So. Covid again. I know. Sorry.

Last time, I wrote about my return from Spain and the testing involved, and the frustration at being unable to log in to the NHS website to book a booster, and how the nearest walk-in centre was in Bristol or Swindon or the Isle of Wight.

Anyway, to give due credit to the random Randox PCR testing firm I chose off the government website, they did come back with a negative test result 36 hours after I handed my test in.

And then, in between writing my column (Tuesday) and it getting published (Thursday) I managed to get my booster.

That happened via a text message from a friend. He’d just turned up at Salisbury City Hall and despite no walk-ins advertised, he’d done just that.

I hotfooted it down and, sure enough, there was no queue and I walked straight in.

I asked the nurse on the desk why this was happening when the website was directing people to Swindon.

She explained that they weren’t advertising the walk-ins as they didn’t want to be overwhelmed.

There was certainly no danger of that. Not only was the centre not overwhelmed, I’m not sure it was even full enough to describe it as whelmed either.

Underwhelmed might be a better description, just when the booster campaign was meant to be flat out or full throttle or whichever term Boris is describing it as this week.

My own jabbing journey was smooth and straightforward: it just seemed a shame there weren’t more people there to get the same treatment.

So once again I’m on a Tuesday deadline and in between me filing this piece and you reading it, the government will come to some further decision about how to deal with Omicron.

My guess is that having had a three-hour cabinet meeting and decided nothing on Monday that this is probably the answer as to whether we’ll be allowed to have Christmas as planned or not. My guess, too, is that given having a circuit breaker after Christmas will be too late to make any real difference, in keeping with previous government announcements on restrictions, that’s exactly what we’ll be getting this time round as well.

Certainly, given the continuous drip-feed of stories and photographs about alleged parties at Downing Street and Conservative Campaign Headquarters, it would be difficult for Boris to ask everyone to dig deep again.

Particularly when his government’s track record suggests the only digging being done at Downing Street will be to see if there is another bottle of claret at the back of the wine cellar.

We’ll see. Anyway, may I take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very happy Christmas.

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