Wrexham County Borough 17 Overton on Dee / Owrtyn/ the first jab/Is this the day that life starts to get back to normal ?

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"Of all the medicines in life , a smile is by far the best medicine " Sri Chimnoy .

Is this the day when life starts to spring back to normal ? Is the day when we can indeed smile and think the worse is over . I wondered as I stood leaning against a wall watching the Covid World go by me. I do like a good lean against a wall . We had settled into lockdown quite comfortably in Wales .It was hard to believe we had been here seven whole weeks now and it had started to feel relatively normal . We had forgotten if I were honest what normal feels like . This is the new normal. . I couldn't remember the last time I went for a meal . It seemed a lifetime ago . When was the last time I picked up fish and chips? Not for months . When did we last drive to the seaside ? We are into February . The second month of 2021 and still in lockdown .

January has gone pretty much the same way the last 10 months has gone . Pretty much we wanted to forget it and move on . The nights are getting lighter . That is something to make me smile . The days are ever so slightly longer . In another seven weeks or so the clocks will change again and British Summer Time will be yet again upon us . What a year it has been . Did I think that British Summer time last year would be spent under lockdown . None of us did . I doubt any of us expected this pandemic to go and on claiming lives at such a speed . Stopping us in our tracks . Changing of way of life , of work and of leisure . And still it continues to thwart us.

February is a funny old month I thought as I leaned against the stone wall . A sign of Spring just round the corner . Snowdrops here and there . The occasional daffodil sheltered like me against a wal. . The hint of warmer weather and then we get frost, snow , heavy rain and the beast from the East again . We need cheering up, something to make us smile.

The queue snakes around the building . I look at it and at the driver who is almost at its head . He heads towards the blue tent like structure . In front stands a smiling young lady dressed in a coat and underneath a plastic apron. She brandishes a spray which she liberally sprays onto the hands of the next willing victim. They all stand 2 meters apart . Some talk to others in the queue . They all wear masks . Black masks , blue surgical ones , dull plaid material and some advertising the local football team . Look up Ryan Reynolds , Deadpool and WRexham Associated Football Club if you want to know why our local team has hit the national news recently . I waited until the driver disappeared into the tent and through the double doors . I left my wall and walked up and down Overtons High Street . A butchers shop, some very interesting old buildings and the old cottages on the corner . They all provided me with a wealth of fodder for a blog . Much of the village is linked with the Bryn y Pys Estate described as having a proud heritage of conservation and respect . The estate owns houses for residential letting and holiday lets . It also supports salmon , trout, grayling and coarse fishing with exclusive rights to a stretch of the Dee between Erbistock and Bangor on Dee . It holds game shooting events . You can blast pheasant , partridge and other game birds out of the sky in its mature woodlands beside the river .Not quite my idea of fun but probably lucrative for the estate .

I walked back to see if the driver had reappeared but there was no sign of him and Ziggy was still parked up and empty. I fell into conversation with the young lady at the door . For a few minutes she was not busy and there was no queue . I hinted perhaps she could let me in but she explained that it was not for her to make my appointment . I wouldnt have to wait much longer she said . I drifted off again as there was still no sign of the returning driver .

Apparently my mate Owain Glyndwr sacked Overton in 1403/1404. I walked past the row of Grade II listed buildings that made up the cottages on Wrexham Road . Built of brick with white gothic style lancet windows they once housed workers from the Bryn y Pys Estate . I rounded the corner and came upon the Library . Now housed in the wonderfully named Cocoa and Reading Rooms The rooms were built by Edmund Peel of Bryn y Pys and reminds anyone looking at it that it was built to contain the growth of alcoholism and replace it with something more sensible like cocoa . It encouraged workers to abstain from the demon drink and probably provided a much needed places for wives to meet and partake of worthwhile conversation and cocoa . Add to this the reading rooms which would have been probably linked to the Mechanics Institutes and promoted reading and writing and self betterment . Today the local library has taken over the mantle and still provides reading materials for the locals .

By this time I decided the driver must be finished and back waiting for me . I saw him walking down the path . Smiling , clutching a bit of paper in his hand . "I have had it " he said . "I am a statistic " . He had just been given his first jab to protect him against the worse things that Covid could chuck at him . That was enough to make us smile . Today was a good day .

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