Stepping Stones

Today was a garden day given the nice weather. I laid out the stepping stones where I think will work, then leveled them in on one half of the wild area and re-dug it as I'd walked over it a lot and compacted it when building the pond. It's an odd look at the moment until it all gets planted up. I also washed and dried bedding outside and mailed the last of my xmas cards, just the local ones to hand deliver now. 

Day 275 / Day 14 of the 3 Tiers v2 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 506 to 64,908 (revised basis), with 18,450 new cases, 17,329 patients in hospital and 1,288 on ventilation. The number of patients in hospital is nearly back to the autumn peak and is only about 3k from the April peak. Globally cases to date passed 73m last night. Talks have started between Michael Gove and the devolved nations about potentially amending the xmas relation of rules, they'll continue tomorrow. It follows a joint editorial by the BMJ and Health Service Journal saying that the Govt should 'reverse its rash decision to allow household mixing'. In a YouGov poll, 57% of the public think that the relaxation of rules over xmas should be dropped. The Labour leader and London Mayor have also urged Boris to think again. Rapid tests are to be made available to secondary schools and colleges in England next month. In Scotland, East Lothian, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire will move up to Level 3 from Fri after an increase in cases. The ONS reports that the UK has 819,000 fewer paid employees since the pandemic began - a horrible number, but it would have been a lot worse without the Govt support made available.