Vaccines Rolled Out, and Irish borders remain open in the UK

Good News - Vaccine Roll-out in the UK

A couple of my distant relatives my marriage, in their sixties, because of their age, are getting their first jabs shortly. 

They won't get the second jab, which will be of the same type, for a while. The UK priority is to give the first jab to as many people as possible.  

Nurses Needed

This should relieve pressure on the health services. They can build a new hospital, put up a field hospital, or convert a nursing home into a hospital. but they needed nurses. At the moment one nurse is watching over four in high dependency units instead of just one.

You can have people hooked up to machines and watched on banks of videos. But when the beep goes off, somebody has to go running to look.

UK Government - Good News? 

My family has confidence in the new health minister in charge of the vaccines. 'She was dealing with medical start-ups. She has experience in the field. Medicine. And new ventures.'

My family were also upbeat about the UK prospects of getting the ordered vaccines. 

'The EU tried to stop them. But we had contracts signed long ago and goods already paid for. You can't change the laws at the drop of a hat affecting deals retrospectively without losing confidence on Europe's laws. 

Flag of the Republic of Ireland

Irish Borders Blocked? 

The idea of blocking the Irish border with barriers came and went too. The EU wanted to close the border to stop the vaccines being taken across from Eire (Replublic if Ireland, flag above) to Northern Ireland (which uses the UK flag). 

My Uk based family member laughed, 'For years nobody could get Eire and Northern Ireland and the UK government to agree on anything. Then the EU did it straight away!" (I could hear the speaker and their family in the IK were laughing.) 

'Also, (over in America, new American President) Biden keeps mentioning his Irish roots. So the Americans would also have been against the border.'   

So, Lockdown London has a little good news to send us and the world.

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is teacher of English. (Advanced English and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, an aspiring polyglot.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of many toastmasters  speaker training clubs, and speaking contest judge.

Angela Lansbury, the author of 20 books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations, has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. 

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Double bananas - more thought

I asked my Singaporean friend if she had ever seen a double banana before. She seemed unconcerned, uninterested. "Yes," she said. "They are quite common."

So why do we never see them in England? Firstly, because we don't get the bunches of small bananas. We import large ones, presumably not from Asia but other countries where larger ones have been developed by planting or genetics or natural selection.

Secondly, EU regulations would reject anything odd. In fact EU regulations on bananas are a notorious joke in England. People say we want to get out of the EU because they tell us the shape and size our bananas must be.

Supermarkets also reject off shapes and sizes, claiming that the customer is fussy and won't buy. But every now and then along comes a whistle blower and recycler who demands that misshapen cheaper fruit, broken biscuits, odd shaped chocolate, should be brought back and offered at bargain prices to those who are not fussy and can't afford top quality.

Besides, a lot of broken biscuits and funny shaped food can be used either as pet food, or plant food, or compost, or for those who are too old or young to care, especially when mixed into items such as cakes and casseroles. Providing the food is safe, a chopped up carrot can be any size and shape in a casserole. Likewise, bananas of any shape and size can be mashed up in banana bread, a favourite food in Singapore because bananas are plentiful and cheap.

My Singaporean friend told me odd shaped or double bananas are frequently seen in Singapore. After we had eaten it and looked at the photo, I thought, we ought to be able to sell that on ebay. Too late. But what if we get another.

"Impossible," say the family. "It's a banana!" In the heat they don't last long. We should at least have saved the skin and dried it. Alas it has gone now. Bin bags are emptied every day in Singapore. You can't leave leftovers lying around in the heat. You will soon get waving strings of ants dots across the work surfaces and cockroaches scarring across the four into holes in sitting boards and under fridges and furniture.

So out goes the rubbish, and by bye to the double banana skin. But at least I preserved the picture so we can all enjoy it later.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Please share my posts on bananas and other subjects.

EU Round Trip travel to 27 countries - air fares

I was sent this email about the cost of travel, by air, to 27 countries in the EU.

"The cost of visiting all 27 EU countries in 27 days, before a possible BREXIT

"22/06/2016, Kiwi.com - Online travel agency Kiwi.com have created a graphic (attached) showing the cost of visiting all 27 EU countries in 27 consecutive days. The epic round trip, which begins in London and lasts nearly 4 weeks, comes with a price tag of just under £1,500. As well as a cost breakdown per fight, the graphic also suggests a unique visitor attraction for each destination.

"Although the £1,500 sum covers only the costs of flights, Kiwi.com also calculated that for a grand sum of £2,800, inner-city travel, food, and the cost of entry to one major attraction would also be possible."

I have a busy day - so no time to research. I'd rather go by train and save the money. But there is a time factor. Driving would also take much longer. We once looked at driving to Lviv on the west of Ukraine. You can race through Belgium and Holland, but other countries take longer.

Got a thousand (pounds) or two or three to spare, and 4 weeks? At least you could write a blog or a book - and up your travel country count.

Who else might do it? You could do the same trip at any time. A honeymoon couple might be keen to visit all their family and friends scattered across Europe. A retired couple might want to sell up and see the world, rather than take hotel accommodation between selling one place and being another. A student with a four week summer holiday, and plenty of cash. A lottery winner. A linguist. A lover.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer, author, speaker.