We have been used over the last few years to being on our own Christmas day but have enjoyed the preparation, the get togethers with other travellers, the Christmas morning paddle, the BBQ cooked dinner not forgetting the superb wine so cheap it was almost given away.
But Christmas 2020!!! Probably best forgotten however :-
The preparation (by which i mean the shopping), what a nightmare!!!
Why do so many people not understand that the nose and mouth are connected and the face covering must cover both?
There is no need to wear a face covering if you have a medical condition preventing you, but why do so many of those with a medical condition seem tattoo covered skinheads with far bigger muscles than brains, and what part of social distancing do people not understand?
Tesco has declared there is no naughty list Is that why so many of their staff gather in large groups to have a “bo*+^cks to the customers! lets block the isle completely and have a mini party” while the people trying to spend money to pay their wages cannot turn and go back (people coming up behind) so have to wait until the party breaks up and then cannot go forward because of the people going the other way who have suffered the same fate.
The local butcher from whom we had ordered our Christmas meat is a good butcher who sells top quality meat but a lousy businessman, he had employed extra staff for the Christmas rush but why? He allows only one customer at a time to enter the shop, that customer tells the permanent assistant (PA) what he/she wants, this is then relayed to one of the extra staff (ES) while the PA engages the customer in chit chat. Unfortunately the ES often don’t know where stuff is so the PA then has to go to the stock room to find what is wanted before going back to finish the conversation. Eventually the customer is served and the whole process is repeated. There were 12 people (some were couples) in front of us when we joined the queue, it took us well over an hour to get to the front each customer taking ten to fifteen minutes to walk into the shop say their name, collect their preordered meat, pay the bill and leave. To add insult to injury when we eventually did get to the front of the line and asked for our order the PA called out to ES1 that it was on a particular fridge in a black poly tray, she could not find it so ES2 went and looked, she could not find it so PA went then came back with the excuse that because of Covid they had been unable to get what we wanted - in a pigs ear. The place was so shambolic the order had obviously been sold to someone else. During our time here we have spent quite a sum in that butcher as the meat is so good but never again will we darken its door and going by the grumbles of some queueing with us we will not be the only ones going elsewhere.
Still for all that the day itself was very pleasant. We didn’t see or speak, face to socially distanced face, to a living soul. Our dinner despite being cooked on the gas stove indoors not on the BBQ outdoors was delicious and the wine superb but then costing many times more than we usually pay so it should.
We ate and drank our isolated way through Christmas week to NewYears Eve when instead of the usual rib of beef (bloody butcher!!!) for dinner Sue cooked a "Tesco Special" rack of lamb - it was stunning.
Having followed the news over recent weeks we could not believe that Boris was allowing a Christmas Covid free for all and trying to backtrack at the last minute was never going to work so we are now waiting for a new year spike and a third lockdown. We hope,really hope, we are wrong but . . . . . . .