Christmas Wednesday

No photos today but a busy morning in the morning means we have some supplies on hand for emergencies. I'd soaked kidney beans and chickpeas overnight and have put a nice vegan chilli in the freezer and we have some homemade hummus ready for the feasting. I also got the lunch done which included a bought vegan haggis! Never had one before and it was fantastic. Seriously enjoyable. I think we got it at Waitrose in Wimborne and it seemed qite expensive at £3.00 but I would definitely go for it again. I used one of the butternut squashes to make some soup for freezing and it tasted pretty good.

Tomorrow will see Alison doing the nut roast while I am going to be doing an alternative vegan roast and getting the gravy ready for reheating on the big day. I will also shred the coleslaw ready for those leftover meals when you need a bit of a kick. In addition, I am looking at putting together various cocktails. To be honest I am intending to spend a lot of the festivities in a drunken haze.

Writing all of this as if everything is going the same as ever is miles from the reality we are facing. There have been 39200 new infections and 744 more deaths. The new cases is a new record, the deaths the highest since the end of April and Matt Hancock talked of normality by 2022! It is frightening and was predicted by the scientists who spoke of the virus being like any other, more likely to cause problems in the winter, and so it has proved. We can expect a drop in spring and summer with more of us outside and the warmer weather preventing transmission. We are very far from being out of the woods or in the midst of a fictional epidemic which is being used to deprive us of our freedoms. It would be accurate to say that the public are, on the whole, far more minded to accept harsher measures to keep them safe. I wish the politicians would catch up. I'd be glad to do the equivalent of hibernating for the next months if it meant people survived to take advantage of the vaccine. 

The one worry I have right now is that the vaccine proves less effective with the differing new strains and we are back at square one. That's not entirely true It isn't the only worry. There's also the worry that new strains could be more deadly for children and the younger population. That would be a complete panic inducing development. It doesn't bear thinking about but it seems we can't assume anything in these times.