Good luck with the lateral flow test, Pam. Let us know how it goes. On the subject of Covid I have to say I'm alarmed at what appears to be complete mismanagement of the Omicron variant's arrival downunder - to the point that I feel we are much safer staying here in Vietnam where (apart from a few noisy expats complaining online about their loss of freedom), they fully accept that the way to stay safe when an airborne virus is attacking everyone in sight is to get vaxxed, stay home, stay covered, stay apart and stay clean. In Australia and other so-called "advanced economies" the governments seem to have bowed to the biggest noise, ie anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, anti-anything at all'ers - now already revealing a growing tragedy that should have been obvious from the outset even to "blind Freddie"!

Thanks Lee, you're doing a grand job and I hope you enjoy the learning curve - sooner you than me, that's for sure!

Best wishes to everyone on the new MB for a very merry Christmas and (hopefully) an even happier new year!

Excellent - best of both worlds: public messaging and private emailing at the click of a mouse, what more could anyone ask for!
And I was looking for a "go back" icon but couldn't find one so tried the one in my browser (<- and -> in top LH corner) - works a treat so don't have to keep going back via the "Home" icon anymore!
Now I'm gonna look for all those posts against various members' names that show on the Members List - oh what fun! Hands up anyone who didn't guess that we don't celebrate Christmas in Vietnam so, between lack of religious festivals and Covid lockdowns, we've got plenty of time on our hands!

Which I think shows what we all know, ie that UK and USA govt's are by far the worst offenders in terms of doing their job, ie looking after the safety of their citizens. Australia is marginally below Vietnam in case numbers per capita, but there are many other factors including, in VN's case, the majority of the population living with several families in the same house (in the highlands it's often in the same room!) so the 'inability to socially isolate' factor is enormous. And VN's economy is a fraction of Australia's so, while Australia's gov't was following the orange retard's lead and decrying the need to safeguard against Covid hence not buying vaccines, Vietnam could only appeal to "friendly" countries to donate the vaccines that VN couldn't afford (Australia could, but didn't think they needed them - duh!). As it turned out, it was the UK, US and Australian chambers of commerce, ie "big business interests", that helped get much needed vaccines into VN by reminding US, UK and Aust gov'ts that their supply of cheap goods from VN was at risk of drying up if all the cheap labour was dead or dying! Even then, despite pledging millions of vaccines and dollars to VN, the Aust gov't wouldn't support its own citizens in VN, saying only that "VN's vaccine rollout program is a matter for the VN gov't". Finally, after hordes of desperate Oz expats (including yours truly) had been hammering away on the Oz embassy facebook page for weeks, it was the Aust Chamber of Commerce president who stepped in and did the govt's job for them by reminding the VN gov't how much Australia was donating - and that the money came from Oz citizens, many of whom are living in VN but still paying taxes in Oz (we'll take a bow for that one, too!).  It was an absolute shambles and I was not a proud citizen while that was all going on in full view of the facebook public!  And have I mentioned VN's almost complete lack of health care facilities compared to any developed country? They've redeployed thousands of soldiers in Saigon alone to cremate the Covid dead and 'dispose' of their remains. And there are many more reasons why self-entitled anti-vax protestors in so-called educated countries should not be given the time of day, to put it mildly, but I'll stop now before the steam peels paint off our ceiling!

I shouldn't make a joke about Covid because it's devastated so many families around the world, but I used "capers" in the heading for this post to try and lighten things up a little so I can tell the story of how they're treating Covid in downtown Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam's Covid epicentre.
We live in the coastal resort town of Vung Tau, about 2 hours by road or hydrofoil from Saigon (no longer the city's official name but still widely used by Vietnamese, especially in the south). The highway Vung Tau-Saigon has been closed for the past 6 months to stop people bringing the virus into our town and infecting us all - but it was finally re-opened a couple of days ago, despite infection rates still being much higher than last year (like other places in the world influenced by 'Big Business' - in VN's case that's foreign investors wanting everything done their way "or we'll take our money elsewhere" - we're being told that after locking ourselves away for more than a year (literally - only allowed to open the front door to collect the day's meals that have been left outside!), we're now suddenly having to learn to "live with Covid"! Amazing...
But the best bit is in Saigon. If you leave home, best take plenty of money and spare clothes because you will be rapid antigen tested before entry to any gov't agency, business, shopping centre or other venue where large crowds gather, and anyone who shows positive is immediately carted off by ambulance to one of the "field hospitals" (tent cities) with siren blaring - and never seen again until they test negative (follow-up tests every 7 days!). So you might "pop down to the shops" but not be seen or heard from again for weeks - or ever!
I can't help wondering how such treatment would go down in western countries where the snowflakes complain about 'infringement of civil liberties', 'loss of freedom', etc even when just being told to wear a facemask!!! 

Doesn't it usually snow before Christmas in UK these days? I ask because our weather in Vietnam has slipped back a good month in the past 20 years: we get only minor temperature variance year-round (and no more than 3degC in any 24-hour period), but we used to get monsoonal rain in southern VN April-October - and now it's May-November! I'll be taking the rear mudguard extension off my mountain bike next week because we won't see a single drop of rain for the next 6 months.