Misalignment

The Resident Fan Boy and I ventured out on to the roof between laundry room visits, and there, dangling above the western horizon, just clear of wispy bands of clouds, was Jupiter, and the pin-prick of Saturn hanging to his upper right.  It wasn't the climax of the conjunction, but it wasn't bad!

As the RFB and I returned to our apartment, he muttered: "A conjunction, a comet, and Mars - what's going on?"

"'S'plains a lot," I replied.

We had no idea.

Settling into the couch, I checked my messages and found an e-mail from our sociable neighbours upstairs.  They had been out for their morning walk, when a slippery patch left over from Monday's sloppy precipitation caught the wife off-guard, and they spent the bulk of yesterday in emergency.  Multiple fractures to both wrists.  Surgery in the new year.

This morning, elder daughter texted from South Wimbledon.  Her COVID app informed her that she had been in contact with someone with the virus.   (Hardly difficult in London at this moment.)  She's now required to self-isolate for five days.  Her plans to spend Christmas with her second cousins in Greenwich are out the window -- probably not a bad thing, considering Tier Four.  A comfort is that one of her flatmates and her husband had to abandon their plans for a holiday hotel stay, due to the new restrictions, so at least elder daughter will not be alone.

These darn things usually come in threes,  don't they?  Should I stop the star-gazing?