It is, thankfully, the shortest day of the longest year. Winter Solstice of 2020 and as things have become progressively worse in the last few days, at least there’s less daylight to see it by!
This morning I went out at 7am to buy a Christmas pudding. We hadn’t left it to the last minute, we had one ordered but when our online delivery arrived last night, all the festive food seemed to be missing so no Christmas pud for us.
As luck would have it, it was raining (of course) and so I donned the old waterproofs and jumped on my trusty steed to cycle to our local Jewish deli, Panzer’s, guaranteed to have a Christmas pudding. Despite being Jewish, Panzer’s do a custom pudding but sadly all were sold out. I managed to get some smoked salmon but it was all starting to feel a little Eastern Bloc.
Cycling back from St John’s Wood, I stopped at the Tesco Local in Little Venice only to find again, bare shelves and no puddings so unless we find one lurking in the back of M&S in Paddington, we’ll have to make do with a couple of mince pies.
As we have now been banned from the rest of Europe and London is home to a super-strain of Covid (and that’s not very super), things are decidedly grim.
We have been moved into Tier 4 (which has just been invented), the festive chaos of five days off from Covid has been cancelled and people are now stockpiling food to prepare for Brexit. Given that France is refusing UK freight and the Eurotunnel is closed, we are again an island. It would appear that mutton and potatoes are not far off the menu.
What’s next?