CROSS STREET, NEWCASTLE

I had an appointment for my seasonal Covid booster jab this afternoon at The Centre For Life in Newcastle.  I went for an early bus just in case the buses were unreliable.  In the end the bus came on time and I got to town around 2pm.  As my appointment wasn't until 3.45pm I had plenty of time to spare.  Didn't want to get any shopping as I would then have had to carry it around so I went for a wander.  According to my Strava app I walked over 4 miles.

No flowers this Friday so I went for derelict.  The building thats still standing is a real mess.  Every time I go past its in a worse condition and the tree that's growing up the front is bigger.  The empty plot next to it was the scene of a tragic fire in 2015.  A shop with 3 storeys of flats above occupied the site and the owner of the shop - a successful entrepreneur -  sadly died.  Eleven fire engines attended and 55 firefighters fought for 6 hours to bring the fire under control. It was later discovered that a faulty TV set had caused the blaze. Its about time both sites were given a new lease of life instead of looking like an eyesore.

When I got to the vaccination venue there was a queue of around 10 people waiting outside.  Mostly old folk but there were a couple of students. Everyone had an appointment. The queue moved slowly.  When I got indoors I found that they were using quite a small room ( more like a reception area really ) which was not big enough to cope.  Previously when I had been there for Covid jabs they had used a very large room for vaccinations and there was another room for people to wait afterwards for 15 mins or so to make sure they were OK.  No waiting today - got my jab and sent straight on my way. I had the  Spikevax bivalent Original/Omicron BA.1 jab.  So far no side effects - not even a sore arm.

After getting jabbed I did a bit of food shopping .  Bus home was on time too.  A " good bus day " for a change.

The weather was nice today - mostly warm and dry.  However it did rain for a while when I came out of The Centre For Life.  Unfortunately the last thing I did before leaving the house earlier was to take my brolly out of my bag having read the weather forecast which said " no rain ".  Sods law isn't it.

Enjoyed the Strictly preview show this evening.  Some familar names - but a few Ive never heard of.

Stesp today - 10,692