Thanks @rechu it's interesting to read your opinion on the elections - I'm so glad to 'know' you on here!

Well there's a bit of a development here in that our area has been named as one of 5 areas of concern because of the Indian variant. Of all things they have been testing sewage water which is apparently an accurate method of tracing outbreaks. Cases are still low but they've nearly doubled in a week. It really does seem this Indian variant is more contagious and of course we are now socialising more.

One of the outcomes of this is I may get my 2nd vaccine a bit earlier than expected as they want more people fully dosed as quick as possible.

Funnily enough I just read a report saying the 3 month spacing of doses results in a higher level of antibodies rather than the 3 week spacing. But they're now shortening it to 8 weeks because of the new variant.

I really enjoyed my afternoon indoors at my parents house and my niece was there too - they've all been fully vaccinated and my niece had even taken a lateral flow test the night before! So we went maskless which felt good! Tbh I think I'm going to keep it pretty small scale, close family only indoors for quite a while until things are clearer!