Flower Umbrella

I know I posted a similar photo fairly recently, but I love how these geranium flowers took like little umbrellas in the rain. A day for cleaning the fridge this morning, a small bit of gardening this afternoon before my Sainsbury's delivery, and a good Houseparty with two of my sisters in between.

I treated myself to a take away pizza and hot chocolate from Byfords this evening, the first take away meal I've had in over three months. The meat feast pizza was lovely if too big, and the hot chocolate was heavenly. You book online and pay and collect from a hatch to the street, excellent service. 

Sad to hear of the death of Dame Vera Lynn at the age of 103. I saw a programme on her life recently which was very interesting, I like how she saw singing to 'the boys' as her duty and she sought to entertain the troops in far away places like Burma. She actively supported charities for the services all her life.

Day 95 / Day 87 of Lockdown / Day 18 of Step 2 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 135 to 42,288, including a 13 day old baby. New cases and new hospital admissions seemed to be barely reducing now and hospital admissions in the East are up. ONS testing shows new community cases between 31/5 & 13/6 running at 4,500 a day, much higher than testing results of 1,218 yesterday. Either people have symptoms and aren't getting tested, or those extra people are asymptomatic. PHE surveillance shows the death rate is now at normal levels with no excess deaths. BBC research shows globally there's been excess deaths of 130,000 more than CV reported deaths.

Over a quarter of those testing positive were unable to be contacted by Test & Trace, but 91% of the contacts were reached and asked to self isolate. The app has been unable to work effectively on iPhones due to software barriers that Apple uses. The Apple/Google app doesn't judge distance between phones well enough, but our app does. So now we're working with Apple/Google to develop their app instead. (Press uses phrases like 'a major U turn' and 'ditched', both of which are a bit unfair as that's the purpose of testing and the Apple/Google solution was being assessed in parallel). If there is an effective vaccine, it is likely to be given first to those over 50 or with heart or kidney problems. BoE adds £100bn to quantitative easing, although some encouraging economic signs seen.