Mid Afternoon Walk

I walked across to Letheringsett with A this afternoon, delayed from this morning due to rain. So nice to have a catch up after a while. It’s quite shocking how the light is fading already by mid afternoon. 

A frustrating day trying to progress my new microwave problem. 2 calls to Panasonic this morning lasting 34 mins in total, I gave up on the first person as he was so rude and unhelpful, but the lady I spoke to afterwards was nice and able to help. My video of the microwave operating with grinding noise couldn’t be opened from my email on their system, nor could it on their system from the WeTransfer link, so she just listened to it over the phone and confirmed it shouldn’t make that noise and I should return it to John Lewis. I then spoke to JL for 75 mins to arrange for a replacement. Astonishingly they can’t collect and deliver on the same day, even though they’re using the same courier - so much for saving the planet! The collection should be tomorrow by DPD, but the email promised by JL didn’t arrive. So late afternoon I spoke to them again for an hour, the person I spoke to was hopeless and kept me on hold for most of that time and took no action. After 40 mins he said he’d transfer me as he couldn’t help, instead he put me on hold, 20 mins later I gave up. What happened to the once excellent JL? 

Day 606 / Day 117 of Step 4 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
The R rate in England has dropped to 0.8 - 1.0, with a reduced daily infection rate of -3% to 1%. The ONS weekly infection survey of private households to 6th Nov shows 1 in 60 with the virus in England (down); 1 in 85 in Scotland (a tad down); 1 in 45 in Wales (down a tad); and 1 in 75 in NI (down). However, new UK cases are back above 40,000 for the last 2 days, following recent patterns for a peak, slight fallback and rise again, with an overall upward trend. Iceland, the Netherlands, Austria and Germany all reported record daily cases yesterday. It is being reported that Austria will place unvaccinated people into lockdown soon and the Netherlands is to introduce a partial lockdown. Boris referred to ‘storm clouds gathering’ re Covid in parts of Europe and urged people here to get their booster jab. Astra Zeneca is getting grief about moving to a pricing model for the vaccine that gives them a ‘modest’ profit, despite promising not to do so whilst the world is in a pandemic.