May June be better

See what I did there? 😉

So the peculiarity that is 2020 marches ever onward. It seems long time ago that I welcomed in May with a nod to my Mum. What does "Blazing June" hold?

Well for one, it's unlikely to be as blazing as May - it's been an absolute roaster of a month bar a couple of chilly windy days and I've seen tell that in the next week or two we'll see temperatures declining and increased risk of rain, and my garden desperately needs the water to be honest.

Tomorrow sees the first real steps in a very cautious easing of lockdown by the Welsh Government, with the "Stay Local" message, because we need a new message don't we? It allows for people from two different households to meet outside (at last - hooray), but with guidance that this should be restricted to within a five mile radius but using common sense if for example you live in the wilds of Powys.

Whilst this is a welcome development, it seems to me from news, and social media that many people are ready stretching the guidance or flagrantly ignoring it. I will admit that we've hopped in the car and driven the 3 miles or so to Sully for a walk along the coast just to get a different view. We've also had a socially distanced cup of tea with our friends in their back garden a couple of times but have at all times kept well away from people. Common sense dictates that outside and at a distance, any risk is insignificant, but a bit more on common sense in a moment.

Tempting though it is to go to Barry Island one of our favourite walk spots, we'll hang on until it's allowed and the inevitable initial crowds have dissipated.  What we don't want or need is a replication of the recent scenes we've seen in England at Southend, Durdle Door, Bournemouth and Brighton to name just a few examples, and as frustrating as it is, the caution of the Welsh approach may be helping. On the other hand, it may be storing up a mad rush to the coast/beauty spots at the point the Welsh Government give us reign to go anywhere. Personally, I fear it's just delaying the inevitable.

Durdle Door, Dorset 30th May 2020: Image PA

Part of this rush to go frankly anywhere other than home in England is down to the gorgeous weather we're having with people not being in work for one reason or another and therefore having the time to do this, but it's undoubtedly also a reaction to the Dominic Cummings affair as people decide that if it's OK for him to break either the guidance or at the very least the spirit if the guidance, depending on how charitable you're feeling, it's ok for everyone else to break the rules. I think he and the UK Government have a lot to answer for in the way they've handled and communicated throughout this pandemic. I wouldn't have wished the management of this on anyone, but it seems they've made some   poor decisions at times.

The population (across the UK, not just in England) now seems to be split into two distinct halves. Those that are saying "bugger it" I'm going to do whatever I want to do because 1) I'm fed up of it all and 2) Dominic Cummings can and therefore so can I, and those (particularly in Wales) that are saying we should hold fast and not ease restrictions until we're absolutely sure and positive it's safe to do so. I was in the latter camp, but the longer this goes on I'm beginning to err towards the former. I think we need to allow for commons sense, even though some of the pictures we're seeing now suggest that in some parts of the country at least, that common sense is in very short supply.

And finally, on a different note, and like my pal Andy Pearce over at the "Better Out Than In" blog I think the time has come for a bit of a change on this blog.

I've been an inconsistent blogger over the 16 years of this blog's existence, with bouts of regular blogging interspersed with an occasional hiatus, most notably from 2016 to 2019. The blog has never had a theme, and was initially started just to enable me to jot down stuff that was of interest to me, in many ways as a sort of digital diary - I was never very concerned about who read it or getting many followers - if you read it and find something interesting or useful, I'm happy but it's not the be all and end all.

Blogging daily during lockdown has helped me come to terms with the current situation, whether I'm having a rant at the Government, posting about my walks or photography, but of late it's become more of a chore to write something every day and not repeat myself, and occasionally I've let my schedule slip and posted something at the last minute not because I had anything useful to write but just so I wrote something on that day.

So from tomorrow, I'm changing tack. I may post daily, but I may go several days without doing so. I'm promising myself to post at the very least weekly. And I may start to focus a little more on specific themes from time to time. My Fence Post post of a few days ago, got me thinking that it' might be fun to trawl back through my thousands of photos over the years and pick a particular shot I've taken that evokes particular memories, or reasons why I took the shot. So if you forgive the pun, I'll give it a shot, and see what happens!

Until next time....

#isolationlife
#staylocalsavelives