It is too easy to lose sight of just why we are going into lockdown again. It isn't out of a need to be bloody-minded or awkward. It is an attempt to combat this virus. My only problem is we could suffer from a yo-yo effect. A month of lockdown, followed by a month of relative freedom and then a month of lockdown followed by a month of relative freedom. That will just lead to confusion. And to think that people will accept a lockdown over Christmas is just madness - the majority won't. It's almost certain that Christmas will be so different anyway. It's going to be the beginning of December before we can descend again on shops to do Christmas shopping and there's another problem. Christmas shopping may have to be condensed into a couple of weeks and that could lead to shops being besieged and one can only guess what affect that will have on the virus and the nation's health
Do that and businesses won't know what the hell is happening to them - one month they can open, the next they can't. There is no doubt that in winter months the mental health of the population will take a battering. Bad weather could make walking difficult and unpleasant, gyms are closed, my weekly tennis is almost certainly shot to pieces as it involves meeting with people from a number of households.
It's going to be a tough month for individuals and an even tougher one for local businesses.
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Today I will start putting together the December edition of Hethersett Herald. It's going to be a strange one. Usually at this time of year I would be covering events leading up to Christmas including the village sale. None of these will be taking place now of course. I would also be covering the annual Remembrance parade and service which would have taken place next Sunday. Then there was Hallowe'en and bonfire night - all of which would have received pictorial coverage. Now it looks as if the edition will be all about what isn't happening rather than about what is.
There are two pieces of good festive news. The area around Great Melton Close and Park Green will once again be awash with lights this Christmas, raising funds for the Finnbar's Force charity. It will certainly brighten up what looks like being a pretty gloomy end to the year. I also spoke to Tony Dunton a few days ago and he is planning to have his Christmas display up and running in Firs Road. Tony and Margaret have been holding their festive displays and brightening up everyone's lives at Christmas for over two decades. Tony was thinking of stopping this year but then realised we all need some colourful cheer, providing of course we are allowed out to see the display.
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I have never been a fan of Ryanair. Indeed, having flown with them a number of times, I would never pick them as my airline of choice.
I always smile when you are on a aircraft and have just reached your destination and you hear those words "thank you for choosing ????? today." Most of the time of course you don't chose an airline it's just the one that is going to the place you want to go to.
So when they say "thank you for choosing Ryanair" I want to shout "We didn't."
Now Ryanair has decided that, during the second lockdown, its flights will continue and so people abiding by the lockdown advice/rules won't be able to get a refund. In other words Ryan Air are almost holding people to ransom, tempting them to break the lockdown or lose their money.
Talk about holding a gun to passengers' heads. To me it's immoral but I'm afraid it's the kind of thing we have come to expect from that airline. Go on the flights and you are going against lockdown rules, don't go on the flights and you lose your money. What a choice.
I'm not a fan of airlines in general. I'm even less of a fan of airports where you are herded around like so much cattle. Had a bad experience getting to the USA last year. We were flying from Norwich to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Boston. There wasn't a huge amount of time to get our connection in Holland but that time got squeezed by a problem at Norwich Airport which mean our flight was delayed by over 45 minutes.
I pointed out to KLM staff that this could give is a real problem at Amsterdam and was told "well you can either return home and come back tomorrow or get to Amsterdam and sort out any problem there." That was really helpful. We decided to go to Amsterdam and just hope we had enough time.
Thankfully a very helpful member of the cabin crew (didn't they used to be called Air Hostesses) got us off the plane first and ran with us to our destination gate and we made it with 10 minutes to spare. Running through an airport was not the best preparation for a seven hour flight.
When we got to Boston we arrived with no luggage. Our friends were waiting for us for ages whilst we filled in forms and spoke to staff who seemed to have no interest whatsoever in the fact that we had only the clothes we were wearing.
It took over three days and numerous phone calls to have our cases delivered to Cape Cod by a company which was obviously employed to drive round the Boston area delivering delayed cases.
On getting home three weeks later I tried to claim compensation from KLM and, after numerous phone calls and e-mails, was offered a voucher for £50 off a future flight which was worthless as I have no intention of ever flying with KLM again.
Talking of holidays we have had a couple cancelled due to the latest lockdown and don't expect to be able to get away anytime soon.