Sea Thrift

I went for a lovely early morning walk with G over the cliffs from Weybourne towards Sheringham. Glorious weather and so lovely to see all the sea thrift out, as well as some interesting clouds, and hear the lovely song of the skylark. The remaining blue tits left the nest today, and just like the Big Brother house, one was left on its own for a while looking a bit lost. I've added an extra of one of the blue tits this morning discovering the camera - obviously wanted a selfie, plus another new garden visitor.

Day 443 / Day 17 of Step 3 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
In Peru, the covid death number has more than doubled to over 180,000 after the recording criteria were changed, giving it one of, if not the highest death rate per capita in the world. (I've long been aware that the UK's covid death total reflects its excess death number, but that's not true for a lot of countries including Russia). A great milestone was reached today with c50% of people being fully vaccinated in the UK and a further 25% having had a single dose. The Health Secretary says that over half a billion doses of the AZ vaccine have now been supplied worldwide, the majority in low and middle income countries. He also said they're in talks with AZ about securing a vaccine that specifically targets the Beta (South African) variant. Interestingly Germany is looking to build up a reserve capacity of 600-700 m vaccine doses p.a. to help fight future pandemics via an annual reservation fee paid to vaccine manufacturers - not sure exactly how this would work. A member of Independent SAGE says that case numbers are now highest in school age children (the Delta variant?)......two weeks after the requirement to wear masks was dropped!  The school catch-up tsar has quit as he claims the Govt isn't going to provide enough funds for a proper schools recovery plan, despite £1bn being given for one-on-one and small group tutoring. In addition £1.4bn has been given over 3 years for education recovery and another £0.7bn has already been announced and Boris says more is coming 'down the track'.  A longer school day is still under review. People have 'rediscovered the joy of reading' during the pandemic per the CEx of Bloomsbury Publishing, which say sales rose 14% to y/e Feb 21.