YOUR correspondent alludes to the failure to track and test those who have been obliged to self-isolate on arrival from abroad (“Confusion over the quarantine rules”, letters, February 12). Unfortunately, the latest mandatory hotel isolation requirements do not resolve these concerns. Indeed, they beg the question as to whether the new arrangements risk contagion in cramped, airless, air-conditioned environments as opposed to managed self-isolation at a nominated safe address. The new regulations effectively punish individuals financially and emotionally – £1,700 in exchange for 10-day incarceration – due to the failure of the Government to effectively apply their formal stated policy in relation to tracking and testing, which is central to the success of self-isolation.
Judy Dembsey
Editor s note: Judy Dembsey, master gardener and member of the Acton Garden Club, is a regular contributor to the Beacon. This month, she shares some February gardening tips and spring planning ideas.
It’s February! As you look out at the garden, do you see bleak perennial flower beds? Look out each window in your home facing the garden and imagine having something interesting to see.
Although you cannot plant at this time of the year, begin planning what you will see to create interest for next winter. Go out-of-doors and place a garden stake to mark the spot where you would like something of interest to purchase in the spring.
December 30, 2020
I was 79 on the 28th
December, the Feast of The Holy Innocents, and have just been introduced
to a new temptress named Alexa. She’ll play almost anything,
not with but for me, in an instant.
She apparently doesn’t
know THE BOYS OF KILMICHAEL, but does know KEVIN BARRY as rendered by Paul
Robeson, Lonnie Donegan and Leonard Cohen, but not by Joe Lynch which was the
most popular version on Radio Eireann. Robeson was taught it by Peadar
O’Donnell in 1949. The singer’s car had a puncture which was being fixed on the
way to a left-wing rally in, i think, New York State, and the veteran