After a fortnight spent mostly away from the keyboard, with only the occasional foray into commenting on other people’s stuff on their platforms, I’m back. We’ve had some great family times despite the ill advised and destructive lockdown that the Conservatives-in-name-only have foisted upon us.

We’ve had lots of family day trips to things like castles, forests, rural children’s playgrounds and to our favourite soft play centre that has just reopened. We had a couple of nice days in Wales where we admired magnificent scenery, visited friends and even had a day on the beach in glorious sunshine at Barry Island in South Wales. We went to the fairground there and Laughing Boy had his first trip on a ghost train and the Big Wheel, which he loved.

Back home I’ve been finishing off working on some sheds, reading, building dens in the garden and the conservatory with Laughing Boy. Rain has not stopped play either. Luckily LB is the sort of child who loves mud and rain and quite happily played in forest playgrounds whilst it was tipping down, laughing his little head off in amusement at the rain and jumping up an down in the muddy puddles that the downpour created. His preference is for rain and snow and he finds too much sun and heat unpleasant, even when deeply smothered in sunblock. Whilst other families were running for cover from the rain LB was bouncing up and down in the mud whilst shouting ‘look Daddy, lots of mud’.

There was a small amount of unpleasantness however during the holiday. The first was on Barry Island where the local council has seen fit to install a very loud PA system, similar to those which were used in the old Iron Curtain countries to dish out propaganda to long suffering citizens. The council uses this PA system at worryingly short intervals to hector both visitor and resident alike with exhortations to not bring beer to the beach, not to litter, not to have barbecues and to follow Covid guidance. I’ve nothing against council’s giving out such advice, but some signs would have been less intrusive than a hectoring PA system. Still, I suppose if the Welsh will vote in socialist knobheads to their Assembly, it is to be expected that things like Iron Curtain style nagging PA systems will be put up. The other unpleasantness was a visit to a once great restaurant. The food was still good but pointless, petty and intrusive Covid related restrictions made the experience for me one I wanted to end as soon as possible. The restaurant removed the children’s play equipment from their garden and a one way system in place which meant that if you went into the garden you had to walk right around to the front of the place to get back in. We were not allowed table sauces, salt cellars or pepper mills and nor was our food put before us, we had to take it ourselves from the proffered tray. These are pointless and unnecessary rules to prevent a disease that seems only to kill 0.1% of those which it infects. I came away from the meal thinking that the only thing that I have seen Covid destroy is the once lively atmosphere of a friendly family restaurant.

I’m back and getting back into more of a politics frame of mind and I can see that a lot has happened since I’ve been away. The scandal of the Channel invaders continues as does the housing of these invaders in the sort of luxury unknown by most Britons, many of whom were struggling before Boris Johnson knackered the economy. In America the Democrats are still looking like crazy Communists and in the UK the Liberal Democrats have elected a new leader who is only slightly less dodgy and ‘out there’ politically than his challenger Layla Moran. The Lib Dems now have a leader who has a track record for dodgy ‘Green’ legislation which has increased Briton’s fuel bills instead of a woke cretin who someone once amusingly described as ‘looking like a low rent dominatrix’. I doubt very much that the new leader will improve in any drastic way the Lib Dem’s parliamentary performances or numbers, I don’t think that what they are offering which is in my view more tax, more wokeness, more restrictions on freedom and even less Britain, because of their EU-phillia, is all that popular with the public. I expect they will do well in local elections as protest vote candidates and because of the Lib Dems well known capacity to misinform and be evasive to voters in their party political communications.

As I said, I’m back and normal service is being resumed.