If your a follower of tennis you couldn’t help notice that there was more excitement prior to the tournament then possibly during the ongoing Australian Open. The top player in the world was front and centre in a stupid, silly legal battle to play in Australia. Basically the rules to enter the country were very straightforward….you need to have proof of a double vaccination. The player in question - Novak Djokovic has been vocal that he won’t take the vaccine and thus should have been not allowed to enter the country. Here is where it began to get murky! Novak entered the country through a technicality - he claimed that he was eligible for a visa based on the fact that he had recently recovered from Covid 19. The tournament director has to assume much of the blame as he advised that this was legal and so Novak boarded his flight and arrived in Australia. The border control officers detained him for at least 8 hours and revoked his visa. With the help of his high-powered legal team he brought a legal challenge and surprise he won. The image below provides the best overview of what actually transpired

The uproar on social media was overwhelming and the divide was easy to see - if you were from Serbia you generally supported Novak (I say generally) and if you were on the side of getting the jab most people made felt that he got what was coming to him. The players were generally quiet about this and surveys conducted in Australia overwhelming wanted Novak out of the country. So, the end result was he was deported after losing the second legal battle. Sometimes you have to wonder what is driving people to take such a strong stance at getting the vaccination. We have had two long years of lockdowns, terrible tragedies and we still have a very large number of people who refuse to get the needle. His refusal has made him a “martyr” with some right-wing fans and the issue highlights the divisive issue raised by the pandemic - the question of individual freedom versus our collective responsibility. I don’t think this issue will go away as it may get more challenging for professional athletes to travel. For Novak to enter tournaments in the United States he supposedly has to show proof and at this point that doesn’t seem likely.

So at the time of this writing there are 3 players tied with 20 Grand Slam Victories - Roger Federer, Novak and Rafa Nadal. As you can see from the images above people were having fun with this by suggesting they were part of the Australian Border Control police.

The Big Dump of Snow

No great surprise to anyone who lives in Canada as we received the “big dump” earlier this month. It was a large one with most people having to stay home and not drive anywhere. I had planned on going in to work and my wife asked if I could drive her. We left the condo and we quickly realized we made a mistake. The roads were bad and it simply wasn’t safe. Unfortunately, we couldn’t turn around so we had to abandon the car about 2 km away in Yorkville and we had to walk home. I went back near the end of the day and I had to shovel the car out. It wasn’t easy and it was tricky to get back home. We are a week past the snowstorm and the roads are still challenging and as I sit here it’s snowing once more.

Unfortunately it’s cold so this snow won’t be going anywhere soon. It’s safe to say we still have another 60 days of this before we can start to see light at the end of this tunnel. I generally hate the winter, so I’m so looking forward to being outside and enjoying the sunshine. Bring it on please…..

Of course no blog post would be complete without an appropriate image of Miss Ellie. She just had her 1st birthday and she is simply wonderful. Can’t say she is thrilled with the snow and it has been a bit cold for her. You can see how deep the snow was when Sheila took her out for a walk the past week.

I thought I would leave you with these two images (okay, I didn’t take them and yes, I’ve copied them from the internet). In the 2 years since retirement, I have not done any traveling. I had hoped to visit Europe and hang out in Paris -and of course with the pandemic that didn’t happen. Will it happen in 2022? Probably not but maybe in 2023? I would love to rent an apartment for a few weeks and try to become a local. There are a lot of great places to visit and Paris is not the only one. I think it would be great to go to Ireland and visit the countryside of England. So, let’s keep hoping.