Month: April 2020

Feest Isolation Days – 30 April

Yesterday was rainy and the streets were empty.  A great time for a walk! I kitted up pulling on my raincoat and rain hat and a scarf and gloves.  Brrrr!  What a difference a day makes.  Terry had to stay in as he was expecting someone to collect a parcel and couldn’t leave it in the pouring rain.  So I ventured out on my own. It’s the first walk I have had without my husband for weeks.  I normally take a daily walk for an hour or more so this felt a real milestone.  The streets were deserted except for a few intrepid walkers and several irritating runners.  Do runners think they don’t have to move away if someone is coming towards them?  Three different runners all stayed their course as I walked and I made sure I gave them a very wide berth.  Strange.  I moved away from the few walkers there were and they did the same.  The bikers were few and far between, it was pouring!

The early gentle rain was exactly what the Doctor ordered for his garden. Soft and delicate rain, that didn’t bash anything to the ground and replenished the green of our lawn. Perfect! 

While we remain in lockdown here, New Zealanders are moving towards a different level of coronavirus public response today. I am becoming increasingly envious. Emails arrived from our favourite Auckland restaurant, and from my hairdresser there and even from a pool and Health Spa explaining their plans to reopen soon.  Although social distancing will remain in place, and there are rules for business to follow, New Zealanders must be enormously encouraged. 

Here, the newspaper headlines this morning were filled with the sort of words people wanted to hear.  “Hope In Sight”, “Turning The Tide”, “Not much Longer”.  All of these after Boris spoke and clearly said, the lockdown was still in place and there were not yet plans for the next phase until the governments five criteria are met.  They aren’t as easy to remember and are much longer than the, Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives mantra.  As we will be carrying out that recommendation for awhile yet, perhaps it doesn’t matter that I can’t remember the exact wording of the five criteria.

Yesterday we heard that Boris and Carrie are welcoming a new son to Downing Street.  Always a thrilling moment no matter the circumstances the world finds itself in.  Today is a special day for us, too. Our son, Alexander, is thirty-eight and I would like to wish him a Wonderful and Happy day!  He shares his birthday with the man of the moment, Captain Tom who is one hundred today. Retired army captain Tom Moore, who has used a walking frame to move around since breaking his hip, set himself the target of walking the 25 metres around his garden 100 times before his 100th birthday today and hoped to raise one thousand pounds for the NHS.  He has now raised thirty MILLION pounds!  What a feat! Many government ministers and Boris during his “I’m back at work” speech mentioned Captain Tom who seems to have captured the spirit of this strange time.  Not bad for a man who is 100.

For all those having Birthdays in lockdown, we will need to remember to have an “unbirthday” celebration when we next see each other.  Lewis Carrol started the trend in Alice Through the Looking Glass in the 1800s, and A.A. Milne had Pooh celebrating unbirthdays in the 1900s. When that vaccination comes, and celebrations resume, we will remember to celebrate in the 2000s!

In the meantime, I leave you with my favourite Capt. Tom clip. We all need a bit of a lift and this certainly gave me that the first time I heard it.

Humpty sporting his unbirthday cravat given to him by the White King and Queen

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 29 April

The weather has changed. No more sun filled breakfasts in the garden for awhile.  Instead, cooler weather means jumpers are back on and shoes are worn with socks.  Jumpers.  Until I moved to England, these warm knitted things used to be called sweaters.  Why jumper? In America a jumper is a dress that you wear on top of a blouse or sweater.  On a cool coronavirus filled day it seemed the right time to see if I might find out. 

A “jumper” possibly derives from the word for a man’s short coat, or a women’s underbodice in the 1800’s. However, there doesn’t seem to be any real agreement on its origin. Well that cleared that up then!  A sweater, however, was the name given to a woollen top garment because it was something worn that would make the wearer sweat. The term “Sweater girl” began in Hollywood in the 1940s and Lana Turner was the first star given the sobriquet after her 1937 film They Won’t Forget,  when she wore a tight sweater over her ample bust.  She must also have made a few men sweat…she was married eight times.

Thinking about the origin of words, I thought I’d look up a few more that are currently part of our new vernacular. 

Lockdown. A “Lock” is a Germanic word for a fastening mechanism, or can also refer to a space enclosed by such a device, which explains its use as a barrier in a canal. To “lock in” or to “lock up” originates from the 15^th and 16^th Century.  Lockdown, didn’t become used until the 1970s. It became the term used to describe the confinement of inmates or people in psychiatric hospitals. With half the world under lockdown, it will be interesting to see what future historians have to say about this word and when it really entered mainstream usage.

Social distancing Social distancing measures date back to at least the fifth century. “Lepers shall dwell alone” according to the Book of Leviticus in the Bible.  During the flu pandemic in 1918, schools in some parts of America were closed, public gatherings were banned and other measures to keep people away from each other were implemented.  In Philadelphia, however, the city fathers allowed a mass parade, didn’t institute any form of distancing and the fatality rates soared. Just wait for the current figures to come out of those American States where they prefer to exercise their “right” to congregate rather than practice keeping a social distance.

The World Health Organisation would prefer if we used the term Physical Distancing because one thing we are NOT doing is social distancing!  Zoom, What’s App, phone calls, emails, all of these methods are being used regularly to keep in social contact. 

The term social distancing was first used in the early 2000s by the New York Times when a writer suggested it was the “more politically correct way of saying quarantine.”

I wonder if the author was wearing a sweater or a jumper when he/she wrote that!

Coronavirus: This pathogen got its name due to the spiky crown (or corona in Latin) that you can see on its surface.  Covid19 officially is the disease this latest coronavirus causes.

(Following Quoted verbatim from the WHO website as it was so well written and clear) 

Viruses, and the diseases they cause, often have different names.  HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.  People often know the name of a disease, but not the name of the virus that causes it.

Viruses are named based on their genetic structure to facilitate the development of diagnostic tests, vaccines and medicines. Virologists and the wider scientific community do this work, so viruses are named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV).  

Diseases are named to enable discussion on disease prevention, spread, transmissibility, severity and treatment. Human disease preparedness and response is WHO’s role, so diseases are officially named by WHO in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

ICTV announced “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” as the name of the new virus on 11 February 2020.  This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003.  While related, the two viruses are different.   

WHO announced “COVID-19” as the name of this new disease on 11 February 2020, having originally called it “2019 novel coronavirus”.

We won’t forget this pathogen soon will we?

Or the jokes that went with it….

A little light relief….

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 28 April

Boris our PM is back at work, and one of the first things he did yesterday was speak to the country from outside of Number Ten. He was clear that lockdown rules are not changing yet. When the country is ready to move into the next phase of dealing with the virus, the rules will be guided by the science. This has been a constant statement that all of the government ministers have made repeatedly.   People are beginning to get a bit fidgety, and the PM delivered his message in typical upbeat calm them down, Boris fashion.  Not bad for a man who was fighting for his life just a few weeks ago.  As the coronavirus has necessitated all of us revisioning our lives, I suspect he has had to do that as well.

When our Waitrose delivery arrived last week, the key worker dropped off a Waitrose magazine along with all the shopping bags that I finally got round to reading yesterday. We left it sit on the floor in the hall so that any virus that might have got onto its surface would be long gone by the time I picked it up.  Flipping through the pages it was clear that this April edition went to press before there was a sniff of the virus, and way before we were in lockdown. Reading the articles dragged me back to a pre-virus time which I don’t often think about.  (Staying present and all that!) Page after glossy page was free of the  terms “coronavirus”, or “lockdown”, or “social distancing”. It was like looking at an artefact from a different era. Indeed it did come from a different era, one that ended only a few weeks ago. I didn’t feel the loss so heavily as I probably would have earlier in this lockdown, we clearly are getting used to our new status quo. The magazine’s luxurious pages gave a stark reminder in glorious colour of how the world has changed. There were all sorts of ideas for Easter with pictures of families gathering together to celebrate. Prettily decorated tables laden with food were shared by children and grandchildren sitting together with parents and grandparents. Delight spread across the faces of the different generations as they came together to enjoy the recipes we had been encouraged to make to do just that.  Gone.  Poof.  No longer relevant to the way we now live our lives.  The adverts for travel and the big splash to join the National Trust as the season is just about to open were salutary. There will be no travel, no visiting magnificent gardens owned by the National Trust, or anyone else for that matter, for quite some time.

Life in lockdown will change.  But who knows how or when?  We have to get through this phase first and then perhaps there might be some changes to how we can move around.  Businesses are already beginning to think about how they might operate in a Social Distancing world.  Restaurants will need to have enough space so patrons can distance.  Our favourite restaurant in Bristol, Pasta Loco hasn’t a hope.  The tables are squished together as it is and that is part of the charm.  The place is so small with social distancing they might have room for about four tables. 

How will hairdressers return to work, or massage therapists, or physiotherapists.  All these are hands on jobs and the one thing we aren’t able to do is touch. 

We had friends from the States who were meant to be having the week with us here. Another part of our old life. Poof. Gone. “Perhaps we’ll see you on your way to New Zealand in December” they suggested.  Will that be possible?  Will air travel resume by then? Will our lives be back to “normal” by then?  I wish I could think that was going to be the case, but I’m not holding my breath. 

Instead, I’ll keep breathing and watch the little plant babies in our garden as they grow and I’ll continue to write to you all and hope that, like me, you are finding a way to live this new life that we didn’t ask for.  Let’s all look forward to that time when we can see each other again. And hug!

For all of us, some days are no doubt easier than others, but we all must do our best.  There is little else we can do in lockdown.

And to cheer you up. We took a while to see this, best read out loud!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 27 April

Yesterday was Sunday again!  Don’t weekends come around quickly?  We alter our routine on a Sunday, stay in bed longer, have a different breakfast, wear a zippier outfit.    When Terry asks what I would like to do today, I suggest we go out for Brunch. So we did!  Out to the garden….at Chez Feest!  The weather is splendid and all the walkers and runners think so too. I have never seen so many people pass by our road.  I watch them from the safety of the upstairs bedroom window.  A stressed Mother berating her child for not stopping at the corner, a couple of runners steaming away, the woman trying to keep up and failing, a family with three little ones on bikes like little ducklings following behind Mum. The new coronavirus world passes by.

When I eventually head into the drawing room, the flowers take my breath away.  The posy that arrives from Reg the Veg each Friday is on the bookcase in front of the window and the sun has lit it as though it was a painting in an art museum. The beauty calms me and creates a serene few moments. Not a bad way to begin a day!

My blogs and emails and journal and everything else I write (except for my novels) have a fair share of explanation marks. As I use them so frequently, I thought I’d find out where they came from.  The ! comes from the Latin, as does so much of our language!  The exclamation point was invented by placing letters on top of each other.  In this case, the Latin, io which means literally the “exclamation of joy”.  When it is written with the i above the o it forms the mark we still use. Go on – write it down and marvel at the marvellous mark!  This was such a lovely idea I had to look up several scholars to make sure it was accurate.  According to the three people I have consulted (where would be without Mr. Google? Oh, I remember the library!) they seem to concur.  The exclamation mark was born in the middle ages.  It wasn’t given its own key on typewriters until the 1970’s.  Until then you had to type a period and then go back a space and place an apostrophe over it.  Unless of course, you owned an Olivetti Lettera 22 which was ahead of the rest with an exclamation mark in the 1950’s.

Although I don’t use if very often, I couldn’t help but look up the origination of the ampersand – &.  This one is equally fascinating!  This symbol again comes from the Latin, et  for “and.” Marcus Tullius Tiro invented it in the first century B.C. but the name we all call it today didn’t arrive until much later. Jan Tschichold, a typographer wrote an entire booklet on the history and development of the ampersand in 1953. He says the ampersand mark was the 27^th letter of the alphabet in the 1800’s and had no name.  School children ended their practice of the ABC’s with XYZ& “and, per se and which means and”.  Over time, their words were garbled together into the word we now use – and per se means and. & !

There are marvels in the world for certain and Sundays are a good day to remember that even if we can’t go out to find them, we are so fortunate to have them at our fingertips.  As long as the electricity keeps going, we can discover all sorts to help us through the days of this virus. 

Here’s hoping you all have a joyous week ahead!

You may have seen this one already, but I have always liked a smart ass!!!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 26 April

Migraines! They really are a bore.  I have been getting these damn things all of my  life.  When they arrive there is nothing to do but take some sumatriptan, lie down and let them pass.  However, because I now turn into Wonderwoman every night for twenty minutes or so, the length of these excruciating headaches has shortened. The little piece of kit I wear on my forehead has become an invaluable part of my armoury in my never ending tussle with the headaches from hell. Migraines run in the family – my grandmother, my mother, my sister, her son, all of us get them.  It’s better now since triptans are around, thank you once again to the Scientists of the world! My Wonderwoman device hasn’t eliminated them, but believe me, it is much better having only part of the day instead of the entire day given over to sleep, nausea and throb.  The device that turns me into Wonderwoman is called a Cefaly and we have become good mates.  If you or someone you know has migraines, please investigate this. NICE has done some evaluation of its efficacy and the results are excellent. Thanks go to my big sister for telling me all about it!

You might have guessed I had one of these little horrors yesterday.  It’s so unfair!  There is no rhyme or reason.  I haven’t had any wine for days, no chocolate, don’t feel stressed and wham!  At least they eventually go away…

Before I turn into Wonderwoman again, I thought I’d find out a bit more about her roots. She’s been a part of the vernacular for so long we all know her as a good Comic Book woman who wears a tiara.  What we probably don’t know is that her inventor, William Moulton Marston, was a Psychologist with a PhD from Harvard who was interested in behaviour. He established DISC, a test to identify predictable actions and personality traits within human behaviour.  Many of us are probably more familiar with the Myers Briggs personality tests which identifies personal preferences in human perception and judgement (I’m an ENFP).  Both of these tests measure characteristics of personality but they approach it in slightly different ways. Marston’s work was published in the late 1920’s and Myers Briggs followed in the 1940s; both are still widely used today.

Marston based our comic Wonderwoman on his wife, Elizabeth, and their “life partner” Olive.  Both women lived with him, had his children and when he died the two women remained together until their deaths. Olive always wore heavy bracelets and these were the basis for the bullet stopping bracelets Wonderwoman still wears today. He gave Wonderwoman a Golden Lasso which forces those she captures into submission, and when in her lasso they must obey her and, importantly, tell the truth.  Marston is also credited with developing the lie detector test

In the Comic book realm, Wonderwoman is usually in chains before she breaks free.  That sounds about right to me. Look out coronavirus, there’s more than one Wonderwoman after you at the moment.  And she always, but always wins the day!  As Marston, said about his creation, “Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world.”

Jacinda Ardern the NZ PM  actually looks a bit like his original vision……

• 

• 

…………….Wonderwoman? ………………… ……..Jacinda? ………………

Have a great day!

With love,

Kathy x

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/IPG559/documents/overview-2

Feest Isolation Days – 25 April

Words are so important these days! We can’t quite pick up the body language that often helps us with clues about what people really mean. Zoom and other electronic means of communication only go so far.   

Somebody ought to explain the importance of words, (and how to make complete sentences!), to the President of the United States.  Not only are his words foolish but dangerous.  Drink bleach?  Enough said on that.

With so many threatening words around, it seemed a good time to have some fun with words!  If you haven’t seen this before, every year, The Washington Post publishes the winning submissions in its neologism (a newly coined word or expression) contest. It’s fairly long but very wonderful so my words are shorter than usual. Hope you laugh as much as we both did! Enjoy!

Once again The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words.

The winners are:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.),  olive-flavoured mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.), emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n.), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

The Washington Post’s Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The winners are:
-Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

-Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

–Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

-Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

-Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

– Karmageddon (n): It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these Really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

– Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

– Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

– Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you’re eating.

And the pick of the literature:

– Ignoranus (n): A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

And if you haven’t yet seen this one….

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 24 April

Yesterday I took part in a research group’s online questionnaire examining current behaviours during the coronavirus pandemic. The UK participants in this international study are Nottingham Trent University and the London School of Economics. One of the initial questions asked the participant to list the first names of all those people you have had contact with over the past seven days and how that contact was made; by email, face to face, phone, phone and vision, etc.  The form only left enough room for twenty people and my spaces were quickly filled. It may seem as though we aren’t in touch with many people because the method of our communication has changed, but when we stop and reflect on our social interaction reality may shift. It did for me! The other questions were also well formed and, like all good research, made me stop and think about areas of my life that I hadn’t before.  The link is at the bottom of the page if you fancy participating. 

Not everything that comes into your inbox is always of interest but I love the excuse that people “don’t have time” to respond to something at the moment. Don’t  they really mean I don’t want to, or, don’t choose to, but don’t have time?  I can understand this is not only possible but likely from hard pushed parents who are trying to work, home school the kids, and keep the house going, but those of us not working or retired really don’t have those pressures on us anymore.  Perhaps it’s always been the response we’ve given to everything we’d prefer not to do. There is plenty of time to sort out my clothes cupboards and tidy up the wardrobe. I just don’t want to!  What don’t you want to do at the moment that you actually have plenty of time for?  It is interesting when you stop and think about it.  There are plenty of things I really don’t want to make time for, but the things I want to do?  They are happening and will continue.  I guess I always wanted to bake cakes. Another new one on the way this weekend!

Our rejuvenating walk of earlier this week has stayed with me. When my eyes close there are green fields and the horses that munched the grass are standing there staring at me. Most of the horses we met were behind electric fences, but three stood in a field bounded by the river and they weren’t fenced in.  Terry took a wide berth but I walked right by them. Of course they were curious and interested and started to head towards me, but I shooed them away.

The house I grew up in was a five minute walk to a vast field where about four horses were fenced in by a single electric wire that was easy to crawl under when you were about eleven or twelve. My visits to the horses, especially during summer vacation, meant they ended up with daily sugar cubes or handfuls of grass.  We got to be great friends. One day I couldn’t help myself, and somehow managed to climb up on the white stallion who didn’t seem to mind.  Riding bareback we jaunted across the field. I didn’t tell anyone about my rides until one day I didn’t have a choice. 

“What are you doing riding my horse?” It was the owner and I knew I was in big trouble.  “Come down here!”  I dutifully obeyed, but first I leaned forward and quietly said goodbye and thank you to Star, patting his mane before I hopped off and went towards Mr. Dounce. “Does your Mother know you’re here?” I shook my head.  “This isn’t the first time you’ve been on my Star is it?”  My head shook from side to side. “You can’t just go and ride horses without asking permission. You’re going to have to pay for your riding.” There was a long silence and he finally said, “Until you go back to school, you can muck out the barn and feed the horses – if you’re mother agrees. She did, I did, and my love of horses grew and my riding continued.

Later, when I was in High School, one of my friends had several appaloosas and we got up early and fed and watered them before we headed off to school. Some days in the winter it meant breaking through the ice that had formed on their trough. Eventually I became a city girl which meant my riding became a thing of the past. Thanks to an irascible but kind childhood neighbour and the best first horse ever, my love of horses remains. When I tried returning to riding many years later, my back wasn’t up to it anymore. Horses have never ever frightened me, and I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to enjoy the riding when I could. I sometimes wonder if I had experienced cows and bulls as a child if I would feel differently about meeting them on long country walks.  Somehow, I doubt it!

Research study if you fancy taking part:

https://distancing-covid19-survey.herokuapp.com/study?tid=79OP8Al5&lg=en

Love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 23 April

Sometimes the day improves all at once in a great big hurry and it’s hard to be anything other than delighted and amazed.  Matt Hancock the Health Secretary says that testing humans with the virus that Oxford has been working on will begin today.  That has to be the best news!  Professor Sarah Gilbert is fairly confident that her teams efforts are going to produce a vaccine – she gives the results an 80% chance of success.  Even if the vaccine is proven to be effective there is a long long way from “lab to jab” as Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific officer puts it. Nevertheless, an improvement in the news of late for certain.

Terry and I went for a walk yesterday. A proper within-the-guidelines-half-an-hour drive-from-home walk. We walked for over four miles and passed two other couples with their pooches and one gentlemen on his own. Waking just after six, the egg sandwiches and flask of tea were ready by six thirty. They were carefully packed into Terry’s backpack along with Teddy. (see Day6) The air was colder than I anticipated and until the sun was up and shining with its full intensity my teeth chattered.  The expanse of fields, the views beyond of gentle hills, an old castle, spires of ancient churches and the fresh green of the trees took us away from the world.  It could have been the 1800’s. Or 1900’s.  The walk meandered beside a gentle burbling river that Terry might have fished given other circumstances.  The experience was restorative.

Good things often come in threes and the third amazing experience was a one to one Pilates class with Simone in New Zealand.  The Pilates studio there – Physio Pilates – has been our favourite for years.  Richard, our usual teacher is an extraordinary physiotherapist and we are grateful to have found him. I’m not certain he’s taking one to ones outside physio clients so the gifted Simone now has my name in her diary for every Wednesday morning at seven am her time, eight pm mine. The New Zealand connection feels so right.  Thank you Zoom!

Suddenly I remember that this is day FORTY.  That feels a milestone, one of many on this coronavirus journey I fear.  Forty days and nights for Jesus’ fasting; the reason there are forty days in lent. Forty days when  Noah (the man with the Ark) decides to send a raven outside to have a look at the situation. Maybe I shouldn’t get too excited about forty days.  Jesus was tempted by the devil during his fasting time, and Noah had another two hundred and some days to go. And my day was going so well…

Forty years of marriage is celebrated with rubies.  Now this forty is more to my liking! Rubies symbolise that the passion in a marriage is still very much alive and strong.  My fingers are graced with quite a few ruby rings as it’s also the birth stone for July. Not only is my birthday in July but so was my Mum-in-laws, the lovely Doris, and her Mum’s as well. The men in all of our lives bought us gorgeous ruby rings. Touching these stones on my fingers reminds me that these rings have been worn by women in this family for more than a hundred years. I’m comforted. They and their rings have been through much much worse. Forty days isn’t so long. There may be a lot longer to go, but we’ll cope. I’ll just stroke my rings when I need a little boost.  The women who went before loaded them up with the strength from their lifetime.  I’ll do my best to add mine to the mix for the next generation who’ll wear them.  A few more walks in the English countryside are also definitely in order.

An early Bill Cosby….

https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=1zqhXsH8Bo2tUsyIvPAB&q=bill+cosby+what%27s+a+cubit&oq=bill+cosby+what&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgIIADICCAA6DggAEOoCELQCEJoBEOUCOgUIABCDAToECAAQCjoGCAAQChADOgQIABADOgcIABBGEPsBULU_WIF4YMyJAWgEcAB4AIABvwGIAcoKkgEEMTkuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXqwAQY&sclient=psy-ab#spf=1587624683246

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 22 April

Our lovely friends who live a ten minute walk across the Downs needed fizzy water.  While most of what they need comes back from the shops after an early morning walk, carrying heavy bottles of water is a step too far. Mr. Waitrose obliged. Our delivery arrived from there yesterday and we carefully washed everything and put it all away or left it in the hall for any virus to deteriorate before it hit the store cupboard. This is becoming a routine and we are getting quite used to. It was good to be able to supply some water to our friends and it gave me the perfect opportunity to take my car out for a spin. I haven’t driven anywhere in it for forty or so days and it needed a good run.  That’s my excuse anyway. I also needed to get out and be in the world for a minute or ten. Safely ensconced in my car, I was able to do that.  The world is a spring fest and quite beautiful. The sun is shining and the sky is perfectly blue.  The Downs are filled with too many people to easily socially distance so  we’ll save walking there for rainy days when no one else is interested. There weren’t too many cars, but plenty of cyclists. 

For the first time since the twenty mile an hour speed limit was introduced in Bristol, I wasn’t grouchy about it.  I drove slowly and stayed under the limit for the entire drive.  The grocery stores all had long queues, but none of the butcher shops or vegetable shops I passed did.  I wasn’t out for long, but it was enough.  Social creatures sometimes need to be amongst others.  I spoke to no one on my drive, yet had exchanges with other drivers.  The friendly flashing of headlights to say thanks for letting someone pass happened twice.  There was a young man on a side road sitting on top of a digger, shirtless and sporting an excellent tan.  He moved his machine so I could pass and  gave me the thumbs up when he thought it possible.  He had gorgeous blue eyes and rippling muscles. You notice this sort of thing when you haven’t seen people for a while.

Life does feel as it has slowed down way below twenty miles an hour at the moment.  It won’t go back to a normal speed for quite some time.  When the virus is somehow contained by whatever means that will be, we will go out again regularly.  Those of us who have lived through this time will no doubt always be hand washers and leery of anyone who coughs in our presence.  I wore gloves to take the water out of the car, sanitised them when I’d finished, then removed them and used another sanitizer on my hands.  When I got home I washed my hands.  There will no doubt be all sorts of routines and practices that we’ll take into the next phase of our lives.

What is important is that we live our lives.  Now, today, each day, we can’t wait until things get back to “normal”.  We have to find those moments that give us joy in our day, and not get discouraged when we get bored or sad or feel down.  It’s going to happen.  When they occur, dig deep. Look for those surprises that touch you, and ladies! Put that make up on. It helps. Perhaps a friend needs some water and you could take a little drive?  Worked for me!

A little video of something surprising. Enjoy!

And….. a thought….

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 21 April

We listened to Elgar over breakfast this morning – the Enigma variations – and although we’ve heard it dozens of times, it felt fresh and new and necessary.  Music speaks to us at the moment when there are not too many other voices that we hear. There has always been music in our home, whether it is me doing my vocal warm ups every morning in the shower and as I dress, or the classical music that is playing in my study as I work, or Hey Google who lives in the kitchen and sets us up mostly with Radio New Zealand Concert. 

Choir has been on a Monday night for years now and I find myself yearning to sing with a group more and more. It just isn’t the same on Zoom.  At least it keeps our vocal cords limber if we sing along with others. I say we, my dear husband, bless him, loves music and listens to it regularly but can’t sing a note. I have tried, but he really cannot match a note he hears. It’s a shame, as if he could find his musical voice, I suspect it would be excellent as he has such a wonderful deep and velvety speaking voice.

My bass clarinet is sitting in its case underneath the spare desk in my study and looking at me mournfully. If not now – when?  It seems to be asking. When I was in school, I was given my older brother’s clarinet to play. We were all meant to learn an instrument and as the youngest of three, I didn’t get to choose, it was the old clarinet or nothing. Greg, my brother who was six years older than me, was a superb musician. He was the first chair first clarinettist in the school orchestra. At one of his final concerts he gave the conductor quite a shock when he stood and played his solo piece without the benefit of any music. The same conductor was also a sensible man, and when I got to High School he moved me from the clarinet to the bass clarinet.  I was never going to become a first chair clarinettist, but as there were only two of us playing bass clarinet, we were always joint first chair. Clever man. 

As an adult I have played in a few orchestras, but realised several years ago I had to make a decision. To sing or to play – I couldn’t do both.  Singing won out and I don’t regret that for an instant.  Until my bass clarinet peeks out from the desk and I wonder…maybe now would be the time to pick it up again?  ook out neighbours if I do, I am very rusty!

There will be no Wimbledon to distract me this year. This morning I read an article about Novak Djokovic, last year’s winner. The  Serbian said he is “opposed to vaccinations  and wouldn’t want to be forced to take one’. This may mean he loses the ability to play and his world number one status. It also means in my book that he may be a great tennis player, but a really stupid man. When did vaccination get this sort of reputation? I shall be the first in the queue, but I suspect there will be a lot of other sensible people in front of me! Maybe while Djokovic is having some down time in his Monaco home, he might like to brush up on some science.  Or death rates that occurred in the world from earlier pandemics before modern medicine intervened.

Meantime, the little girl who lives next door is walking around and around her garden for some exercise. I suspect when she can she’ll happily have a vaccination and will be grateful to return to the life she used to live. 

Clap for Carers is each Thursday, and if I have anything to say about it, I’d like to also Clap for Scientists!  They are working round the clock for humanity at the moment. Let’s hope they find what we all need sooner rather than later.

My Bass Clarinet out of its case! 

And some musical entertainment…

With love,

Kathy x

p.s. I have not yet heard the bass clarinet being played. Ed.

Feest Isolation Days – 20 April

Duck!  Terry made duck for dinner. It was Sunday and very special indeed. And we certainly needed something of a boost.  The Sunday papers that we read on line in the morning were filled with all sorts of commentators telling us how the government got it all wrong, or what is going to happen next, or various versions of doom and gloom. Some days I don’t want to hear what so and so thinks about it all. I want more  facts, not comment or supposition, but facts. Here’s one…the Southwest is coping and the doctors are actually not busy attending to a huge number of people on ventilators.  That doesn’t appear in the news or the commentators remarks.  Shame really, because it is important to hear. 

It was shocking to read about the poor kids of Spain who haven’t been allowed out of their homes in six weeks.  No fresh air, no outside. I can’t imagine that especially with little ones.  It was heartbreaking to read about and I hope that severe restriction is soon over.  I hear my neighbour’s kids kicking a ball and thumping a bat and another neighbour’s kids screaming with delight at whatever they are getting up to outside.  How on earth did the Spanish kids and their parents cope?

We spent Sunday doing the things we would normally do on a Sunday…minus visits to or from the kids or to and from friends.  And there was no long country walk or swim in the outdoor pool.   Instead, I spent some time organising my writing which has got into a bit of a muddle, and Terry organised his garden shed. We used to own a garage but it hasn’t had a car in it for all the time we have lived here.  It makes a great garden shed though! Once we put the papers aside, it felt a pleasant, uneventful, and surprisingly normal day.  Some days it feels important to switch off from what anyone has to say about the virus and just tuck up in our lovely home together.  We marvel as the beech tree seems to have gone into leaf in a weekend.

When I finish all the work I set for myself I wish there was a rugby match to watch. I used to enjoy American Football, the sport I grew up with and then over the years, my allegiance shifted.  I love rugby and know the difference between a ruck and a maul – in a ruck, the ball is on the ground. In a maul, the ball is generally in the hands of a player. But will I remember these details of the game when they are back on and we can watch them again?  Probably not…

Football, or as the Americans call it, soccer, has never been my favourite game but we’re currently watching The English Game which is a Netflix original series and excellent.  The characters are based on real people and I learn that, like rugby, football began as a game for the upper classes.  That I did not know. I can hum the theme tune of Match of the Day though as it’s always on in this house, and I do watch the World Cup. I’m not quite sure what the offside rule is but I’m reminded every four years.  I wonder how sports will crawl out of the coronavirus lockdown. Or in fact how we will. It is going to be a long time before we can go out and not socially distance and hug our family and friends.  We are lucky here.  We can and do hug each other regularly.  If you are at home with a loved one, give more hugs than usual.  They are the only hugs coming your or their way!  Enjoy the day, it’s all yours so give it your lockdown best! This sports commentator is….

A BBC Sports Broadcaster is Now Calling Games Between His Dogs and It’s Amazing

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 19 April

We went for a walk.  We left the house and went for a walk. Doesn’t that sound so normal? We hadn’t been out for over thirty days and it was pouring and I thought that might mean there weren’t so many people around.  It would seem I was right. We walked on streets close by our house and then ventured up onto the Downs, the lovely green open space not far from home. We ambled for half and hour, actually we strode out for that time, walking together and staying well away from the few others who were also braving the weather.  It felt so good to feel the rain as we marched along. My husband the scientist found a great article on the spread of the virus which I attach below. Reading this made us both feel more comfortable about leaving the cocoon of Chez Feest for the outside world. I’m still not keen to step out when there are too many people about and you can’t safely pass them at the required distance.  We shall go forth cautiously. Another walk might be in order.

Today is grey and still and the rain has stopped. Spring flowers are finally getting the watering they need.  After many hours on the net looking for plants, there are some lovely babies now sitting on the garden wall in their little pots growing up and getting ready to take over from the tulips. They came from Lanarkshire and were beautifully packaged and look excellent specimens.  I would share the website I found them on but there is no point as they have nothing left. Terry spent yesterday moving them from their original packaging and pricking them out to the little pots our plants normally come in.  Just as well he is a hoarder and keeps such things in the garden shed! I would most likely have tossed those pots out ages ago. Just as well, too that he spent some of his summers as a teenager working at a garden centre and knew exactly what to do with these little plants.   There are more coming over the next weeks from two different sources. Determination and sitting on the phone and internet helped us to track these down. Our beautiful garden is worth all the effort. I can’t imagine not having it!  The poor folks who haven’t a place outside must be struggling.  My heart goes out to them.

I read somewhere that the trivial things have been taken from us, so we have to talk about the things that matter, and about how you feel these days. As I’ve always done that anyway I don’t find it too difficult.  People can no longer talk about their journey into work; for the most part they aren’t going in to work, or their favourite sports team as there is no sport. How difficult it must be then for those people who don’t find it easy to share how they feel at the best of times!   We are speaking to people by telephone or internet for longer than we normally would, and more frequently. At least we all have something to share no matter who we are. We are all in this together.

Some good news from the Southwest region. Our infection rates have been at the bottom of the country since this epidemic began. On the daily briefing slide setting out hospital cases we are the blue line on the graph that is constantly flat lined.  We hear from our friends on the frontline in Bristol hospitals, that some elective surgery is being carried out as there is no point having empty hospital beds and many staff have relatively little to do!. Bristol has the capacity for a new hospital with one thousand beds. Let’s hope it isn’t ever needed.  The government are repeatedly being criticized for the unavailability of PPE (personal protective equipment) yet, the numbers in hospital are lower than they expected. Can you imagine what it would be like if all those beds were full?

Stay Home Protect the NHS, Save Lives That part of the plan seems to be working. Now they need to ramp up the plans for saving lives in nursing and care homes.

As it was the weekend, I baked a cake.  This one is polenta and orange and Terry’s favourite.  Recipes provided on request!

And some creative cake-making from elsewhere…

“Is there Covid on my clothes?” – Article on how Covid 19 spreads or not!

http://a.msn.com/01/en-gb/BB12OHc2?ocid=se

Love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 18 April

I shouldn’t have looked at my diary.  It should have stayed hidden along with the rest of my life and then I wouldn’t have thought about not going to listen to the concert we booked months and months ago.  It’s a bit like picking at a scab when you were a kid.  You want to see what it makes you feel like so you pick and pick. I’m not a kid but it felt as bad as when I was one.  I looked further and saw other things that I, and we, missed. There were your names beside some of these dates and I felt sad. Too many bits of our lives have drifted away and we aren’t able to do anything about it.  This damn virus!  Some days it just smacks you in the face and you have to dig deep, really deep not to let the situation get the better of you. 

A nurse in Southmead Hospital in Bristol died.  Another pregnant nurse died elsewhere and I shut my eyes and silently grieve for them both and want to hug the daughter of the first nurse, and cuddle the baby of the second.  Instead, I carry on doing the things I do and thanking whatever I thank when I am grateful for the air, the sun, the flowers the birds. Rest in peace.

Then out of nothing and from nowhere, you take a deep breath and have a cuppa and don’t let yourself swirl down into those grim feelings that are lingering just next to the number of deaths and the response that you have to them.  Big sigh.  Deep breath.

The lockdown is to stay in place for at least another three weeks.  When it is lifted, who knows what will happen.  There won’t be a way of avoiding the many many more days we oldies will be asked to stay put.  So we have to carry on and do what we can do from where we are.

My neighbour has started a sewing group and they are making facemasks for the local hospital. I try and get the message out a bit to friends who can sew. Not a skill I possess.  We all have to do what we can.

Another neighbour in her late eighties needs some help from carers and doesn’t know how to find anyone to visit her at home. This is something I can help with.   There are systems in place that are working and when you eventually find the number there are even people at the end of some of them instead of recordings promising to phone you back.  A young man gave me helpful information and suggested that my neighbour call him directly. She did and phoned me back to say she had an amazing day and would be getting the help she needed.  

During the afternoon, I washed all the fruit and vegetables our key worker delivery man brought to us, then turned to the butcher’s bag and did the same. Routines are changing, and besides the washing (!) I spent a great deal of the afternoon ironing.  Clare, who has been doing our ironing for over twenty-five years would have done it in half the time. I don’t know how she does it!  When this is all over, maybe I’ll get a lesson.  In the meantime, she has her boys to look after and we converse by text. 

My husband continues to create and develop our garden. He had to hack away at a large plant that had died. Even though there is no food growing, the garden feeds us in important ways. 

Tomorrow is another day.  And then there will be another.  And they all belong to us until they don’t.  Enjoy what you can and stay strong.  This too shall eventually pass!

Sometimes a bit of beauty and an extra yoga stretch does it.  Or helping a friend.

So here is a little beauty…

And finally….

 A guy burned both of his ears.. so the hospital doctor asked him how it happened.

He said,” I was ironing and the phone rang. Instead of the phone I picked up the iron and burned my ear.

“But how the heck did you burn the other ear?” The doctor asked.

He replied, “They called back.”

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days -17 April

Yesterday we spent most of the day cleaning. Terry did the kitchen in that deep-down-clean-everything-throughly-way that you don’t often do. I did the same upstairs. We met for a much needed cuppa on the swing before we headed into round two. There are still rooms I haven’t finished but what has been cleaned sparkles.

With the upstairs bathroom window wide open I saw people passing by on the street below. My excitement rose as a neighbour who lives a few doors away was walking in the middle of the street, presumably taking his daily exercise. I couldn’t stop myself from yelling out,  “Hello from Mrs. Mop!” cheerily waving my marigold covered hand in his direction. It was a delight to speak to someone in person. 

“Hello!”  He replied.“It’s amazing the things we’re getting up to these days isn’t it?” He pointed towards my  gloves and mop.

“I’ve done this sort of thing in the past,” I said. “But not regularly for a long, long time.”

I discovered that both he and his wife have had the virus as has his daughter, a health care worker who lives with them. He has yet to recover his sense of taste and smell but feels better. We talked further about the virus and the lockdown, the pandemic generally, unitl it was time for him to go and me to return to my task at hand and scrub the shower.

Terry and I both come from familes who cleaned rather than were cleaned for.  His Mother had a long standing position as a cleaner. For over fifty years, she was the weekly cleaner for  a family. She didn’t stop until  the last remaining family member moved into a care home.  When she was in her eighties, Doris, Terry’s mum, still went round for a cuppa and for the friendship that had developed over the years.  Nevertheless, she would still have swished her duster around the place and run the hoover over the carpets to help Mrs. E who was a few years older.

My grandfather died when I was six and my Baba couldn’t stand the thought of living on her own forever, and another man was out of the question.  She, too, eventually started cleaning for people. Hers had always been the sort of home where you could eat off the floor it was so clean. Baba was known for sometimes whisking your plate of food off the table  with one bite left because she was so eager to wash the dishes and make her kitchen sparkle.  Finding a housekeeping positon where she could look after people and a home wasn’t difficult. Her penchant for cleaning, along with her sunny dispostion meant she soon found a family that she ended up living with and caring for. Eventually, the family relocated and Baba went to live with one of her daughters. It didn’t take her long to find another family to look after, cook, clean and care for. The head of the family was a doctor and he and his wife had three young children. They became as close to her as her own grown up children and grandchildren. When she died she was well into her nineties, and the three doctors kids who were all grown up with families of their own by then all attended her funeral. 

Cleaners don’t just dust and hoover and scrub for us, they become part of our lives. Over the years, they have enabled us to keep our house tidy and orderly when we were both working demanding jobs as well as looking after our youngest. I prefer the term houskeeper to describe the most recent hired help. They not only clean but know us well enough to order our sometimes disheveled cupboards and closests.  V visited us in New Zealand a few years ago, and although she’s now moved cities, we still keep in touch.  Our current houskeeper is her niece.  Keeping it all in the family suits us perfectly.  I hope lockdown ends soon.  M will be delighted with how well we did in her absence!  She’s part of the family now and we too keep in touch.  I can’t wait until we can see her again and after a big hug and a long chat, I’ll happily hand her my (her) duster!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days -16 April

Mattresses! You don’t have a new one for over ten years then three come along at the same time!  When I was little we used to watch a television animation cartoon called Casper the Friendly Ghost and to this day whenever I see the word Casper, the white smiling face of this childhood spirit flashes before my eyes and I smile all over again.  Now what, you may ask does this have to do with three mattresses?  I’ll get there, I promise.

Before lockdown began we decided that after sleeping on the same mattress for over ten years it was time to “throw something down” on top of our bed frame that was worthy of 2020. “Throw something down” or “the place where something is thrown” is the Arabic  origination of our modern word for what we sleep on today.  We were determined to sleep tight –a phrase which possibly comes from Shakespeare’s days when mattresses were supported on a bed frame by ropes and which had to be tightened so they didn’t sag. No ropes required these days. A NASA scientist, Charles Yost, developed memory foam in order to create a more comfortable surface for astronauts.  The man who took “one small step for a man, one giant step for mankind”, slept on memory foam on the way to and from the moon. 

Memory foam our new mattress would be.  We did our research and a key worker arrived with our big blue box (drivers didn’t yet realise in March that they were key workers). We removed the packing and waited for the squished thing to puff itself up. The smell that emerged would soon go away we told ourselves as we opened the windows in the spare room where we left our purchase for over a week before transferring it to our bedroom. After one night’s sleep, the damp chemically smell permeated the bedroom, the bed clothes and our sleep wear.  It had to go.  The company we chose guarantee that you can return the bed for a full refund within a hundred days, no questions asked and the helpful woman at Casper was indeed very friendly. She said she’d check the batch number as it shouldn’t smell like that and would send us another one. In fact, somewhere an error occurred.  Our delivery driver (now key worker) brought not one, but two blue boxes and we now have three! 

Sadly, the new one smells, not as much but it won’t do. The cartoon Casper was friendly but sometimes a bit cheeky too. He would no doubt have laughed at our developing mattress collection.  We certainly laughed, though through gritted teeth, as we humped the old mattress for about the fifth time back into our room. 

Lockdown means we aren’t going anywhere for awhile so as I drift off to sleep I spend a few moments thinking about those moon trips and smile once more as I think of Casper the friendly little ghost flying around the world making people smile. For now, we are certainly sleeping tight and can’t imagine why we thought we needed a new mattress in the first place.  Sweet dreams!

Love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days -15 April

In America it would appear that the President of the United States has decided he is King. That must be a worry to us all.  At a Press Conference earlier in the week, Trump said “When somebody is President of the United States the authority is total. It’s total. The Governors know that.”  As it happens, thankfully, the Governors not only know that this is not the case, but when it comes to deciding when to lift lockdown in any State, which is what Trump was discussing, it is the Governors who will decide.  My blood runs cold when I think Trump might be where he is for another four years.  Let us hope for the sake of the world that this isn’t the case. Trump Tweets are increasingly unhinged.

Here in the UK Rishi Sunak held the daily press briefing yesterday evening and continues to do an impressive job.  The young Chancellor, Rishi will be forty next month, and took his Parliamentary oath of office on the Bhavagad Gita. His father was a GP and his mother ran a Medical Shop.  Although he was a keen advocate of Brexit, and our politics differ, I can see that he has been putting measures in place that not only are unprecedented but actually are thoughtful.  He is willing to say that his measures won’t save every business or person.  What a refreshing change for a politician. Still, it would be good to have an opposition sitting and holding the government accountable.  If journalists can use electronic media to question the government, why can’t elected officials?  Nevertheless, a far cry from the outrageous and often dangerous press briefings in the States.

And turning to a different sort of tweet…we have a pair of pigeons in the bottom of the garden that have taken to mating every morning at about the same time that we have our first cuppa on the swing.  It’s been going on nearly as long as lockdown itself and is quite amusing.  The feathers fly, she ignores him, he returns to her once more they both fly away then one of them returns and the wings flap and the feathers fly.  I never knew pigeons were such determined and inexhaustible maters.

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 14 April

We decided that as it was Easter we would give ourselves a little holiday and go away for a couple of days.  It has been a real treat!  We spent two nights (and I spent a great deal of the afternoon) in MSB –  the main spare bedroom. The vista from here  is different than that from our own room. There is a more distant view and an openness that our bedroom doesn’t have. Many many friends have stayed here over the years and I finally see why they all enjoy the room so much. It’s the sort of inviting place that makes you want to curl up with a good book and laze away the afternoon – well at least it does on a Bank Holiday Monday.

This house is a magnificent place that was built in 1860. It took us many years to develop its current style. When we moved to Bristol from Exeter we never imagined we would still be here twenty nine years later!  We looked at over fifty houses before we found our new home. We bought it as a maisonette and didn’t walk inside together until the day we moved in. Terry saw it first and said he thought I should have a look. It captured both of our hearts.  We didn’t have enough money to do things up the way we would have liked to then, and lived with an avocado bathroom and a blue bathroom for many years. Our bedroom, which was then downstairs, was painted bubble gum pink and had a shaggy minty green carpet on the floor. The first thing we did on moving in day before the furniture arrived from Devon was get rid of the pink. Our paint brushes moved furiously over the walls as we wanted to be able to sleep in our bedroom on our first night.  The green carpet didn’t get replaced for a long time. About two years after we were here, the woman who lived in the upstairs flat said she was moving and offered us the first option to buy.  Although we couldn’t afford it, we found a helpful bank manager who recognised that owning the entire house was a good investment and helped us with both a  mortgage and the deposit.  We rented out the upstairs flat to individuals instead of  a group and in addition to my other work at the time, I became a landlady. In the eleven years that followed we had many tenants meet each other, and two marriages. Not content with my role as just a landlady I became a matchmaker! We never thought we’d be able to afford to put the place back into a single home again, but times changed and our efforts were rewarded. Sixteen years ago, the footsteps overhead ceased. Our last tenants moved out and we set about the process of returning the house to its original state. Our bedroom moved upstairs, and just as  many of our friends were thinking of downsizing, we upsized. 

In all those years, the only time I’ve slept in the main spare bedroom has been when one of us was ill and keeping the other awake. I never before visited as though I was a guest for a few days. If you happen to have the luxury of a spare room I’d recommend you move in for a day or so. A different perspective on your own home is fascinating.

I miss the teenage grandchildren pounding up and down the stairs, slamming doors and generally making the house come alive. When this is all over I hope that they will come and stay, with their parents, and fill up all of these rooms again. A celebration will certainly be in order! In the meantime, I’ve enjoyed our little holiday and may plan a return visit to the MSB again. For now, it’s back “home” to our own room and the routine we have developed in the past few weeks.  As the old proverb says, “a change is as good as a rest.”  It’s still true!

And something beautiful and inspiring to watch…..

Happy days.

With love

Kathyx

Feest Isolation Days – 13 April 2020

Easter Monday!  It’s freezing!  After the splendid weather and the outdoor life, it feels even colder than I suspect it is as the wind howls around and shakes the petals from the less sturdy tulips.  Nevertheless, it’s a good day.  Prime Minister Boris is out of hospital and recovering at Chequers with his fiancée.  His message on Easter makes me think he really has found a place in his heart for the NHS.  I suspect his experience will have changed him. These tough personal plights can alter how people see the world. He said at one point it was “touch and go” whether or not he would pull through. He couldn’t praise the NHS staff enough and read a long list of names of those who cared for him.  The two nurses he especially thanked, who were at his bedside for forty-eight hours, were both immigrants.

It would seem that we’re going to be in lockdown for a lot longer yet. According to Sir Jeremy Farrar, the Director of the Wellcome Trust, the vaccine that will help everyone is coming, but it will be a long time before it’s available for the billions of people all over the planet who will need it. Scientists are working hard to produce this vaccine and may have one ready by September.  While that sounds encouraging, and of course it is, new labs will then need to be developed to produce the inoculations. Manufacturing can’t stop on the vaccines that are currently being made, if it did, and people stopped getting immunised, then there would be a new epidemic to deal with of mumps, measles etc.  Entire new factories will have to be set up worldwide in order to churn out the vaccine that we’ll all need in order to become social again. Remember all that anti vaxer talk not all that long ago? Gone quiet hasn’t it?

A programme on Radio Four reminded us why the farmers can’t get rid of all their milk.  With all those Costa’s and every other coffee shop in the country closed, the need for Café au Lait has evaporated.  People are making their beverage of choice at home and they don’t tend to drink lattes!  Alcohol too is no longer consumed in pubs and restaurants which explains the huge call on Supermarkets and off licences to provide us all with our preferred tipple.  It takes awhile for the supply chain to switch allegiances. 

We have been playing the “what will you do first when lockdown is over” game with friends.  Interesting to hear the responses!  What will you do first?  I will head to a lovely walk in the country with a picnic and walk and walk and walk and breathe deeply. When I’m finished with my walk I will find an outdoor pool and swim.  I might get rid of my exercise bike then as well.  I’m getting sick of it already and we have only been here for thirty days.

In case you’re getting fed up of being inside and  your thoughts are turning to how you could morally justify sunbathing  in the park, you might like to read the Guardian article Anthony posted  in the comments section.  I’ve copied the link below and urge you to have a read. It’s one of the finest articles I’ve read explaining our moral duty to comply.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/10/sunbathing-park-deep-moral-questions-philosophers-coronavirus-individual

If you haven’t watched it, the Boris video is also worth a peek.

More chocolate anyone?

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 12 April 2020

Happy Easter!  Despite the Coronovirus and lockdown it’s still Easter Sunday and a time for renewal and reflection.  However limiting our world might feel at the moment, we’re still here to enjoy what we have, wherever we are.

This may be one of the first Easter Sunday breakfasts that I haven’t had kielbasa with my hard boiled eggs and horseradish.  Although Sainsbury’s sells this garlicky Polish sausage, I forgot to include it in our delivery order. There won’t be poppy seed bread either. I have made it in the past but didn’t have the right ingredients this year. It’s called bread, but tastes a lot more like a cake. I remember my Polish grandmother making it; kneading the dough, then leaving it to sit and prove for  the appropriate amount of time, then rolling it out and letting me spread the poppy seed mixture all over the white circle before she rolled it up and put it in the oven as we waited for it to fill her house with the first  smells of Easter. Traditions like baking and eating poppy seed bread are often begun at a very young age, but in my experience can sometimes change over the years.

My other grandmother, my Baba, certainly would understand the evolution of tradition. She was Ukrainian, and besides having the best Easter Eggs ever, she went to “her” church which was Orthodox where neither Latin nor English was spoken. 

Many years ago when we still lived in Exeter, Terry and I went to the Easter Midnight Mass at the local Orthodox Church. The celebration was splendid with the Gregorian chants and incense filling the small but beautiful church.  Of course, it wasn’t “our” Easter time because Western churches follow a different calendar. The Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar for their holy days. Easter always falls sometime between April 4th and May 8th each year. The date was determined at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. It’s always on the Sunday following the paschal full moon, which is the full moon that falls on or after the spring equinox.

When we returned home from the Easter Service at two in the morning, I thought I’d call my Baba and be the first to wish her Easter greetings.  Because of the time zone difference it wasn’t too late to telephone. This was before Skype or Face Time or What’s App existed and calls to the States were still expensive so didn’t occur frequently.  Baba answered and in my less than perfect Ukrainian I said, “Khrystos Voskres” which is the Ukrainian Easter greeting meaning, literally, Christ has risen.

“What?”  Baba responded.  “Is that Kathy?”

 “Yes! Khrystos Voskres.”  Clearly I wasn’t saying it right. On my third try Baba asked, “Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because we’ve just been to the Orthodox Church to celebrate Easter and I thought I’d be the first to wish you Easter greetings.”

“Oh,” Baba replied, “They merged Easter with our church to be the same as everybody else’s in America years ago! It’s good to hear from you though.”

So much for my pronunciation practise. I learned that even after more than a thousand years, traditions can still change.

For the past few years we’ve spent Easter with our friends who have a house in Hay on Wye. Sadly not today. No walks for us on Hay Tor or anywhere else for that matter. Easter remains firmly at Chez Feest this year. Stay Home Protect The NHS Save Lives.

We have a few of our own traditions to lay down and one of them might just have to be Strawberry Cake.  It’s the third cake I’ve baked in lockdown and most of the last one is in the freezer where this one will no doubt end up as well. It was delicious, but today after our roast lamb that is big enough to feed the entire block, we will have a Christmas pudding Terry made with his Mum’s hand-written recipe!  We haven’t eaten Christmas pudding on the day it was meant to be consumed for nearly ten years because we’re in the summer sun of New Zealand so it’s become an early December treat when we celebrate the coming Christmas with the family, and then an Easter treat. His mum’s traditional recipe makes two puddings, but we have shifted the dates. My Baba would no doubt approve.

I dyed the Easter eggs yesterday and we will eat our hard-boiled eggs and horseradish this morning. Some traditions are easier than others to maintain.

Enjoy this special Easter egg!

Hope the Easter bunny found you and you are able to enjoy a few of your own traditions whatever they may be.  As my Baba may or may not say, Khrystos Voskres!

With love

Kathyx

Feest Isolation Days – 11 April 2020

A woman could get used to this weather!  The tulips in the garden are all the colours of a rainbow with not a cloud in sight. All is quiet and still with birdsong the only sound. Lovely start to the day.  This street is normally fairly quiet, but now there isn’t even the odd car going past. The green shoots of spring are visible on all the trees.  The copper beech at the end of our garden delighted me yesterday when I noticed that the first few leaves had actually emerged.  The catkins on the neighbour’s white birch are not stirring.  The world is calm and serene.

With the awareness that not everyone’s sense of their home is like this, I appreciate ours even more, and am grateful all over again.  Easter Saturday. 

When I was a little girl, Easter Saturday meant getting out the new clothes that had been bought for us over the last weeks and placing them all together so it wouldn’t take too long to get dressed when it was time to get ready for Midnight Mass. There were usually new hats, coats, and gloves but always, no matter what else, there were new shoes.

The local shoe shop, Triangle, was the only place in town that we were ever taken to buy shoes.  Joe, the man who ran the place, always looked after our brood.  My brother and sister and I spent hours choosing…our Easter Chicks.  Each person who bought a pair of shoes was invited to choose a live little peep that we took home with us in a shoebox.  The little peeps were as colourful as my garden is now.  Green, yellow, pink, blue.  All of them had been dyed to match the Easter Eggs we made for the season. They were installed in a cage my father built especially for them and lived together in our kitchen.  As they grew, their white feathers held a hint of the colour they had been dyed.  When they got too big for their cage, my father took them off to the local farmer.  We never asked questions.

Midnight mass was filled with families like ours, all in our new clothes sitting together in the pews bedecked with ribbons and flowers.  The icons that had been shrouded in purple since the beginning of lent were now visible again and the air was filled with incense.  A heady and wonderful way to start Spring. 

When we got home it was straight to bed.  Tomorrow was Easter Sunday, and chocolates!  

Easter Chicks…but no new shoes!

My Easter Tree in our dining room

Have a great day!

With love,

Kathy