11 December Continuing negative notes regarding a No Deal Brexit in under 3 weeks. Headline writers, commentators and politicians are good at blaming ‘the other side’ for being unreasonable, intransigent, failing to understand the underlying basis of ‘our’ position, and introducing last-minutes changes to their demands. Maybe one side is more to blame than the […]

10 December The news today seems downbeat on the likelihood of a trade deal between the UK and EU before the Transitional Arrangement ends on 31 December. Food companies say that WTO tariffs could mean price rises over a range of goods. Some of us may simply accept the higher prices because we particularly like

9 December It was announced yesterday that we are going back to Tier 3 on Friday. Not quite ‘let’s get the bunting out’, but still better than being in Tier 4. The infection rate seems to have come down significantly over the last few weeks, but presumably the authorities are worried that relaxing the restrictions

8 December The massive task of vaccinating the population has begun today. As well as expressing thanks and appreciation to those who developed the vaccine(s), we thank too those who have arranged the delivery and distribution and will be administering the programme and the actual needle-in-the-arm bit. There will be anomalies and hiccoughs, some people

7 December This year no West Kirk Christmas market, no Riverside Senior Citizen’s lunch, so we put the tree up on Saturday, somewhat earlier than usual. We have eclectic mix of decorations – made at nursery, things that came from Christmas crackers, made or given by friends etc. For a number of years we have

5 December Just as the news got more hopeful on the Covid-19 front, things started to turn more awkward on the Brexit one. I think if we were involved, we might have long since lost the will to live. I did once hear it suggested that it was a mistake to involve men in negotiations

This Advent the Church of Scotland Guild has produced a special online Big Sing event. Introduced by the Guild’s National Convener Mabel Wallace, the Advent 2020 Big Sing features Rt Rev Dr Martin Fair, Moderator of the General Assembly, offering a special reflection from Arbroath Abbey. As well as a selection of favourite hymns, the

4 December Earlier this week we heard that approval had been given to use the first of the Covid-19 vaccines, and plans are in place to begin the massive task of vaccinating people next week. That is really encouraging news, and we appreciate all the work that has gone into it, with countries and scientists

I hope that you can share this website link with your church contacts – https://www.connectingdumbarton.com/   It relates to a project which WDC are taking forward in partnership with Sustrans to improve connections in and around Dumbarton. The focus is improving the link into the town centre along College Street. We are trying to gather