Tears for Christmas

The Tier system in the UK is the best option in this crisis.

Rather than the whole country isolating, the rampaging virus may be contained if those of us in Tier 4 stick to the rules and don’t spread it. Remember the Black Death, spread by a parcel of cloth sent from London to Eyam in Derbyshire? I’m happy for you who live in parts of Essex, Cambridgeshire, Cumbria, Wiltshire, Dorset and Gloucestershire but I will not be visiting you until it’s safe. Nor would I be welcome. “I’ve brought chocolates and Covid.”

But let us suppose I wanted to go to Barmeath for Christmas. Could I travel to Northern Ireland and then cross the border into Co Louth? It would be against the rules, not law I think, for me to leave Tier 4. But I cannot find out how cross-border, twixt NI and the Republic, travel is monitored. Nor do I know to what extent the rules are harmonised in the island of Ireland. It seems to me to be a rehearsal for Brexit.

In the second half of 1940 to be in Tier 4 was to live in London, Portsmouth, Coventry … all heavily bombed and borne with fortitude by the population, only eighty years ago. Does everybody have wild mood swings? I do. Beagles are supposed to be especially good at detecting this but the reality is Robert is better. He has an uncanny ability to sense when I’m dejected.

On the good news front, Bertie has had another Christmas card. The sorting office in Hammersmith may have to set up a department if this gets out of hand – paw?

On the international front, Jo Korner has been elected to serve as a Judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Her Wiki entry omits that she is a good shot as well as being good company. If I may be a little indiscreet, she showed me her tattoos once in the back of a taxi. I thought they were real but on reflection think they were transfers. Joanna, you may remember me?