Last week, I felt thoroughly fed up and angry for the first time in my 10 months of shielding. We wrongly think of ourselves as being on the last leg of this awful pandemic and many of us are eager to get jabbed and move on with our lives. Jules and I certainly aren't land lubbers and miss Leslie Frank very much. Reality hit me last week. It will take months to roll out the vaccines, there will be a 12 week gap between doses and the scientists are already talking about restrictions needed for next winter. For the first time I felt resentment and anger for the OAPs who we see flaunting the rules in our village and who will get their vaccine before the clinically vulnerable, teachers, shop assistants, postmen and so forth. It was amazing how many grandparents in our village had the whole family to stay over the entire Christmas period, many travelling from the outskirts of London. And if I see another old person wearing their mask under their nose I will not be responsible for my actions. Apparently they can't read either, as it says "one person at a time" in our little village bakery but they barge their way in saying they don't want to get a cold, never use the hand sanitiser and then try to shut the door. Then I have been raging about Boris and his clowns. Matt Hancock told me in a letter in November how important Vitamin D tablets are to the vulnerable, and they would be rolled out to those that need them... thank goodness I didn't rely on him as I am still waiting. Then I have been raging over Brexit... the EU banned a pesticide two years ago which is bee harming. We have now licensed it for emergency use on sugar beet crops. Is this what Brexit will bring....a lowering of standards but more profit for someone. I began to feel so resentful that I knew I had to take action in order to restore my blood pressure and sanity.

So during this week I banned myself from watching the news and I have bought myself a lovely book... 'How to be more like Paddington'. Paddington said, "Aunt Lucy taught me to count my blessings. It's the first thing she does when she wakes in the morning. She says nine times out of ten you have far more than you think. I've been counting my blessings. Except I do mine before I go to sleep. I have so many I may not have time for tomorrow".
So I have taken a leaf out of Paddington's book! Here are a few of my blessings.

Firstly we got the heavy hoar frost and have had some spectacular walks from home. One memorable walk was with my sister. We stopped in the village for sausage baps and hot drinks and ate them by the babbling brook. This time we had remembered to ask for no butter and had taken our own bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup. Once warmed through we walked through fields and woods overlooking the little hamlet of Ellerburn. We saw pregnant sheep, fat robins and lots of pheasants. Poor patch.. he tries so hard to catch them, but just ends up exhausting himself. The ice had formed all sorts of pretty patterns in the many pools of water lying on the grass and roads, and unfortunately my sister went flying. She was lucky that nothing was hurt and we carried on with our walk, marvelling that the sun was out and the skies were blue.

At last we have had snow, and we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was raining when we set off, and there was an amazing rainbow in the sky. When we got to the edge of the moors on the way to Whitby large flakes started to fall. The road is often closed if it gets too bad, so we decided to go no further and parked at the Hole of Horcum and walked across the moors. Within a few minutes we were walking in a full blown blizzard, but the path was well defined and we walked out for 50 minutes, stopped for coffee and biscuits out of the rucksack and made our way, back. It was superb, Tinker made snow dogs (rather than angels) in the snow and Patch disappeared with his white coat. By the time we got back to the van the car park was deep in snow and the little takeaway coffee van was offering last drinks before packing up. We got hot chocolate topped with cream and sat in the van with the heating blasting and warming our hands.

'White Cottage' is a lovely little patchwork shop in Seisdon and they have had a Christmas material sale. The shop is shut, but you could see the selection of material on Facebook and either collect it from the doorstep or have stuff delivered by post. I decided to buy a few half metres with my Christmas money and rang Jackie up. Jules bought me a cup of tea and we had a lovely catch up on the phone for half an hour, despite Jackie being very busy with phone calls and emails. When you visit her shop she always offers you a drink and often a piece of cake whilst you look at the material and at Christmas it is always mulled wine and mince pies. When we lived In the Midlands we often popped round to the shop on the way back for a walk... a quick five minutes always turns into an hour. Jackie always insisted on taking mulled wine and mince pies out Jules, waiting in the car. When my parcel arrived there was extra material... I emailed immediately to be told to treat it as a late Christmas or early birthday present... what an amazingly kind thing. This was shortly followed by a package arriving from my friend Sue, and it made me feel so blessed. Sewing has been a great thing for me to do in lockdown.

Kate, our neighbour has continued to be a total star. Asda has struggled to deliver the basics, and when Kate sent me photos of the shelves in the local shops I could see why. There were whole aisles bare of produce. I don't know what people intend to do with all those tomatoes, potatoes and cabbages... perhaps they want to use up the toilet rolls that they hoarded from the first lockdown! Whenever Kate is shopping she rings and gets us anything we haven't been able to get. I don't know what we would do without such an amazing friend and neighbour, and she now has three children to home educate as well! Yesterday afternoon she stood in our private road as we were in the garden and had a cup of tea at the same time. She made us howl at stories of home schooling and zoom ballet classes!

We are very relieved that the government is currently allowing builders to work, although we think that might change soon. Despite the bad weather we now have foundations built and the brickwork started for our extension. Our builder Darren is adorable. He has a soft Northern Irish accent and is very calm and patient. He has done everything to make the site Covid safe with his own toilet and stays well away from us. They have built a huge wooden wall in the kitchen, so they can work safely on the other side of it in the wet and rain (rather than through the kitchen), but it makes our house Covid safe. Each morning we take out all the equipment for tea making and at least two packets of biscuits. If the weather is bad Jules makes bacon and egg baps in a morning and puts them on a tray in a designated safe place and I put Cornish pasties in the oven for them at noon. They listen to eighties pop music all day, Karma Chamelion by Boy George plays at least twice a day... pure bliss!

Tinker has been poorly for a few months now. She has a regular poorly tummy and we think she has a touch of dementia and her spark seems to have gone out of her. This week she has gone from being a dog who is happy to go out and walk miles with us, to a poorly girl who wants to be in front of the fire or next to us on the settee. Her breathing has become a little laboured too. So on Wednesday morning we rushed her to the vets. We were delighted that the vet said she has a healthy heart and her lungs are fine and is certainly in no pain, but we have to accept that fifteen is a very old age for a dog. So I am enjoying lots of hand sewing with the fire raging and Tinker's head on my lap. As long as she is content, happy to eat and have a little walk each day, we are going to enjoy looking after her. Yesterday my mom and sister walked through our village and came to the gate to deliver warm sausage rolls to her. Suddenly, she managed to get off her sick bed and wag her tail and have some love. She has not wagged her tail for a week now, which was brilliant to see and throughout the day she enjoyed little bits of sausage roll.

Patch is so adorable he lies beside Tinker and makes sure his big sister is alright, and now has a lovely new haircut. This week on our walk, Patch did not come back when I called him. Nothing new there! A man shouted" I think your dog is making love with mine". Luckily it was a Labrador and, try as he might, Patch's little legs just couldn't reach up to hold on. He was valiant in his attempts but his back legs dangled in the air and he kept sliding off. The man appeared to be very disappointed, saying they would make beautiful babies and he would go halves on the profits with me. I was grateful that my baby boy will maintain his innocence for a little longer!

My last blog was our most read blog and the one I have had the most phone calls and emails about. It has been brilliant talking to so many friends and family and to know that people enjoy reading our posts. My brother and I had a debate as to why in the first round the government said that people of multi ethnic backgrounds were most at risk, but now the Government just talks about age. That very evening on the news, they reported from a hospital in London where everyone on breathing apparatus were from ethnic backgrounds, including a pregnant lady. My brother feels it is a tactical move as the government fears race riots if they announced that multi ethnic people should be higher up the vaccine list. The government also said people from deprived areas in multi-generational houses were more likely to die. Perhaps if they put them higher up the pecking order they would have to admit they urgently need to do something about the housing situation. My sister and I discussed the moral dilemma facing doctors making the decision about whose life to save. Holland have just passed a law making it illegal for doctor's to decide based on age or previous health conditions.

I have continued to have a rich and varied social life on the phone, zoom or Facebook with friends. Jo and I have discussed why you can walk, but not play golf. Vicki has sent me recipes, and we had a glass of wine with my aunt and uncle. We have listed to Jon Boden and Kate Rusby singing from their front rooms and Dee and I spent two hours laughing about nothing in particular!

And like Paddington, I am going to stop there, or my list of many blessings will go on forever.