I'm not allowed to leave my county.

Ran today and on Saturday. It wasn't hard - running very slowly - and I enjoyed it. The new running action - on the balls of my feet - is starting to feel natural. It remains to be seen how my knee holds up. I'm reminded of that episode of House when he has a miracle treatment and can run again. And then it fails. Completely rubbish yoga session. My legs must just have been tired I managed Half Moon okay but fell out of all the other balances.

Not right now. Not so much because of the property itself - if it was empty for a couple of days on either end, I wouldn't be worried. I don't want to be travelling though, having to deal with unfamiliar places and therefore having contact with more people. For now, I stay home, see my immediate family (those I live with). I don't even go for walks with friends. I only get deliveries/click and collect. The vaccine is coming and I don't want to screw up. I don't want to get ill and I don't want to have possibly life-long side effects. Nine more months without a holiday is fine.

Fun system for vaccination organisation: a local vaccination programme in Yeovil in the SW of the UK is naming cohorts by garden bird. The first cohort was over-eighties with underlying conditions - storks; old people in care homes - robins; other over-eighties - bluetits.... The cohorts are called up by phone (almost everyone in the country is registered with an NHS GP) and invited to come in. It's then very easy to know who needs to come in for their second dose: okay, this week it's the robins... They can chase up any robins who miss their second appointments very easily. Among that age group, they've had only about 1% refusing the vaccination.

The university where I work has had fewer cases proportionately than the rest of the county. Lectures were online but tutorials were in person, distanced and masked for most of last semester. There is a high proportion of overseas students though, which also meant considerable compulsory self-isolation at the beginning of the semester.

Discussion on vaccine efficacy after single dose. In case you have to Google, the programme is More or Less, latest episode. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000r4t9

Long term, something like that could happen here, with private patients paying out of pocket for particular vaccines. For the foreseeable future, however, the entire vaccine supply is government controlled - when you get the call to go for a vaccine, you take whichever one is offered or choose to refuse vaccination.

So has the US pre-ordered enough J&J or other vaccines to cover everyone, assuming some success in trials?

My potential liking for yak dairy products was kaiboshed by the overwhelming smell of fermented yak butter lamps in Tibetan temples when I visited in 1986, and the fermented yak butter tea on the same trip. I recognise that this is a prejudice but I haven't yet pushed past it.

When we lived in Kunming in China, we went up into the hills of Lijiang to see snow, pat a yak, etc. We came back to the city and it promptly snowed. Which it very rarely does.

Equitable means fair or impartial. It doesn't mean identical. I believe that funding schools equally, and then adding extra funds based on the deprivation scale of the pupils, would be equitable. It doesn't mean that the outcome for every pupil would be identical, but the process would be fair.

It was emotionally brutal for him, but I suspect it was physically brutal too. Farm chores in Saskatchewan in 1940? Can't have been fun.

I bought myself some new shoes. The shoes I use for NW are shamefully old (left over from my last running round). So whether I run or use them for walking, it's a good investment. @wintermom Husband actually has some hiking poles that I could use for ice. I seem to prefer hiding inside and waiting for a thaw. Good thing I'm not Canadian and that my father didn't decide to stay in Saskatchewan where he was evacuated during the war!

@Dreamergal you talked about Tai Chi being cardio. The times I have done it, it was extremely slow and controlled. I can imagine a higher heart rate perhaps due to the effort of standing on one leg and slowly extending the other withough falling over (you get high heart rate in yoga from that too), but that's about it. Is yours a different style? This is the kind of thing I think of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrF4zgdjWzQ Today wasn't too icy so I managed a slow dog walk. It felt good to be outdoors. I'll do some yoga after work. This weekend I'll go to the beach. I'm wondering about doing Couch to 5K again, now that my muscles are so much stronger - it might not be too much for my knee. My physio also suggested running on my toes, which would take the strain off my hamstrings. If not, I'll Nordic walk. Grilled veg porridge and yoghurt. Carrots, beans, tomatoes, toast, an egg, some cheese and an apple. Pork and black bean stew with maybe roast swede/rutabaga.

London hospitals overwhelmed https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/14/struggling-london-hospitals-sending-covid-patients-to-newcastle

National rather than local funding, with supplementary funding and feeding based on deprivation.

I've order crampons but they haven't arrived yet. Our sacrificial lamb (son) is walking the dog for us and I did another Sansone indoor walk at lunchtime. I slept late this morning. My old Fitbit used to repeat the vibrating alarm every nine minutes until you switched if off. The Garmin just seems to switch off automatically after a bit. The buzz isn't as strong and I slept straight through it. I now have four alarms set at five-minute intervals. Let's hope that works. I suspect I needed the sleep though. I'll do a quick yoga after work and before my module. Grilled veg porridge plus yoghurt. Broad beans with pesto, raw carrots, savoury oatcakes with marmite and pumpkin seed butter, cheese. Veg lasagne ready meal.

I've ordered tomato seeds (Ailsa Craig and Black Russian) and mullein (Verbascum Polar Summer). We live in an area with really good veggie farms, so I don't feel the need to grow much. But I've yet to find great tomatoes (the nights are too cool, so they have to be grown under glass). I grew this verbascum (it's a biennial) in my last garden and I really love it. I'll plant it later in the year to flower next year. I also ordered salad seeds in case Brexit interrupted green veg supplies. So far things seem to be working okay, so I haven't planted the seeds. I'm busy with an evening module at the university, so I'd rather not do that unless I have to.

I live in rolling countryside, half an hour to the beach, an hour to the beginning of the mountains. Perfect for me.

Yes. My body just doesn't recover from unusual activity as well as it used. On the other hand, my joints don't ache regularly now in the way that they did eight years ago before I took up yoga. @Carrie12345 take it easy - you have some good plans. As I really, really don't want to end up in hospital at the moment by slipping on frozen surfaces, and I don't have time to go to the ice-free beach during daylight, I went against all my instincts and did an online fitness (as opposed to yoga) class. I find classes at the gym (apart from yoga) incredibly boring - I'd just so much rather be doing something (anything) else. At home though..... I can shut the door and shutters so no one can see me, turn off the workout video sound and listen to an informative podcast. So there I was, following along with a Lesley Sansone enhanced walking workout whilst learning about the nocebo effect in statin side effects (fascinating, by the way). It was fine: my heart rate was surprisingly high given that it didn't feel hard, and I didn't get bored. ETA: does anyone have recommendations for low-impact 30 minute cardio workouts online? I'll do some yoga after work. Grilled veg and tomato porridge plus yoghurt. Big lunch of tuna, cheese, carrots, peas, apple and savoury oatcakes. Husband is cooking pork tonight, so pork and veg.

I thing it's a horse bit. https://images.app.goo.gl/tiXAQiD1qhKghjzx9

Well done on the job @wintermom. PM me if you want some links to what the uni offers. Good start @Carrie12345 @FarmingMomma your rest days would wear me out! Cute dogs! @Soror any time I post a specific workout, it's usually to increase the pressure to get it done. Social embarrassment as a driver. ETA Re sun: I grew up in the south west of the UK, where the weather comes straight off the Atlantic. The weather seemed much more consistent: either the day (week) was sunny or it was cloudy. Here in the north east we seem to get a bit of sun almost every day, which lifts my heart. Right now, golden morning sun is hitting the sandstone wall and pantiled roof of my neighbour's house.

How do people drink rooibos? I have a mug after supper most evenings with oat milk added.

Managed a good brisk walk at lunchtime up the valley through the woods. Today was thaw day. It's now raining hard, then is due to freeze overnight. I have a hard yoga session scheduled - I'm trying to raise the enthusiasm. I have no excuse, because Husband is cooking Chinese food for dinner and Son is clearing up afterwards. So all I need to do for housework is mop the bathroom floors today. Plenty of time for yoga. Grilled veg porridge plus yoghurt. Mushrooms, eggs, cheese, apple, pear (big lunch). Something Chinese with Chicken. Eta okay, that was hard but good. I'll be ready for bed early.

I have several sizes of teapot because I prefer loose leaf tea. I buy it from a traditional tea merchant. I drink about five mugs a day - three Indian, one decaff Indian, one rooibos. This is my one-mug pot. Purists would sniff at it because they don't belive in this kind of interior basket but the tea tastes good to me. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tealyra-Porcelain-Turquoise-Stainless-Extra-Fine/dp/B078ZKPY25 I use my electric kettle to boil water for cooking too - to make pasta, etc.