Lots of heavy rain overnight and a wet walk to St Catherine's for the Eucharist this morning, with eight others. At the corner junction of Severn Grove and Romilly Road is a spot that's poorly drained, as usual after heavy rain a big pond of water extended into the middle of the road. You have to keep an eye out for passing cars and wait before walking around it or get drenched. When it's that bad, the water level in the Taff is bound to be high as proved to be the case when I walked to Blackweir Bridge after lunch. High enough, in fact, to cover the fish ladder structure. More heavy rain to come in the next few days.
Much to my surprise, mid-morning I had a call from the Radiology department at Heath Hospital booking me in for a MRI scan this coming Saturday at five thirty in the evening. Talk about working flat out! This is happening just when Mrs Cornish the surgeon, somewhat confidently I thought at the time, said it would happen, with a view to operation number 5 in February. Given the infection surge, this might again end up being postponed, but clearly the determination is there to get as much possible of normal medical services running as desired to clear the backlog. A herculean task indeed. I couldn't help expressing my delight at receiving the call to the co-ordinator who rang, which seemed to take her slightly by surprise. It's a real morale booster.
First Minister Mark Drakeford announced that in view of unchecked rises in coronavirus infections there is to be a further period of lock-down across Wales after the Christmas respite. The number of households that can meet indoors is reduced from three to two, but Owain can be counted as in a bubble with us, so when Kath, Anto and Rhiannon come down for Boxing Day we can meet at home. We are discussing an outdoor rendezvous however, maybe half way between Kenilworth and Cardiff, so we get some fresh air. Trouble is that all pubs and restaurants will be closed after Christmas Day.
It was revealed that 11,000 coronavirus Wales test results from a previous week's statistical report had been omitted inadvertently. This was due to 'scheduled maintenance' downtime on the national Lighthouse test lab system, set up by the government initially disregarding the capacity of regional public health and university labs all of the country to deal with their own locality. By national here I mean 'England' based, and I've already seen how poor communications can be in relaying information between central government and the nations. Two days for the border force to tell Wales NHS that I was home from Spain, for Wales NHS to order me to self isolate. Ludicrous in a digital age!
Mark Drakeford was up-front about the consequences, even before the impact of the incoming news had been expertly assessed I suspect. That's the best explanation I can think for some of the changes moving from being strongly recommended to having force of law in one afternoon, in the light of new information I suppose. Return to tough restrictions is going to mean more hardship for many more people, but how else is control over this pandemic going to be possible, without a death rate of American proportions.
In the evening, I completed the texts for next week's Morning Prayer videos. Mother Frances has asked me to do this again in the week after Epiphany. While making the recording can be a bit stressful I enjoy the challenge, and am relieved it's not something I have to do as a matter of routine duty every week on top of everything else full time ministry demands. Then I set about emailing the digital edition of our Christmas greetings and letter. Another half a dozen new addresses this year, from my time in Ibiza, and so far only a couple of them bounced back. Quite a productive evening, even if I did end up getting to bed too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment