Whilst I can’t be where I would like to be, it’s not that bad inside thanks to the air conditioning.

And I’m studying up on how far I would need to wind down the air conditioner in order for it to snow inside the house.

A foolish notion maybe, but oddly enough living in a country where most of the inhabitants rarely see snow, if at all, Hollywood has a lot to answer for my expectations of a white Christmas.

But, venturing outside for no reason, in particular, the heat hits you as bad as if you walked into a brick wall.

It reminds me of the first time we visited Singapore, the plane arrived around midnight, and we were heading to an overnight hotel before picking up the next leg into London.

Yes, another trip to the cold side of the world.

We thought, late at night, how hot could it be. We soon found out. The short walk from the terminal to the waiting limousine was like wading through head-high water.

What does all this waffle have to do with anything?

Nothing.

Just wallowing in nostalgia.

I was once hoping with COVID slowly taking a back seat, places like New Zealand and Singapore might allow us to travel there again, but the idea of travelling anywhere in a confined space for a long period of time doesn’t feel safe, well, not to me anyway.

I’ve lost count of the number of waves we’ve had, but now, unlike every other time, people are still dying in, and case numbers are heading for high five figures, and for a country with only 28 million or so, that means nearly everyone has had it, or knows someone who has.

Now we have so many people isolated because of Omicron, there’s hardly anyone left to work, so, no staff for cafes or supermarkets or essential services like hospitals and ambulances, no one to deliver the fuel (or anything else for that matter), no one to harvest and process the crops, in which case, it means we’ll be roughly in the equivalent of dire straits.

It hasn’t exactly come down to a disaster, but we keep getting told things will be in short supply, and I’m beginning to think this is the retail organisations trying to inflate prices, not that they haven’t already.

How long before the lights go out because there’s no one to tend the generators. Summer and the necessity of air conditioning are going to be a crisis waiting to happen.

We were, and are, not prepared and never have been.

No one saw this coming? I think people just closed their eyes and made a wish that it would just go away because we had so many vaccinated. Sorry, doesn’t work that way. The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting it, just helps not to let it kill you.

Now the Israelis are saying a fourth booster is useless against Omicron. My doctor is advocating a fifth because I’m in a high-risk group. When will it end?

And, of course, Omicron is not the last of the variants. I’m sure there’s something nastier waiting in the wings. Sorry if I’m sounding despondent, but there isn’t any good news. None. Zip. Zero. Even our chief health officer, a person who should be trying to calm the population, is telling us everyone is going to get Omicron, and there are going to be deaths.

Wow!

I’ve locked myself away, trying to keep COVID at bay because of a compromised immune system, but my children, their partners, and partners’ families have all got it, and it’s far too close to home.

I can’t see how I’m going to dodge the bullet, and if I get it, then my chances of survival are small, even being triple vaccinated because all the studies prove the vaccine is useless against Omicron.

I was looking for a doomsday scenario for a book. The problem is, it’s here, right now, and I may not get to finish it.

Time to stop this, and get on with it.