RDQ 15/12 - will the government hold its nerve on Christmas?

I'm in a heavily residential part of central London. I suspect there's a difference.

We actually weren't after a turkey - my wife wanted a capon and various cuts of beef and veal. Half of that gets roasted and the rest goes into a large pot for boiling down to make a rich broth traditionally eaten at Christmas in her region with passatelli (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passatelli), which she will also make and which is utterly delicious and comforting. The boiled meat then gets eaten cold after Christmas with mostarda and other sauces (I am less keen on this aspect).

Liberated from the need to "eat English" chez my sister, there was no way my wife was going to not do things her own preferred way!!

Shopping trip later on which will be interesting. I am trying to make the day as good as possible for the old lady upstairs, she is improving quite a bit to be fair so I will pick up some knick knacks from Hasda Be so she has something to open. Akin to a child opening 'things', She has had a tough year so I'll see what I can achieve there. It will be what we make it I suppose.

Very sensible. Doing a good impersonation of one of the wise men there then ;-)  Female logic around Christmas does seem rather volcanic at the best of times. I volunteered to do a lot of house cleaning as SIL is arriving on Christmas Day. I casually said how clean the house looked, to which I was told "what you mean I don't clean it as well as you....". Cue frantic back peddling, apologies and mountains of humble pie....

'When in Rome' is the phrase.....that you're ignoring!   Has to be a traditional Christmas lunch for me if I'm at home, fine to have other things on Christmas Eve/Boxing Day, but I wouldn't compromise.  Even if I had to cook it myself, although I might not be quite as keen on keeping things traditional in the future after a year of me cooking.  

After discovering that our usual fishmonger of choice in Kensington had been stripped bare, my wife had the very bright idea of sending me up to the Waitrose in Belgravia on the premise that anyone who can afford to live in Belgravia has likely long scarpered to one of their other global boltholes in Mustique or wherever.

Top idea. Only a short queue and very well stocked. Got everything on my list including some fat Halibut steaks for this evening.

Apart from the queues outside certain shops, London feels very quiet. I reckon large numbers of people vanished to the countryside regardless of the rules.

That said, about 2/3rds of our immediate neighbours are at home, of whom half are unexpectedly so like us. We all know each other and there's been a remarkably good community spirit.

I think many people do get the point, but they understand that whilst untimely deaths are very sad, they are also rare and the question is where the balance should be struck.

For instance, up to 23rd Dec, the total number of NHS reported Covid deaths for England for those under 59 and with no pre-existing conditions is 388.

With a pre existing condition the number for that age group is 3,210.

By way of comparison, in 2019 the ONS report that 5,691 people killed themselves in England and Wales, of which 493 were males aged between 45 and 49.

I don’t know what the official likelihood of asymptomatic transmission is, but I’ve read it’s sub 1%. Similarly, the chances that you have Covid without symptoms is also sub 1% (ONS data). Therefore the likelihood of you not knowing you have Covid and infecting someone else is tiny (assuming no masks and social distancing).

So, assuming you feel fine, going out for a meal in a tier 2 area is not something that I would class as irresponsible or unnecessary, particularly when the Covid rules dictate the spacing between tables, masks for staff and masks for when you are not sat at the table. In all honesty, i feel safer in a restaurant than I do in the supermarket or a shop.