Loony Dook

We arrived in Ullapool on Hogmanay to spend our first New Year here. Unfortunately Davie and Chanel couldn’t join us; Chanel tested positive for Covid on Boxing Day and Davie also has symptoms. This means that they have had to self-isolate at home. Naturally we were all disappointed but we are not the only family affected by this; over the past week there have been more than a million new cases of Covid, so lots of people have needed to self-isolate and have been separated from family during the festive season. The better news is that the Omicron symptoms seem to be much milder than previous variants; David and Chanel have told me that their symptoms are like those of a heavy cold. The number of hospitalisations and deaths is going up but not by a huge amount, so the hospitals are coping with the numbers of patients - so far. If numbers of Covid patients in hospital don’t rise too much over the next few weeks the restrictions won’t have to be increased, and we will be entering the phase of “living with Covid” rather than locking down. We shall see. 

We have car troubles again, probably expensive again, and less than six months after the last time. Too boring to blog about, but it means the car is off the road for a couple of weeks again; very annoying. Luckily Ally and Cat have stepped in to save the day by lending us Ally’s car and then travelling north (tomorrow) in Cat’s car. If they hadn’t kindly offered to do this, we would have had to cancel all of our New Year plans. 

So we arrived in Ullapool yesterday afternoon in Ally’s car, with the cats who seemed much calmer this time, and we both felt very happy to be back in the cottage. 

Because of the recent surge in Covid, the Scottish government decreed a week ago that restaurants can remain open but not nightclubs, which means that that the Ceilidh we had booked at the Ceilidh Place was to be dinner only with no dancing. It was a really nice occasion but a Ceilidh without dancing isn’t quite the same as it should be! It was very amusing to see the variety of attire that people wore; everything from very smart to very casual - we noticed that at one table there was a man dressed in full dinner suit sitting beside his friend wearing a rugby shirt! Dinner was excellent and the folk music was great, and a piper welcomed in 2022.

The weather is surprisingly mild for the time of the year, but very windy, so I swithered about whether to join the Estuary Swimmers for their Loony Dook at Ardmair beach this afternoon. In the end I went along and was very pleased that I did. There were about ten of us and the water felt breathtakingly cold at first, but I quickly got used to it and swam around in the waves for about 10 minutes. I felt invigorated! Back at the cottage I had a warm bath and we watched the latest two episodes of Mackenzie Crook’s new take on Worzel Gummidge.