Enter omicron

It was minus one when I wok up this morning, but by the afternoon the temperature rose to six degrees. It was cloudy but we were spared rain. There were the usual domestic chores after breakfast to mark the start of the week then writing before cooking lunch. I walked to Aldi's after we'd eaten, for some bananas and peanut butter, not to mention wine. A new checkout clergy accidentally double scanned a couple of bottles, so it was just as well I checked the amount owing before tapping my card on the cash terminal, as I'd been overcharged by ten pounds. I had to wait several minutes for the error to be reversed and checked by the duty manager. The checkout guy was a newbie and rather embarrassed. He'd teased me about an age check for alcohol purchases earlier, but age was no hindrance to being sharp witted, and I laughed it all off.

When I got home, I completed my Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube ready for Thursday. After supper, we watched a programme about scientific research into the authenticity of a self-portrait by Rembrandt housed in Knightshayes Court, a National Trust property in Devon. We were shown the house in the course of the programme, of interest in its own right to us, as its architect was William Burgess, who designed Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch. It looks like a place that would be worth a visit for its exotic Victorian Gothic design and the high quality craftsmanship that realised it.

It's good to hear from today's news that the government is imposing rules about face mask wearing in England, in line withe the Celtic regions, and requiring travellers returning from Southern Africa to be quarantined. The extent of the threat from the recently detected and named 'omicron' covid19 variant has yet to be determined, and fortunately widespread testing has detected a small number of cases in Europe and Britain early. This is clear evidence of the need to get all third world countries vaccinated sooner not later, to hinder the development of more threatening variants. 

A hard and fast precautionary response is what scientists advise and for once they are being listened to, even more so that on previous occasions, when restrictions came in a bit too late. It such a pity that the response on previous occasions wasn't harder and faster, as it cost many lives and situations that were hard to control, even with the high up-take of vaccination. It's just a pity there weren't more practicing scientists among our political leaders.