WEEK 43 CORONAVIRUS: NEW YEAR'S EVE WITH FAMILY ROUNDUP PHOTOS

It's New Year's Eve.  The country is in almost total lockdown so there are no gatherings to bring in the bells either in public places or private households.

Meanwhile here is an end-of-the year round up of family photos, all taken recently.

Alastair in Los Angeles

Indy (10) and Melanie with Alastair during one of our weekly Zoom quizzes.

Harriet (7)

Ellie (5.8 yrs old)

Ellie Boxing Day having to visit A & E because when Alastair was twirling her on the kitchen bar stool she went flying... broken collar bone.

Harriet at Boxing Day dinner 

And finally....

Alastair (12.8 years) at campfire in the autumn

 

WEEK 42 CORONAVIRUS - CHRISTMASTIME... LIFE COMES AND GOES

To say Christmas is cancelled is stretching it a bit.... Christmas has been 'modified'. A new variant of the virus has been identified and its transmission is much greater.  (Scientists are not sure if it is to do with strength or duration of the contagen, i.e. is it 'stronger' or just lasts longer?)  It is interesting to note that other countries have also found mutants, e.g. The Netherlands,  Denmark and South Africa. You don't have to look too far to see the reason: they have labs that can identify genome variations.) The fact remains, however, that viruses mutate and it seems to me this is the way things will always be and we will just have to deal with it... somewhat like the flu virus that comes around every autumn.

The Winter Solstice was this week - a glass of wine to celebrate the event.  As part of Life's Little Pleasures I managed to cut holly with some red berries from our own garden in order to decorate the sideboard.  While out with the secateurs I snipped some bay leaves, rosemary and thyme from the bushes which are still lush at this time of year.  (I do enjoy this 'fruits' of a maritime climate.) The candlesticks are Big Ish's... don't know their story.

Another of Life's Little Pleasures is making my own Christmas presents. Because of Lockdown I just used what I had to hand in terms of fabric for sewing something.  Some shops have been allowed to open at various stages  i.e. 'essential' ones can open e.g. wine merchants but the lady who does sewing repairs and sells thread and other sewing notions has to shut.  (This week Full Lockdown starts on December 26th, no one is going anywhere.)

Here is the result of my handiwork:

I made cushion covers for the 4 grandchildren.  They have pockets on the outside for a book.  I guess they would be called 'book cushions'.

I enjoy getting cards and am quite happy to spend time writing them.  Every year there are fewer and fewer and this year is no exception.  Yes, email contact means many people are dropping the posting of cards and that is fine.  There have been a few deaths, not from coronavirus, but 'natural causes'. Just as an anecdotal observation, no one in our social circle has died from coronovirus and the only people who have contracted the virus that I know of directly are a neighbour and her husband (both taxi drivers). (Yes, friends of friends have had it but that is outwit our circle.)

Life's Sadnesses:  In Canada Carol, my brother's wife, died, not unexpectedly, on December 22.  (A fuller post will be made.)

This is a recent photo of her standing behind her grandson Zack (Kim's son) with my brother Don on the left.

WEEK 41 CORONAVIRUS - INFECTION RATES STARTING TO RISE AGAIN

A quick roundup of the week: we are still having to be careful about not mixing socially, shops are open but pubs have to close at 6 pm.  It seems that the numbers of people infected are on the rise again in all parts of the UK.  While full lockdown has not been restarted there are many people (medical for example)  wanting it to be in place over the Christmas in order to avoid a very serious hospital overload in January.  So the current advice is "Yes, you can plan to mix in limited numbers at Christmas but be cautious about how you do about it."

Meanwhile Iain took the opportunity to get a squad of guys doing a neighbour's driveway with mono blocks, to do our own.

They did a very good job - tidy workers, turned up on time, were very well organised with everything.  Job done in two days with minimum upset on the street.

This is Iain coming out of his car.

This little building project reminds me of the many years I have had to run around the country in the weeks running up to Christmas to do his chores, all very 'essential' like getting the life-raft serviced in some out-of-the-way  industrial estate high above the town of Greenock. (As you can read, Christmas and all the work of it simply passes him by....)

I took this photo whilst standing in a queue in the local Post Office.  I haven't seen that painting of Santa in over 50 years.  Norman Rockwell was the artist and this picture plus many, many others were part of the culture in my youth.  For example, they often appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine. 

I parked in front of this car when out to pick up a book at the Hyndland Bookshop.  (Iain refuses to order anything on Amazon so as a result we order from Blackwells in 'Englandshire' or go into town to use the local bookshops.)

It's the Marrimeko flowers design (Finnish fabric and household items) which I absolutely love!

Lastly, I tried to make this Battenburg cake with Ellie this week.  It really was not a success - too much icky icing.  There is a lovely Syrian bakery now in our local area and when I was in this week I saw they make thionly it is very much smaller in scale and they cover it with melted chocolate.

WEEK 40b OF CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN - WE NOW HAVE A VACCINE!

It's been called V Day because the vaccination programme in Scotland (and the UK) has now started. Supplies of the Pfzier vaccine are now being rolled out for front line health care workers and care homes. Other vaccines will be coming as the whole population of the UK will be offered it over the coming months. Preparation of sites, storage  facilities, etc were looked at very early on so that when the drug became available for the mass vaccination involved they were able to pull things together quickly.

We are so grateful to the scientists, and regulators worked tirelessly to bring out this about.  We all feel we are now turning a corner!  

The big breakthrough came when Pfizer/BioNTech published its first results in November.

• They showed the vaccine is up to 95% effective
• The UK is due to get 40 million doses
• It is given in two doses, three weeks apart

BioNTech’s chief executive, "billionaire scientist" Uğur Şahin - "The Man Behind the Vaccine" as stated by Guardian Newspaper, November 12, 2020

BioNTech, a company founded in 2008 by the German scientists and married couple Şahin and Özlem Türeci, as well as the Austrian oncologist Christoph Huber, developed its experimental vaccine with a method that uses mRNA.

I, for one, will certainly be at the head of the queue when it is offered to my age group (Spare a thought for the children: they have had to be assured that Santa would definitely be the first!) 

As a 76 year old I can remember another vaccine being rolled out in the mid 50s (in Canada).  I clearly recall, as a school child, this particular photograph and its significance. This was the man, Dr Salk, who developed the polio vaccine and was making the point about its safety by vaccinating his own children.   

This is the story:

Dr. Jonas Salk first began testing his potential polio vaccine in 1953, he brought it home from his nearby lab at the University of Pittsburgh. "I just hated injections," recalled his son Peter Salk, 76, and the oldest of three brothers. "So my father came home with polio vaccine and some syringes and needles that he sterilized on the kitchen stove, boiling them in water, and lined us kids up and then administered the vaccine."

1955 photo caption:  Dr. Jonas E. Salk, who discovered the polio vaccine, reads with his wife and three boys in Ann Arbor, Mich., on April 11, 1955. The boys were among the first vaccinated during testing.  The family was photographed the night before an announcement the vaccine was effective. Pictured from left are Jonathan, 5; Donna Salk; Peter, 11; Salk; and Darrell, 8.

It marked the beginning of the end of polio. But it was a protracted process... Finally, on April 12, 1955, nearly two years after the Salk boys had received their shots, the vaccine was declared "safe, effective and potent."

* * * * * * * * * *  NEWSPAPERS THEN AND NOW    * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Toronto newspaper of April 15, 1955. [Some day I might learn how to use the archives for, say, The Vancouver Province newspaper of that date.]

    

Sample of 2 Scottish papers Tuesday, December 8, 2020

WEEK 40a OF LOCKDOWN - VICARIOUS LOCKDOWN SURVIVAL MODE

In the Vendée Globe Race which I have been following for 3 weeks [2020 Vendée Globe Yacht Race   [Accueil - Vendée Globe ]  had some drama this week: French sailor Kevin Escoffier was rescued in heavy seas off the Cape of Good Hope by fellow competitor Jean Le Cam on Tuesday, more than 11 hours after he send out a Mayday signal when his boat PRB sank. [What happened, exactly is below] He took to his life raft and awaited rescue.*  

Shore teams using his EPIRB and PLB [They are: Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons) and PLB (Personal Locator Beacons) which are carried in order to send out location signals when in distress. A 406MHz beacon enables the SAR (Search and Rescue) agencies to quickly and accurately identify and locate a casualty.] The Search and Rescue people in South Africa and Kevin's team did some very fast and nifty calculations (to do with where a life raft in that part of the Southern Ocean would drift) and instructed several boats close to him in the race to try and find him... which was successful.

The story is [from various web sources]:

The closest boat was skippered by a seasoned French sailor called Jean Le Cam on his (non-foiling) yacht Yes We Cam!. It took two hours from when Le Cam stopped racing to when he first spotted Escoffier on his life raft. Le Cam developed engine trouble as he came to his aid and shouted to Escoffier that he would be back. (Engines can be used in emergencies. The propeller has a seal that is to be broken only for self-rescue or rescuing another sailor.) But when Le Cam returned to Escoffier’s last known position, he could not see the raft so race officials told three other skippers to divert to the area and assist in the search.

[He went back and forth in the area about 5 times and then] Le Cam decided to double back to the original location emitted by Escoffier’s emergency EPIRB beacon.

“I saw Kevin, he asked me ‘will you be back?’, I said ‘No, we are doing this now!’. I threw him the life ring and he caught it, and then he managed to catch the transmission bar and that was it.” [He scrambled aboard from the stern.] For the record, Le Cam himself had to be rescued in a previous VG Race.

* * * * * *   THE FRENCH NAVY COMPLETE THE RESUCE * * * * * * * * * 

These photos [from Maritime Nationale] show the rendezvous with the French navy frigate Nivôse which was near the Kerguelen Islands (three to four days away by sail).  The photos show the frigate standing off as their RIB heads over to the yacht and back again.  Le Cam then continued on his race .... alone.  Why was the frigate there?… to protect French fishing in that part of the ocean.

* * * * * EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED? * * * * * * 

[Post-rescue video explaining] “The boat was surfing along a wave.  When she reached the bottom she dug into the wave.  And that’s when I felt something was wrong.  When the boat came back out again it had broken in half. When I say ‘half’, there was a 90 degree angle between the bow and the stern, at the foot of the mast.”

____________________________________________________________________

*  

The rescue mission was coordinated from Les Sables d'Olonne by Vendée Globe Race Direction in collaboration with CROSS Griz Nez and MRCC South Africa. The President of PRB, Jean-Jacques Laurent was at the Race HQ with Race Director Jacques Caraës and the race direction team assisting through the entire process.

WEEK 39 CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN LEVEL 4 CONTINUES

Another week of Lockdown at Level 4.  We both have plenty of 'projects' to keep us from wearying especially this week as we cannot meet for our Once a Week Coffeemeet-up (socially distanced) out on the edge of Milngavie.

Be that as it may here are some photos of the  2020 Vendée Globe Yacht Race       [Accueil - Vendée Globe ].  (single handed round the world yacht race) which I have been following.  All boats have now crossed the Equator.  These shots are about celebrating that event.  They break open a bottle of something and toast Nepture (by splashing some over the side), then the boat and then it's down the hatch glug, glug, glug.

From the cockpit various things are launched ...

A drone ...

Buoys for collecting scientific data are launched ...

More photos of other drama - damage (probably hitting objects in the water) to boats 'Uidentified Floating Objects') which required repair

Cutting off the tip of the foil using a drill cutter

These big boats have not been without their problems ...

Boat damage  - cracks showing up in the hull structure:  Hugo Boss sailed by Alex Thompson

CORNAVIRUS WEEK 38: LOCKDOWN RESRICTIONS INCREASED

We have been at Level 3 (out of 5 levels) of Lockdown for about 6 weeks.  Now,  along with the city of Glasgow and adjacent counties have moved to a level with more restrictions due to the high R rate.  It is to last for 4 weeks.  The hope is that there will be a greater suppression of the virus enough to allow an easing over the Christmas period.  (Other areas where the population is less dense are at a lower level, e.g. highland and island communities.)

What I would like to know is .... what is driving the increase in infections?  Is it students?  Care homes? Prisons?  Areas of crowded (read 'poor') housing?  Bars? Gyms?  It is a difficult ones e.g. a scrupulous bar owner is inundated with cheering football fans who celebrate Scottland's recent win.  I wonder if making him get rid of his TV in the lounge would help things?                           

We live in a middle class area of mostly detached houses.  It appears one of the biggest problems being faced in this type of area is teachers and/or school children off school either ill and/or self-isolating.   Yes, the testing system is in place but, as we have seen this week with young Alastair (aged 12 years old and in secondary school) ... He was kept off school, quite rightly, as he had a cough.  It meant the whole household had to be kept off school or work until the test results came back.  Forty-eight hours later they came back negative... thankfully! It appears that the rate of early winter flu is down and so is vomiting and diarrhoea incidence.

So Friday all shops and premises dealing in non-essential services shut for 4 weeks.  I am really sorry for them.  From what I have seen they have been super attentive in all aspects of their work and still they get hit.

Schools and universities stay open but blended learning is being encouraged (some home; some at uni).

Life simply rolls on much the same for us however.  Cafes we go to will shut so that is going to affect our one and only social set-up where meet and greet on a Friday.

Vendée Globe Race, Week 2:

There is lots of feedback from the various boats and agencies following this circumnavigation junket.  Big boats with big (plus not so big brands) plastered all over their sails and hulls are out in the Atlantic heading for the Trade Winds.  Most have now crossed the Equator after roughly a week of sailing. 

I thought this route map was interesting.  Basically this group of 33 boats are heading down the Atlantic Ocean for the tip of Africa and into the Southern Ocean returning by way of the tip of South America and back home again.  

This writer thinks the whole thing is ridiculous; why not call it the 'Round Antarctica Race'? Why not have starting line somewhere like Deception Point in Antarctica, sound the starting gun and have a race back home again?  

But interesting and interesting-er is this:

The French word or expression for The Doldrums (a zone north of the equator  of windless weathe where the northeast and southeast trade winds converg)  is Pot au Noir.  I am finding difficulty figuring out why this has been given this name.  I am still working on it (and my French)!

Life in MacLeod Towers:

One week is much like another... but we both keep well!

I join the Zoom sessions every Sunday afternoon with the Young Fiddlers.  I have my iPad set up (next to my keyboard) on a button box that belonged to Iain's mother A tiny external speaker helps the sound.  

The arrival of a load of Christmas trees at Dobbies this week.

I am still able to bring in flowers from the garden albeit the colour comes from the seeded of the irises. The child plant is from Ottilia... no peppers appearing after flowering however.

There's a moose loose about the house!  The last of the shortbread I made earlier in the week.  The kids prefer plain biscuits so this one is a candidate.  I use a recipe I picked up in Orkney; it uses semolina to give it crunch.

Lastly we  enjoy the weekend papers in the November sunshine.  I am reading Iain Rankin's latest book A Song for Dark Times which is a detective story based in modern day Edinburgh and also Caithness.  He absolutely nails it for setting and current cultural references e.g. Brexit, Northern Coast 500 Tourist Trail (scenic route around the north coast of Scotland).

CORNAVIRUS WEEK 37: NEWS FROM THE BOAT SHED

To help keep up my spirits during Lockdown I decided to follow the 2020 Vendée Globe Yacht Race   [ Accueil - Vendée Globe ].    It is a bit like following the Tour de France if you're a cyclist or Formula One racing for petrol heads. It reminds me that I am not out there getting wet!  I bury myself under a duvet and watch as they deal with water slopping around the bilges and fix damaged or snarled equipment, not to mention things like getting fouled up with fishing line.  

Ah-h-h memories of hour after hour of long passages. It is not unlike being in Lockdown where we have to patiently endure the hours, days and weeks until we get back to normality. [This week: one pharma company has issued vaccine and has encouraging trial results; plans for a vaccination programme are now being prepared.]

[Credit: Yvan Zedda]

This year’s race started on Sunday Nov 8 from Les Sables-d'Olonne on France’s Atlantic coast with 33 skippers [and 9 different nationalities] aboard their 60-foot International Monohull Open Class Association-rated (IMOCA) vessels. It is a single-handed non-stop race.  This year there are 6 female skippers and 27 male skippers. It takes about 3 months; best time 2017 was 74 days.

There are 19 boats which incorporate hydrofoils … or 'foil’ boats as they are called.  It seems they are using  a new 2020 ‘C’ style foil which means that the sticky-out bit at the sides are not straight out but curved. [Source: L'Occitane website]

The race is more about technology than ever these days. Pictures showing the inside of the hull illustrate that they are completely stripped out except for instruments, wires and winding gear! I believe they are very noisy!  In 1990 I was aboard 'Drum' in the Clyde and found that this big racing boat was completely stripped out inside, just a shell with instruments and slings from the cockpit ceiling to hold stuff.  The interior of these racing machines today seem much the same!  

[Source: IMOCA website]

Having spent years looking at pictures of yachts in all their glorious technicolour I still enjoy the photos and videos that the press or the participants send back.

 

[Source: L'Occitane website]

[Credit: Jean Marie Liot]

[Credit: Yvan Zedda]

[Credit: Vincent Barnaud]