Vaccination day coming

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Canada, covid, PEI, Vaccine

So the festivities of my Birthday have come to an end, it was great fun and the food and cakes were much appreciated by my guests. Will did a wonderful job of organizing it all.

Sunday night I went online to book my turn for the Covid Vaccine. We have a system here on PEI called SKIP THE LINE, this allows you to book a medical appointment online if your family medical doctor is not available and you need to see a doctor pronto. I think it is better than going to Emergency, no waiting and once you booked a time you go at the appointed hour. They even send you a text telling you that you should leave home and make your way to the clinic, your turn is coming up.

So I booked online by vaccination date, all I needed was to give my name, home address, DOB and my Health Card number, within a minute I was booked for 27 April.

Vaccinations are given at the hockey arena about 5 minutes from our house. Will is booked for earlier in the month. The Government here follows a system of decreasing age for vaccination. They started 2 months ago with anyone over the age of 85+ then proceeded with all front line medical staff, etc. then doctors and dentists, etc.

Recently they also offered the vaccine to anyone working in a kitchen, restaurant or bar between the ages of 18 to 29. So it is going pretty fast and by 1 July it is now estimated that 80% of the population will have been vaccinated. PEI is way ahead of the National average and we have had none of the gong show and incompetence of Ontario and Alberta where politicians are playing medical doctor.

Spring is definitely here, with lots of rain and sun and mixed in together, mild weather is very nice. Now everyone is talking about what to do this Summer.

Alfred Hollins’ A Trumpet Minuet.

Getting there

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Biden, dachshunds, life, Neiman Marcus, news, ornaments, PEI, Vaccine, XMAS

Monday today some good news, first at the dentist, got x-rays and a good cleaning, I do this twice a year. My dentist told me I had perfect teeth and nothing to report. It has been like this for years and it always makes me happy to hear it. The second piece of good news was the start of the vaccination program in Canada. Everyone I spoke too wants the vaccine as soon as possible. Can’t wait attitude, it is almost as being liberated. It is very encouraging. By Friday on PEI there will be more people vaccinated than any people who got sick, again good news. The Prime Minister also announced that Canada will receive doses of the vaccine Moderna. So as it stands now all Canadians can be inoculated in a matter of a few months.

I also followed distractedly what was going on in the USA with the Great Electors voting to confirm Joe Biden as the winner of the national election in the USA and the next president. I also listened to the speech this evening by Joe Biden and found in it, the words and thoughts of past presidents, dignified, honourable, with empathy for people and a call to unity to all citizens. This is what a president does. In his speech the old America I knew came back. So happy to hear such words after four years of buffoonery.

After the dentist I came home and started to decorate the tree, which we will finish decorating tomorrow. It’s a big job, though the tree is only 7 feet tall. Like every year we said again, we need a second tree and given our very high ceiling it could be an 11 foot one.

The weather this week in the Maritimes is like living in Northern Europe, grey, foggy, low ceiling, clouds and wet and mild. Last night I walked Nicky around 10:30pm, the streets are dead quiet, no cars, no one anywhere. There was no wind and it was 45F, this is NOT normal we are in mid-December. There is snow in central Canada, Ottawa, Montreal, etc. not here. We have been promised a big storm, really, it is so mild it is impossible that we will get any snow at all.

Which reminds me of this little ditty, which is so very true of PEI.

Will it rain? Will it snow? I live in Prince Edward Island. I do not know!

Living here 5 years now I have come accustomed to the weather changing rapidly within 15 minutes on some days. Being an Island on the sea makes us susceptible to the prevailing winds much more so than people living inland. You would not want to be the Weather guy in PEI, it is a thankless job and more often than not you will be wrong.

The Christmas puppies, Nicky and Nora with their holiday scarves. They have quite the collection of scarves now, all made for them by a dear friend in Charlottetown.

As tradition dictates the first ornament is the oldest silver ball from Neiman Marcus of 1979, the year of our first Xmas together. The other 29 are distributed around the tree.

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!

Tags

Christmas, covid, life, Pfizer, the end, Vaccine

Today Health Canada has formerly approved the Pfizer vaccine and we will get 2 shipments one from Belgium and one from their lab in the USA. Inoculations will start next week and this means the end for Covid 19 and a better year for all of us. When the news was announced today around noon time, this song popped into my mind. Such a relief and the best Christmas gift.

Fruit Cake, a tradition

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Canada, Covid 19, Friendship, fruit cake, tradition, Vaccine

For the last 40 years our friend John H. sends us one of his famous home made fruit cake. He makes usually a dark and a light version in both cases they are soaking in Brandy keeping the cakes very moist. It is by far the best fruit cake I have ever had. No one else I know makes such a delicious cake. He does make quite a few because he gives them as gifts. We always had a fruit cake at home from John even in my far away postings.

Tonight for dessert I opened the cake he gave me, I believe it was made about 18 months ago. The cake as aged and it is the richer tasting fot it. It had a heavy smell of Brandy and all the fruits in it where sweet and juicy.

Absolutely delicious fruit cake, it won’t last long.

I mentioned previously that in years past we sent electronic Xmas cards but this year we decided to send paper ones. Now the work is to get all the addresses, I may have to go get more cards. Trying to complete the job in the next few days only 23 days before Christmas now.

The big news today in Canada from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health is that the Government has bought about 9 doses of the anti-Covid19 vaccine from 4 companies for each Canadian. There are 38 million Canadians this means we have 342 million doses total. The problem in Canada is logistics given are huge geographic area and 6 time zones, a lot of logistics will be required. But it looks like we are in the home stretch now.