The first weekend in July last year, after the first big lockdown, me and my mate stayed in a couple of pubs, in a remote part of the Western Lake District, for a weekend of fell walking. Everywhere we went, the staff where twitchy and rightly so, as we`d been locked down for the best part of 14 weeks. Other than when you sat outside in a beer garden or a cafe, you couldn`t relax, as you were so on edge inside, due to the staff being so paranoid about the rules.
Fast forward eleven months and I`ve just been to the exact same part of the Lakes with the family.
It`s actually worse there now, than it was eleven months ago, as the introduction of table service only, has meant reduced numbers inside, which has made the staff even more twitchy, as they`re were having to constantly turn people away at the door, who are looking for something to eat and drink, which meant a bottleneck at the entrance to a couple of places, creating the ultimate sin of a small group of people gathering for a short period of time. Also woe betide anyone who forgets to put a mask on inside !!!
Things are still a long way off being normal, no matter how they try to dress it up.
The mantra of " protect the NHS and the vulnerable " seems to have completely gone out of the window and the goal posts completely moved to an obsessional counting of infections, regardless of deaths and hospital admissions and spinning the infection rate as the new Armageddon.
The reality is, that at the moment, we`re no better off than we were around this time last year.
I`m not even going to start on the travel situation, where the new pariahs are the " reckless, selfish " people that endanger us all by going abroad !!!!!
