Still Flowering

The Geraniums in the tubs are still flowering thankfully, as finding blips is getting harder! I leveled up the pond today between heavy showers, just a bit to do tomorrow on this. The soil is so wet though that I need to leave it to dry out a bit before trying to get the liner on it (I think we've had rain pretty much every day for a month now). I attended a virtual tour of the David Parr house in Cambridge today. The software used to show the house worked really well and after the official tour I went back in to have a better look round. I first heard about it at a U3A talk earlier this year and was on the waiting list for an actual tour, but with Covid they developed the online tour   https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2664194262031141932

Day 222 / Day 10 of The 3 Tiers (for my record only)
UK deaths up 224 to 44,571 (revised basis), with a 20,530 rise in new daily cases, 7,706 patients in hospital and 707 in ventilator beds. Globally cases to date pass 42m, up 1m in 3 days. Cases to date in France pass 1m and a French scientist warns that the 2nd wave is spreading more quickly than the 1st. Wales enters a 17 day firebreak, as ICU doctor warns of hospitals in the country being overwhelmed by the 2nd wave. Scotland introduces a new 5 level system to come into force on 2nd Nov, with one level broadly at either end of the English tier system. The UK's R no. reduces slightly to 1.2-1.4 and has been pretty stable for a few weeks. This week's ONS survey to w/e 16th show new daily cases in England of c35,200 with 1 in 130 people or 433,300 believed to have the virus. The North West had the highest infection rate at 1 in 59. Council leaders in Warrington say they've agreed to a move to Tier 3. Some CV testing on sewage is now underway and results reported to T&T, the scheme is low in England but will be extended. The ONS reported a 17.4% jump in retail sale volumes in Q3, with spending in particular on home improvement and gardening items.