Clapping on Thursdays no 3

From the high teens temperature of yesterday to the low single temperatures of today, what a difference a day makes. It is hard to bear knowing what a contrast exists between a cold sunless Edinburgh and the 24° of London and environs. Still, there is absolutely no one inclined to top up their vitamin D by lying sunbathing on the Meadows. The ever vigilant police have not had much neighbourhood policing to do on that score.

There were so few people prepared to get out of doors and shiver this morning that I saw absolutely no one on my walk through Princes Street Gardens from the Mound to Lothian Road. That must be a first having the whole place to myself.

This is Thursday so my neighbours and I are intending to stand at 8pm at the regulation distance from each other and clap the wonderful NHS and everyone else involved in keeping what remains of the country’s infrastructure going- the Pharmacists, the police force, the delivery drivers, the shop workers, the bus and train drivers, the bin men; in fact most of the sectors of the work force that have been poorly rewarded for their endeavours in the past. But most particularly, we clap the doctors and nurses at the sharp end of treating the Coronavirus patients.

I will be clapping especially for daughter#2 who, with her elective operations cancelled, has been working in A&E operating on hand and arm injuries caused by the inopportune use of circular saws and the like, wielded by over enthusiastic but under qualified DIY people on furlough from their usual workplace. This was her selfie as she checked in to the family website this morning.