Panache

Lockdown 2, Day 14

It was a bit of a disastrous day at work, I don’t know what happened but our system failed and Nik had to go to the clinic at 9pm last night to try and make a back up. He was there until 6.30am, at which pint he went home to sleep - luckily he didn’t have any patients today! Anyway, it seems ok, except everything from last Wednesday hasn’t been transferred, so we had to try to remember what we’d done in the last week so it can be copied over! Luckily for me, I only had Monday and yesterday to find, and having gone through all my notes and emails I think I’ve got most of it.

When I finished at 1pm, I had lunch with Alan and then packed up the car to drive North to mums. She has to go in hospital for a procedure tomorrow and needs someone to stay with her overnight. As I don’t have any brothers or sisters, it’s down to me, and at least it’s classed as essential travel as I’m her support bubble.

I left home at 2.30pm and had a good journey. There was surprisingly a lot of traffic, but there weren’t any hold ups, apart from an accident near Stoke on Trent where I had to come off the motorway. I made good time though and would have arrived at mum’s at 7pm, but I stopped at Tesco to fill up with fuel and went to get a few things for mum. I then decided to go into M&S as it was very quiet - I’ve been needing some new jeans so I got 4 pairs to try on and I’ll take back the ones I don’t keep. I’m glad I was able to buy them, but I do feel for the small independent ‘non essential’ shops that can’t trade due to lockdown.

As I drove into the village, I was met by these glorious lights which I thought were Christmas decorations, but they’re actually lights for the NHS. Panache Restaurant has put rainbows snd lights in their windows with a sign which says ‘NHS & Key Workers, Our Light in the Darkness’. It’s absolutely beautiful!

There’s been talk on the radio and TV about what Christmas might be like and if we’ll be able to see family. Apparently it’s too early to say, but the scientists are saying that for every day we spend with family, it will need 5 days of a very strict lockdown and therefore we would need very tight restrictions before and after.