Day 379 of the Covid Diary . Yesterday the First Minister of Wales known forever as Drippy Drakeford announced that we in Wales were free. At last after three months of lockdown Covid deaths in Wales have decreased significantly. Hospital admissions have been less extreme and we are seeing that way out of Covid . Our own roadmap. Freedom . As I walked this morning that was all that was going round and round my head . Freedom to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted . Reality of course is not quite like that . After 379 days of lockdowns, closing of non essential shops, re-opening of the same shops , no gyms, no hairdressers , no swimming , Beaches opened up . Beaches closed down . Well I was expecting this to go belly ... read more

I really am scraping the barrel as they say with words of wisdom. A thought for the day ripped off my calendar . I never got one this year. I promised I would buy one once Christmas was over . Then it went on to January and Febuary . Many places had run out of stocks and by March with one quarter of the year gone Amazon had some at double the price they should be . Being ever so frugal I made the choice to wait another month and see if the price dropped back to what it should be and then and only then would I buy a new calendar . So instead I find myself scraping the barrel Rabindranath Tagore stated way back months ago that "Clouds come floating into my life , ... read more

Anniversaries are things you rather like - sometimes . Sometimes you prefer to forget them . This week we celebrate a year of Covid. Now that is an anniversary I never saw coming . A few weeks of something that sounded and acted like flu and things would return to normal . Less than two months away and we would be heading for Holland and Scandanavia. Even as the months slipped by I never for once thought that we would have a Spring and Summer of Covid restrictions. Nor that our Autumn holiday would not be going ahead . I doubt many of us expected to see a Covid Autumn as it gripped our world . Heaven forbid we would not get away at Christmas . But it all happened and 52 weeks of our lives ... read more

Day 357 - I never expected to be standing in Worthenbury located to the east of the River Dee in the English Maelor . Worthenbury is an old place , another one of those small rural villages where there has been a settlement since the 10th century. The Saxons had a stronghold here and the name Worthenbury when broken down has its roots in the old Saxon word a burgh or a stronghold . There may have even been a fortification here , I was standing in the churchyard of St Deiniols Church . A church has stood here since 1388 or at least that is when records say there was a church here. As I stood I wondered where the last twelve months have gone. What was I doing this time last year ? Still ... read more

Day 344 - It is Friday and we are hurtling through February . We are into the second month of 2021 and still in lockdown . Nearly a year has passed by . Like water under a bridge it has floated away. Next month we will reach a milestone . A whole year since Boris first locked us down warning us not to go out . Shops closed . Panic buying and quiet . What has changed I wondered as I walked .? Not a lot . We are still under lockdown. Hairdressers and barbers closed . Gyms and swimming pools shut . Is there light at the end of the tunnel ? Perhaps as the first minister of Wales has announced a gradual opening up of life . Schools may go back next week after ... read more