Daily Post – February 23rd 2021

Living through a pandemic

in the south of France

342 days in Carcassonne since

1st lockdown in March 2020

▫️ DAILY AND WEEKLY STATISTICS HERE .

▫️ If according to French Public Health, 36% of the cases of Covid-19 in France present a suspicion of an English variant and 5% of Brazilian or South African variants, the situation in ex-Languedoc-Rousillon, as of February 20, is disparate depending on the department.

In the Gard: 30% to 50% of the tests are suspicious of the English variant. No cases of South African or Brazilian variant are detected.
In the Hérault: 30% to 50% of the tests are suspicious of the English variant. Less than 1% would be South African or Brazilian variants.
In Lozère, no cases of variant has been detected by the health authorities.
In Aude: 10% to 29% of the tests are suspicious of the English variant. 1 % to 2.4 % would be South African or Brazilian variants.
In the Pyrénées-Orientales: 10% to 29% of the tests are suspicious of the English variant. No cases of South African or Brazilian variants were detected.

▫️ UNFAIR My dear spouse was contacted by my doctor this morning who wanted to make an appointment for get vaccinated. Being under 65, she qualifies to be vaccinated by her own doctor with the AstraZeneca as from the end of the week. In fact she has a video appointment later today with her own doctor to fix an appointment. Good service though. For the likes of me being over 65 but under 75, we are now more or less at the end of the queue in a group where not enough vaccines are being made available to accelerate things. Patience is a virtue they say.

▫️ INCOME TAX

Not quite the time yet to make your income tax declaration, nevertheless the new scale has been officially published.

▫️ QUESTION: I can see, when checking the traffic to my web page, that there is 1 single person logging in regularly from Canada 🇨🇦 . I assume it is the same person. It could of course be someone from a completely different location but using a VPN pointing to Canada. As a matter of interest, I would love to know who that is. So if you read this, maybe you can send me a short message via a comment which will of course remain anonymous. Thanks.

▫️ DAYS OFF: Yesterday we planned to spend a few days in Cavalaire in the Var Departement. The idea is to meet up with my brother and his wife for a few days at some point in the first half of March. I am seriously looking forward to a change of scenery even if bars and restaurants will be closed. Beeing at the sea side has a lot to go for. Looking forward to the long walks at the beach in the place I might call my second home. I also have dear friends in the area I really want to see.

Today it was decided that in the Alpes Maritimes departement (Nice area) that a new lock down will will take effect for the at least next 2 weekends. Nice being 100km away from Cavalaire I had to check and compare the situation in the relevant departements and compare it to our area which is the Aude (11). Cavalaire is in the Var (83), Nice is in the Alpes Maritimes (06). The situation is quite worrying both in 83 and 06 which are ajoining departements compared to our area.

I guess that before I commit fully to the foreseen trip I shall monitor the situation very closely.

▫️ SAHARA’S SAND COVERS THE PYRENEES

On Sunday, February 21, 2021, the Pyrenees were partly covered with a thin layer of sand from the Sahara. And the phenomenon was expected to carry on Monday.

▫️ ANCILLARY NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND from our correspondent in Britain

✒️ Blooming marvellous

Super-rare Amazonian cactus flowers in the UK for possibly the first time ever.

A super-rare Amazonian cactus has flowered for what experts believe is the first time ever in the UK but it has already started to wither. The tropical Moonflower, or Selenicereus wittii, is usually exclusive to the floodplain rainforests of the Amazon Basin in South America. However, Cambridge University Botanical Gardens (CUBG) has been home to one of these rare and exotic cactus plants since 2015. Yesterday, for the first time, it flowered after a bud grew from the bizarre-looking plant. But it happens just once, and only for around 12 hours, and it has already started to close up again.

Watch it here

✒️ Make yourself useful…

One man’s mission to clean Devon town one road sign at a time

He’s cleaned hundreds of signs since the third lockdown and he has no plans to stop soon.

When England entered its third national lockdown, one Tavistock local set himself the challenge to clean up the road signs. Allen Lewis says that since he started, he has cleaned hundreds of signs and he has no intention of stopping anytime soon. He has also received a huge amount of support from the local community too as they beep when they see him and also have started to donate.

It’s a sign of the times!

▫️ MUSIC

ANOTHER ONE IN MY TOP 100

One of my favorite bands