I have a free trial at the moment. I've glanced at the magazines but I haven't been attracted by the available books. I'll be cancelling.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I'll be walking each day and might get back to yoga on Boxing Day.

I am too. I was hoping that she would report some discomfort though. Immune response in someone so old is tricky, so mild side effects might have been reassuring.

Mum - 96, in a care home - had the Pfizer a few days ago. No ill effects, she says.

Traditionally I think it's Francis for a boy and Frances for a girl, isn’t it? Eta I have a female cousin Frances, and there's the author Frances Burney in the 18th C. I know someone named Jay, born in the 1950s, who was due to be named that whatever his sex - his mum liked the name regardless.

Not so cute, but one Christmas Husband and I bought identical kitchen towels for each other for our new kitchen. We had not discussed buying towels. The shop was in the next city over, 40 minutes away, and we rarely went there. It was TKMaxx, so there was plenty of choice. Identical towels.

I hear it in the UK. 'Morning' is even more common as a spoken greeting.

We're doing really well, thank you.

I thought I had two sons too! My eldest came out as a trans woman about a year ago. There's a sweet spot - between deep mud and slick, icy puddles - when the hiking is frosted and good. We're not there yet! I'm sticking to gravelled farm tracks for the moment. I'm sorry that you are in limbo, not knowing how to improve your health, @Soror I made Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies - Husband has fond memories of them. Having read a lot of comments on the original recipe, I adapted for the change in wheat since the 1930s when the recipe was written (!), doubled the vanilla, and also reduced the sugar by one-third. Still too sweet. My eldest's partner likes white chocolate, so presumably she can cope with overly-sweet, so I sent them off anyway. I'm making another batch tonight, so I'll cut the sugar further.

Glorious sunny weather after our first real frost. I took the dog up onto a hill for good views across farmland. Made cookies to send to my daughter and her partner, and Marmite oatcakes for me. Still no yoga. Tomorrow is my last day of work until 5 January. Cinnamon porridge with yoghurt and grapes. Ham chunks with green beans, an apple and orange. Salmon with mushrooms and leeks. Cookies. Oatcakes.

The one that trips me up is 'tofu'; the English pronuncitation is very far from the word in Mandarin.

There is a permanent one in town, laid out in a public park by the local Quakers. This one was a pop up organised by the university Pagan chaplain on university land.

Ah. Ok

Everyone has an accent.

Walked the dog and ran errands on foot - my only in-person supermarket trip of the season. 10,000 steps. Walked a Solstice candle-lit labyrinth, which was peaceful. Must do some yoga tomorrow. Berry porridge and yoghurt. Sauteed mushroom, falafel, cheese and egg. Red mullet and a veg.

https://www.hp-lexicon.org/thing/helter-skelter/

When I first started learning Chinese, my tutor drilled me on the tones - how you 'sing' the syllables to produce different meaning - for weeks. My brain needed to be retrained to hear the tones before I could progress with the language. My husband's Mandarin learning was more based around producing useful phrases - perhaps in consequence, his tones were never very good. If your brain has never registered differences in sound, it will take more than a quick demonstration to pick them up.

Yes. My father died relatively young. Even though there were massive emotional difficulties dealing with my elderly mother's situation, enormous house price increases in her area meant that once the house was sold she became financially very comfortable. That's not the financial world I am aging into. So I went back to work full time and will work until at least age 67, when government retirement benefits start for me. I don't love my job, but I don’t hate it either, and I'm very grateful that it remains stable. Husband's benefits start in late 2022. He manages our rental property. If he dies now, I can support myself. If I die now, my death in service benefit covers him until government and other pension money starts. Since we downsized this year, we are mortgage free. We have one paid-for car. Youngest child graduates this year.

Do you think it's meant to be a helter skelter?

Maneki-Neko? Jinmao? Zhaocaimao?

Do you exercise? Hard exercise helps me. Yesterday I forced myself to stand still and watch a skein of geese as they flew overhead and disappeared into the setting sun. I felt better.

Merry Christmas! 🎅 🎄 ❤

Thank you. That looks wonderful !

Walked the dog this afternoon. The path I chose was very muddy and I couldn't be bothered to continue. Quite cast down about suddenly not being able to have all the family together at Christmas due to the new lockdowns. No more than other people are experiencing, but not what we were planning even yesterday. I carried on to the dog field within the village, and hundreds of geese flew over on their way to roost. I watched them until they disappeared into the sunset and felt better. No other exercise. Lots of packing up of packages for eldest and her partner that I can send off tomorrow. Berry porridge plus yoghurt. Grilled veg and pesto with falafel. Ham with roast purple carrots.

As I understand it, the politicians were convinced because the same containment policies were not working in areas that had the new variant, but were working in other areas. Of course, there may be social reasons for that.