us. The traditional family gatherings and parties we look forward to are on hold, though there is discussion (as of the 19th) that lockdown restrictions might be tightened in the build up to Christmas, in order to relax the rules for a few days. There might also be tougher restrictions after Christmas, in anticipation of a spike in cases should we mingle.

It begs us to ask the question – what is more important, celebrating Christmas as normal or giving us a stronger shot at returning to a normal life (whatever that is) sooner?

Speaking of shots, several promising developments have appeared on the horizon regarding vaccines. There are at least two that could provide a 90% success rate (or more), though a robust rollout of one or both vaccines won’t happen until the Spring of next year, barring a dramatic change in circumstances. Cautious estimates suggest we won’t truly return to a normal life until next Winter.

Still, the end might be in sight. The process of immunising the entire planet will be a lengthy, deeply difficult challenge, but we’re better placed as a planet to achieve this than we were 50 years ago, so we have to go for it. Of course, this will bring us into conflict with the anti-vaxxer crowd.

I’m not going to devote a Muse post to these… miscreants. You’ll see a more comprehensive critique either side of this Muse. You might have already read it.

Another Year Older

November is birthday month. To be honest it felt like an ordinary day off from work. I don’t really look upon my birthday as anything special these days – it’s ‘a day’, much like any other. My chief desire was to get another tattoo, but that’s been shelved due to lockdown. It’ll be a mission for another time.

Speaking of Lockdown…

A curious quirk at work is that we could remain open to the public as we’re classed as essential, because we sell grout, tile adhesive and other materials for bathrooms. Tighter restrictions mean we are now closed to the public, albeit still open for trade. For some of our stores this works well, but for our branch… we are predominantly retail-focused, so we’re going to struggle with boredom.