Rally - Jaggy spotting

Here's a sight I never thought I would see. My big pal appears to have been spotted out and about, and not a rally car in sight. Of course there were four wheels in evidence, but there was no need for notebook and camera. Neither was there any need for a stopwatch. Indeed, the big chap was perambulating along at a most unnaturally leisurely pace, avoiding puddles and pot-holes and sleeping polismen. So it's not just Covid that is making life weird.

In times of darkness we all yearn for that first tantalising, uplifting glimpse of light. The promise of better times to come. The sport has lost too many good friends this past year, whilst the sport itself has been blighted badly. Similarly, business and domestic life has been sorely afflicted and life as we knew it seems to have been lost for ever.

And yet there is hope, although oddly enough I can't help feeling it's a bit like rally spectating. We've all done it - from the stage start or finish you walk into the first bend, and when you get there it doesn't look very exciting, but the next one ahead does. So you walk on, then stand and deliberate - is this worse than the first one? But then the next one beckons temptingly. So you walk on to the next, and then the next, and before you know it you meet equally indecisive lost souls coming the other way.

In the same way the end to this Covid business has proved to be every bit as annoying and frustrating. Many false starts and teasing predictions, but it does seem as though there is promise - at last.

In the meantime we all still have to be careful. No sport and no club nights, no socialising and no trips, and no pubs and no haircuts, just cairry oots and takeaways, old videos and magazines, box sets and Youtube, Zoom meetings and conference calls, not to mention sorting out the spanners and tidying up the garage - for the umpteenth time.

And then there's Brexit. What was initially promised as a quick, easy and friendly separation has taken three years of hot air, missed deadlines and countless 'final' deadlines and still nobody knows. And yet, despite the 'best endeavours' of both sides, seemingly working under the general principles of the Norman Wisdom School of Economics and Diplomacy, my big pal still has a smile.

He has every reason to be cheerful - there is new life to be celebrated and enjoyed, and that's surely a good sign when deep gloom pervades our nation. And the cause of that spring in the step? There's a grandbaby Bunnet about!

So let the good times roll and let new life bring light and hope into a dark and anxious world. And for the sake of that new life, we all have to be watchful and careful.

Take care, stay safe, and try to have a Merry Christmas.