Fireworks to Celebrate

It’s been a Christmassy events day today and in the 2nd half of November there was  full sun and a max temp of 14C – weird! This morning I went to the Sandringham Christmas Craft, Food & Gifts Fair. It only started a few years ago and was quite small, but good quality crafts. Now it’s a Living Heritage Craft Show and in my personal opinion the quality has gone right down, but the number of stalls is much higher. I was annoyed to see very few people wearing masks in the marquees, despite being asked to do so. I only bought a few little things, but it was glorious walking round in the heat of the sun. Then this evening it was the Holt Lights switch on event, with stalls, a pantomime horse race (shortened due to the crowds), a parade (not sure this happened), some wonderful fireworks and live music as well as the countdown to the lights switch on.  The event is always well attended and permits to three car parks were all sold out, and this year it was heaving. Lovely to see the kids so excited  It must be the warmest lights switch on I’ve attended. To give some context, the bright circle about a third of the way up in the photo is the moon.

Day 613 / Day 124 of Step 4 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
The R rate in England is unchanged at 0.8 - 1.0, with a narrowed daily infection rate of -2% to 0%. The ONS weekly infection survey of private households to 13th Nov shows 1 in 65 with the virus in England (down a tad); 1 in 95 in Scotland (down); 1 in 55 in Wales (down); and 1 in 65 in NI (up) and with weekly infections in the UK dropping below 1mly). However daily cases are up 13% in the last week and unsurprisingly Covid cases are highest among secondary school pupils. Austria is to make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory by law from 1st Feb, the first country in Europe to do so and only the fourth country worldwide. They are also going to have a full national lockdown from Monday for a maximum of 20 days due to the fourth wave hitting the continent. Germany’s Health Minister said ‘We are now in a situation….where we can’t rule anything out’. In Greece, unvaccinated people aren’t being allowed in public indoor spaces such as cinemas and gyms. In Hungary, a booster shot will be mandatory for all healthcare workers and mask wearing will be mandatory indoors for the public from tomorrow. The New Year fireworks in London will be a ticketed event in Trafalgar Square with a live broadcast. The ONS says ‘in the UK we weren’t prepared for a pandemic’ which had the effects we saw. From today, proof of third doses and booster jabs are being added to the NHS Covid Pass for international travel, but it still doesn’t cover teenagers.