Flower Friday. : : Bird of Paradise

Here's streletzia
For the umpteenth time on blip
He's less angry here

I'm having a good time with some of the new photo settings on my phone, so here is yet another picture of this amazing creature. There are stands of them in the front and the back of the house and they're getting so tall that they're starting to peer into the windows. Every year the plant clumps expand and the flower stalks get taller. I don't really know if there is a way to tame them, but if anyone knows how, I'd love to know.

Dana and Jim and Peter are back from Madrid and it sounds like they all had Covid which Peter thinks they got at his graduation. Dana tested negative this morning, but Jim, who was the last to show symptoms, tested positive. I didn't get it and neither did Will so it sounds like Peter probably got it at his graduation and Dana and Jim got it from him. Dana had a pile of test kits, some of which she intended to take with them but forgot, so I suspect that they were operating on the 'ignorance is bliss' theory. 

It sounds like none of them was/is very sick. I couldn't help comparing their hasty and premature departure from Spain in March 2020 when lockdowns were  declared amongst pictures of people stranded on cruise ships, health care workers in full on hazmat suits and  people dying alone in intensive care units. Vaccinations really have changed this picture and very few people are dying or even going to hospital now. I think we have reached the endemic stage where Covid is treated like the flu rather than a deadly disease requiring drastic measures.

We will still wait until Jim tests negative to go over there....