Birthday girls

Not quite such a damp day today, cloudy, but with occasional sunny breaks, the parks filling up again with people out walking, running, cycling wheeling prams and chatting and generally looking cheerier. I bumped into Janie, one of the St John's City Parish Church members who used to work in Debenhams in the St David's centre, alas now closing down for good.

We're into the third week of gas pipe upgrading going on in the street. The crew are digging individual holes at the point where each house is supplied from the branch main and working their way up towards our house. Much use is made of bright yellow plastic warning fences around working areas so the street is more colourful than usual at the moment. At the same time, a house opposite is having its downstairs brick partition wall removed to create one long room, a noisy duty process, bringing in an additional truck to cart away the brick rubble. The house was recently sold. Work started immediately, before the next occupant moves in. 

Today is Rhiannon's 17th birthday, also that of Mother Frances, so WhatsApp family and church streams have been flooded with greeting messages today. Kath and Anto made a surprise greeting video, secretly contacting family and friends inviting them to contribute a greeting video clip. The result was delightful and hilarious. All the birthday greetings were framed within an artfully constructed 24/7 news programme format. A smartly groomed Anto was presenter and Kath was a roving reporter. Video footage of places around Kenilworth was used as a backdrop for Kath to stand in front of and introduce greeting contributors. All thanks to iPhone apps she's mastered in the course of her promotional work for Wriggledance. Clare and I each contributed our limericks, and a greeting using the Beatles song 'I saw her standing there'. Much fun was had all round, though we didn't get to speak to her in person. She must have been on the phone to friends all day!

Encouraged by the speed of the vaccine roll-out and signs that infection and death rates are dropping as a result, the prime minister has introduced his four stage plan for a (provisional) return to normality over the next four months. The early report from Israel that around 80% of people vaccinated aren't getting re-infected by covid-19 or acting as infection carriers seems now to be echoed by early findings here and that's a relief. Work is already in progress on an oral vaccine equivalent, which would be so much easier to distribute. By this autumn the majority of the UK population will have been vaccinated with 10-20% remaining who can't or won't be vaccinated.  Phenomenal progress has been made in the past year,

Early years schooling re-starts in Wales today, with a phased return envisaged for all the rest. Full return is proposed over the border in England in early March, but again it's provisional on there being no more nasty infection statistics. Westminster pronouncements are more cautious these days, the cheerleader approach of Boris to these matters last year did more harm than good. The thought that coronavirus, like 'flu cannot be eliminated totally and that we'll have to learn to live with it, is now being fed into public discussion. Likewise the idea of a vaccination passport. But it's still a long road back, even to whatever the 'new normal' is going to look like, still full of unknowns and surprises we may not welcome.