Winter solstice could not have come at a better time.
We’re on our way to spring
Whilst the date of winter solstice has been the same for aeons, synonymous with hope and renewal, this year it followed hot on the heels of a date that will hopefully be forgotten in the mists of time, for yesterday we went into Tier 4 lockdown in parts of the UK.
Spring always reminds me of the 1970s Eurovision song; ‘All kinds of everything’ – snowdrops and daffodils, butterflies and bees…all kinds of everything, reminds me of you…
The first to appear are the snowdrops, those pretty little fairy lanterns that lend a cheer to the hard grey ground, and bring a smile to our faces
snowdrops
And then the sun begins to shine again as the daffodils with their bright yellow faces sprout with wild abandon
daffodils
from then on its one after the other as more and more spring flowers appear; bluebells
Bluebells
hyacinths, primroses and then one of my favourite flowers…tulips
a profusion of colours – tulips
But don’t be fooled….for March can bring on a bite of snow
snow in March
But as we roll into April….perhaps a visit to Paris is on the cards 🙂
I’ve been invited to participate in the 2020 Travel Challenge by fellow travellers and Camino pilgrims http://wetanddustyroads.com Thank you 😃
I’m honoured to be nominated and will do my very best to live up to the challenge!!
May
The Travel Challenge involves posting one favorite travel picture for each day. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations, without any explanation. If you take up this challenge, then you also need to nominate someone each day.
I’ve been invited to participate in the 2020 Travel Challenge by fellow travellers and Camino pilgrims http://wetanddustyroads.com Thank you 🥰
I’m honoured to be nominated and will do my very best to live up to the challenge!!
February
The Travel Challenge involves posting one favorite travel picture for each day. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations, without any explanation. If you take up this challenge, then you also need to nominate someone each day.
I’ve been invited to participate in the 2020 Travel Challenge by fellow travellers and Camino pilgrims http://wetanddustyroads.com Thank you 😃
I’m honoured to be nominated and will do my very best to live up to the challenge!!
March
The Travel Challenge involves posting one favorite travel picture for each day. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations, without any explanation. If you take up this challenge, then you also need to nominate someone each day.
I’ve been invited to participate in the 2020 Travel Challenge by fellow travellers and Camino pilgrims http://wetanddustyroads.com Thank you 😁
I’m honoured to be nominated and will do my very best to live up to the challenge!!
April
The Travel Challenge involves posting one favorite travel picture for each day. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations, without any explanation. If you take up this challenge, then you also need to nominate someone each day.
I’ve been invited to participate in the 2020 Travel Challenge by fellow travellers and Camino pilgrims http://wetanddustyroads.com Thank you 🥰
I’m honoured to be nominated and will do my very best to live up to the challenge!!
January
The Travel Challenge involves posting one favorite travel picture for each day. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations, without any explanation. If you take up this challenge, then you also need to nominate someone each day.
Today, on my first day of the challenge, I nominate the wonderfully adventurous couple behind http://jwalkingin.com
You’re under no obligation to accept, but if you do….
You can post any of your favorite pictures from 2020…enjoy and happy travels!!
The universe conspired to deliver a beautiful day to make up for the horrid news delivered yesterday. A grey, wet and dreary day would have been too depressing. Tier 4??? Seriously!
However, we are now one day closer to coming out of lockdown. Meanwhile, knowing as I do, how the British weather system works; grey, overcast skies in the morning…clear sunny, blue afternoon. Clear blue skies in the morning…rain by midday – with the odd exception.
Soooo, when I pulled back the curtains this morning and saw clear blue skies with just a hint of cloud on the distant horizon, I determined to use my shopping trip as an excuse to get out for a long walk. Which I did.
Heading along the same route as yesterday where I discovered Lloyd Park, I once again reached the park.
Thinking a slightly different route in the park would be good, I followed what looked like a nice, firm, dry sandy path to the trees I could see in the distance…it wasn’t firm or dry 🤪🤪🚶🏻♀️🚶🏻♀️ within a few meters I was slipping and sliding along…
Slip sliding away…
Managing to keep upright thanks to my walking poles, eventually I reached a tree halfway to where I really wanted to go, and called it quits.
About turn….
I did a careful about turn and slid back to the concrete pathway, which although tough on the bones, is so much easier to walk on. I walked as far as the carpark on the distant side of the park, then returned. There were a fair number of people out walking, mostly masked up and keeping their distance. I overheard snatches of a few conversations; mostly about the lockdown and the mental health of people affected by the sudden change in the government’s position on Christmas.
On my way back out the park I ‘slid’ to the left and walked past a massive allotment plot.
I loved this path…An enormous allotment
I stopped to listen to a robin sing and then went shopping.
A robin trills
Oh oh…who is that I spy lurking behind the bush?
Who could it be?
In all I got in a very good 9.1kms and as a result I’m now only 103.3kms away from reaching my target of 2020kms of my 2020 virtual challenge 👏👏👏🚶🏻♀️🚶🏻♀️😃
I noticed this amazing decoration on the side of a building near the station
Isn’t that just stunning!!!
As for the Great Ocean Road route in Australia I’m only 25km (15.6miles) away from the end of the challenge 😁😁 I am now close to reaching the end of my virtual journey…239.8km along the south coast of that epic continent – Australia!! I really want to finish by Thursday 24th.
I’m roughly halfway between Port Cambell which I left behind 4 days ago
Port Campbell and 51.2 km (32 miles) to go
And nearing the end at Allansford
I hope to visit Oz for real in 2023/2024….finances depending. I only just received all my postcards from the Conqueror Challenges team. It seems I started the route before they were ready, so they kindly sent the cards in one batch when they were done. So awesome. They’re all incredibly on the ball with their customer service.
And so as 2020 starts to wind down, I’m gearing up to virtually climb Mt. Fuji 🗻🇯🇵 Hopefully this challenge will dovetail nicely with the last kilometres of my 2020 challenge. And of course, it goes without saying…I’m going to participate in the 2021 challenge too….😁😁😁🚶🏻♀️🚶🏻♀️ What distance do you think I should set my target at?
If you have recorded or want to watch Strictly Come Dancing on catch up….
Because…..
Well well well well….Strictly Come Dancing champion 2020……issssss
BILL BAILEY!!!!! 🕺🕺🕺🏆👏👏👏👏
Huge congratulations to Oti for raising a champion dancer.
I genuinely thought Hrvy would win due to his age and popularity and of course I would have loved Jamie to win, even though I didn’t think he would, and Maisie…..what a little ray of sunshine…
They were ALL amazing and the final was quite simply SPECTACULAR or as Craig would say FAB.U.LOUS 😁😁😁
but I’m THRILLED that Bill won. He was amazing and definitely made the most improvement and ended in a spectacular fashion.
Strictly Come Dancing has been so uplifting during the last few months and it’s still my absolute favourite show. It brings so much joy.
This government is absolutely totally and utterly fcking useless….I mean the bloody PM.
Tier 4!!!! Less than a week before Christmas when day after day that useless ‘I can’t even think of a suitable curse’ supposed prime minister has been saying that people CAN go ahead and plan for Christmas. Have a merry little Christmas!!! 😠😠😠
They KNEW about the mutant variant over a week ago and they didn’t take action immediately!! September is when they identified it, and just recently they said its spreading fast. Why not shut down immediately.
As usual they bloody wait and dither and obsficate and kick their heels, just like he did in January, February March.
I’m fed up with his dithering ffs.
We know and understand the need for lockdown, for taking action and making hard decisions, but WHY does he always dither and obsficate?
I recently read a very very interesting article by/about virologist; Nathan Wolfe. He published a book in 2011 – The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age.
Whilst I know a few of my friends are Covid-19 deniers, it’s a very real thing, and not going to be the last viral pandemic we face. In the past few decades (and earlier- think HIV) we’ve had multiple outbreaks of deadly viruses: Ebola, SARS, avian flu: H7 & H9, Zika, Mers….and these are but a few that some of us have heard of (e.g. registered on our radar), and yes, the oft declared ‘winter flu’.
Covid-19 is not going to be the last major pandemic. Of course a lot of people will deny this and say its doom-mongering, doesn’t exist etc etc, but the reality is that we are cutting down the jungles (Think palm oil, cattle, soya etc.) at an unprecedented rate in the last 30 years+ and these viruses are going to affect us. Deny it if you will, and mostly people who haven’t yet been affected are the most likely to, but these viruses are very real. And of course we have all the gurus with their videos etc etc. But, Covid-19 had the potential to kill many more than have died, and as annoying as it is, lockdown is the reason it didn’t. Yes, its been catastrophic for the economy (estimated cost to the worldwide economy according to Dr Wolfe is $8trillion) but what’s the balance? Would you have been okay with the virus running rampant and killing more people? Your family? Friends?
The UK government dilly-dallied and considered going that route, but fortunately (or not) they finally got their act together and 23.03.20 we got lockdown. If only a couple of hundred people died in your country, be grateful. As you likely know, the UK hasn’t been that fortunate.
As more people are affected by climate change (yeah, yeah to the deniers…whatever) and starvation in Africa, and India, Indonesia, we’re going to see more economic migrants seeking food and water….and on the flip side of the coin, we have the rapacious west gobbling up resources, living more consumeristic lifestyles, demanding the latest and best of everything; creating more billionaires who get wealthy on our demands and create more destruction, cut down more jungle (Bolsenaro) and as our populations grow and grow creating more demand for cheap cheap cheap everything; food, clothes, houses, cars, fuel, TVs, phones, holidays, flights…. But what do the experts know? (And this doesn’t even take into account the devastation we are causing with our throw-away plastic). We are the architects of our own destruction.
And as the world is now experiencing a 2nd wave of infections, and a mutant strain of Covid-19 has started spreading in the UK, I wonder where we’ll be a year from now, and how effective are the vaccines going to be?
Not Just a Granny 
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