Month: April 2020

Feest Isolation Days – 10 April 2020

Good News! The Prime Minister is out of intensive care. He has clearly turned a corner and wouldn’t it be nice if that meant everyone else had, too?  If this were a novel that would be symbolic of good things. As this is life and not a novel, I suspect it means that we are still in for a long haul.

Let’s hope that even though the weather is glorious people continue to Stay Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives.  That has been the government mantra for the entirety of this lockdown.  Now that there are, what Professor Powys  one of the government Chief Advisors describes as green shoots, people need to adhere to that simple yet demanding request, or as Matt Hancock the Health Minister put it, that instruction.

We had breakfast and dinner outside in the garden yesterday for the first time this year.  That was special.  It looks like it might be repeated again today as the weather remains warm and the skies blue.  Teasing us all and making us wish we could break free and run into the world.  But we can’t.  So stay put.

My mother used to use that expression, just stay put!  I wasn’t ever good at listening to that instruction on any level and do wonder how I am managing to do just that now.  Several friends are finding this all really tough, and they have asked me how I stay so positive.  It’s made me think about why that might be. There are plenty of reasons for that I suppose, but there are a few that seem to work together and help when I begin to wobble.  I’ve been through tough times in the past and come out the other side.  Eleven years ago, (that time has just gone poof!) I was forced to stay in this glorious house because of a couple of medical reasons.  The first, having both feet operated on at the same time for what I always called Grandmother’s Feet, kept me benched.  Then just after I was moving again, my fractured spine meant another bout of being confined.  I was talking about this to Terry and said staying here like this was something I had to do before so perhaps  I got used to it, except this time I’m not in pain. Having a husband who loves and adores you and is always by your side does help.  Also, not only am I an optimist but as I’ve got older I’ve become a realist.  The glass is always but always half full, and mine feels like it’s overflowing.  Most of us have huge glasses filled to the brim and even then we have times when we can’t quite figure all this out and it gets on top of us.  That is to be expected.  These are extraordinary times. You are all my friends and just to be clear, you are all extraordinary people.  You are HERE and you have this gift of time.  Some of my dear friends have gone this year, and that makes me cry.  I miss them.  Dig deep, use this time to reset your internal compass if you need to and keep going. This isn’t the end, it’s just a respite from the bombardment of life for a bit. And if it feels grim today well, drink some champagne!  Churchill said that he could not live without champagne, in victory he deserved it and in defeat he needed it. I say drank champagne, it’s Friday, I intend to drink…wine.  Saving the Champagne for our Easter Celebration on Sunday – I told you I’m a realist.

With Love,

Kathy x

Breakfast…….

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Feest Isolation Days – 9 April 2020

The weather was glorious yesterday afternoon and T-Shirts and summer clothes were the order of the day.  How hard it must be for those people who can’t get into a garden or have kids who want to run around a park or play on swings that are no longer there for them.  We were very fortunate because we missed the wet and wild winter as we spent the majority of British winter-time in New Zealand.  For those who haven’t had sun and warmth for so long, it must be difficult to stick to the rules. It’s even hard for those of us who have had summer!

Our lovely friend Deric left us a present on our doorstep yesterday. I missed a trick, I should have photographed them!  Two magnificent artichokes.  We ate them for dinner last night and marvelled at the ingenuity of the people who first discovered the edible bits. Artichokes are the flowers of thistles and have been in gardens since 8 BC and where mentioned by Homer. If you haven’t ever eaten one, it’s a treat.  You peel off each leaf and eat the very base which has a tiny bit of goodness.  As you tear off the outer bits and get closer and closer to the heart at its centre, you are also designing an artwork. Getting to the meaty bit of the vegetable needs a sharp knife and determination.  At this stage you must not be greedy. As you seek the heart, you need to bypass the hairy bit that covers it and slice lower than you may like. The subtle flavour is delicious, especially with a tiny bit of dressing.  We never enjoyed an artichoke as much! A cup of home-made broccoli soup with some salad completed our meal.  Food as art, as well as sustenance, thank you Deric!

Watching the daily press briefing has become part of our daily routine.  Is it just me or are the journalists just not very bright?  They don’t seem to know how to ask insightful questions, they keep going around a continuous loop.  We both shout answers to their questions at the television as the top team have already answered them earlier, if the journalists only had listened. Perhaps we really are getting old!  Rishi the young Chancellor was sounding very much like a Socialist today and a human being.  Wouldn’t it be great if Tories were still like this when the pandemic is behind us?  

I miss my walks and swimming a great deal at the moment. I’m working on some other writing and normally when I get stuck I swim.  Or walk.  Not today!  Yoga first thing in the morning is great but stationary biking is not the same as striding out or doing my usual forty minutes or so of the crawl. I suspect as we head into our twenty-sixth day I am getting a bit weary.  Like everyone else in the country I suspect. 

I just have to remember that there are no screaming kids desperate to head outside, and I’m not on the upper floor of a tower block.  Bound to have a few wobbles though I suppose.  Life in lockdown in the sun and warmth, even with a beautiful garden is still life in lockdown.

Time to see what’s new outside from the back bedroom window, and listen to the friends who can visit us!

With love,

Kathy  x

Feest Isolation Days – 8 April 2020

My editor has written a post that will give you all another version of Feest isolation days.  He’s both my editor and resident teccy.  And also my lovely husband and the man I am very pleased to be locked down with!  It’s Day twenty five and we are still at Chez Feest and haven’t been out into the world for all this time.  If any of you want to share something from wherever you are in the world  Email it to me or simply add a comment.  People are scattered all over the globe reading this and keeping connected is what it’s all about.  For today, the view from Terry’s perspective. See you tomorrow.

Guest Post on Day Twenty-five……

It is with trepidation that I step into Kathy’s blogging role.  Her prose sparkles and inspires like champagne, mine is more solid and opaque, like lukewarm tea – but hopefully still a stimulant.  I thought it should also look different, perhaps a change of font, but Times New Roman is used everywhere, Arial is too cold and scientific, Book Antiqua too florid, so I simply settled for italics, often used to indicate a quote or insertion from elsewhere!

These are strange times.  The world is shutdown, we hide in our houses from an invisible enemy, much of the life we are used to has stopped – and yet when I look out, everything looks normal.  A colourful spring is unfolding in the garden, the dunnocks are building a nest in the ivy by the kitchen door as always, the morning birdsong is deafening, the sun has brought out the peacock tail and fritillary butterflies, the nights are getting  longer, the days are getting warmer.  But life is not normal.  My book club recently read a most amazing book, “Chernobyl Prayer”*.  After Chernobyl, the peasant farmers could not believe they could not drink the milk from their cows or eat the vegetables from their fields, or even go outside, because it all looked just the same as it had before, and many ignored the warnings with awful consequences.  When I look out to the garden I understand how they felt.  Sadly a few people here are acting that way, but thankfully it appears that in the UK the large majority of people are heeding the warnings and staying at home.

As our society faces the threat of the Covid virus there is palpable distress and anxiety around.  It made me wonder how people felt when facing earlier pandemics, when there was little scientific knowledge and much superstition.  As I read more, I got a new perspective.  We could have been facing the black death of 1348 – historians now estimate that half the population of Europe died.  We have instant information, we are bombarded with facts and figures, the government updates us, organises for us, supports us, we can communicate in so many ways with friends in so many places.  In 1348 in our town or village we would have had no communication whilst we watched our village and family die around us in a few short months.  I can’t imagine how frightening that must have been.

In the great plague of 1665 in England 25%, of the population of London died.  The Spanish flu of 1918 (which actually originated in New York, not Spain) probably killed 50 million people, and was deadly across the age spectrum and to the otherwise fit, and especially so in the 20-40 age group and in young children: it may have killed 2% of the world’s population. We are facing a horrible situation at present, but coronavirus probably kills less than 1% of all those infected, and mostly people with other major conditions, or the very elderly.   This is still too many deaths, to be avoided if at all possible, and the elderly issue is not a great comfort to me, but this is not on the scale of some earlier pandemics. In addition we have medical support, especially breathing support, on a scale never seen before.  I am thankful to be facing this in the 21^st century.

In thinking about this pandemic and our response to it, and how I feel about it, I realised something about our society.  Someone once asked the anthropologist Margaret Mead what she considered to be the first evidence of civilization. She answered: a human thigh bone with a healed fracture found in an archaeological site 15,000 years old. Mead points out that for a person to survive a broken femur the individual had to have been cared for long enough for that bone to heal. Others must have provided shelter, protection, food and drink over an extended period of time for this kind of healing to be possible. Margaret Mead suggested that the first indication of human civilization is care over time for someone who is broken and in need,

Our whole society is under lockdown, this is causing vast numbers of people distress, loss of freedom, loss of income, loss of jobs, loss of their life as they know it.  It will stimulate a worldwide recession which will take a long time to recover.  We are all in this together, we are all taking action together, we are all undergoing hardship together, but then I remember most of us are at low risk: effectively we are all doing this largely to protect the vulnerable and the elderly.  I find this comforting.  Perhaps our society is not as broken as we often fear.

It must be time for a little humour….

And not all carers are at high risk………

Enjoy your day,

Terry

* – “Chernobyl Prayer”, by Russian Nobel prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, one of the most amazing books I have read in recent years. The author has a gift of getting people to talk, and of listening. She spent years around Chernobyl researching this, and has collated people’s words and memories into a thrilling read. Reading it I was enthralled, educated and informed, chilled, inspired, often sad but finally somewhat uplifted.

See you tomorrow,

Love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 7 April 2020

The day is golden and serene with no wind and a perfect robin’s egg blue sky.  The colour of the eggs protects the growing bird inside from the harsh UVA rays of the sun according to scientists that study these things.

We could all do with having a blue shield to protect us at the moment not from the sun but from the virus that marches on.  Boris Johnson who has had the dreaded disease for ten days is now in intensive care at St. Thomas’s hospital.  Dominic Raab his Foreign Secretary is going to be taking over from the Prime Minister “when needed”.  I’d say “when needed” is all the time that the PM is in hospital and as he recovers.  Dominic looked shocked last night when he spoke to the BBC correspondent, and in fact she said the same thing in her report after the interview.  Leaders are important to us all and never more than at a time of a national crisis.  Boris was never my top pick, but as he surrounded himself with the experts and clearly was taking their advice, I became grudgingly happy with him and his handling of this pandemic. 

Mr. Trump has said he is sending drug companies to Boris’s doctors and they are geniuses (like him!) and they will have dealt with ebola and aids and they speak a language no one understands and will be asked to help Boris.  You can imagine the PM  doctors having a conversation with these people can’t you? 

In other political news, I am finally pleased that I voted for Thangham Debonaire our local MP in the last election.  I held my nose as I did it as it meant voting for Jeremy Coryby as we elect a party not a PM, but Thangham is an excellent MP and has now been promoted to the Shadow Cabinet of Sir Kiers new opposition party.  Kier kicked out most of the Corbynistas in the Cabinet and it looks like the grownups are finally back where they belong.  Kier and his team will work with the government as they continue to tackle the crisis that is Coronavirus.

Meantime, in New Zealand, the Health Secretary admits he’s “an idiot” which we all agree.  Not only did he take himself off to have a bike ride, but he drove his family to the beach for an outing this weekend. Jacinda,  the countries PM, has demoted him but not fired him as she says he is needed for the moment.  I could give  her a few names of medics we know in NZ who would do a splendid job and follow the rules!

Closer to home, maybe Boris being in hospital will at the very least keep people indoors this weekend which is supposed to be glorious.

Time now to have breakfast and that first cup of in the garden with my husband.  Hopefully our resident robin will pay us a visit.  Thank heaven for those blue shells.

Have a good day.

A funny from a friend…

I put a map of the world up on the wall in the kitchen and said to my wife that when this was all over I’d take her anywhere in the world.  I simply handed her a dart to throw and said we’d go wherever it landed. Looks like we’ll be spending two weeks behind the fridge….

Boris being Boris!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 6 April 2020

Sunday I left the virus behind for a bit after watching some of the Andrew Marr show. He interviewed the man he called Professor Lockdown.  Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist led the team from Imperial College that has been a major influence on the government’s strategy and policy.  I fast forwarded to listen to Matt Hancock.  I am becoming increasingly annoyed at the way the press are trying to make the government the bad guys in this battle.  Andrew Marr has become more and more aggressive over the months and his interviewing technique hasn’t improved. My irritation with him led to a switch off of the telly and also the pings of the What’s App that usually send funny things my way.  Instead, I spent time just sitting on the swing with my husband with a cuppa and enjoying the sunshine while it lasted.

Two apples in the fruit bowl looked like they were nearing the end of their life, so I decided it was time to do something with them. I’m not usually a cake baker, but the blueberries that came earlier in the week blended beautifully with the apples.  Making a cake felt such a normal thing to do.  I spent longer on the internet trawling through recipes then I did making my batter.  The results were delicious and if anyone wants the recipe drop me a line and I’ll save you an hour of looking and share the web address. 

We’ve been eating two meals a day since this began and it seems to work well.  Breakfast or brunch and then an earlier than we used to eat meal in the evening.  With all those cakes though I can’t imagine that I will lose any weight.  At least I hope not to gain any.  The best one can hope for at this stage I think.

The Queen was brilliant, effective and reassuring.  Whatever you think of the monarchy, at times like this having a great grandmother speak to us who has been through so much is quite special. At ninety-three her reminding us that we have the ability to do this and “we will meet again” echoing Dame Vera Lynn from World War Two was impressive.

I haven’t heard any updates on the Health Minister of New Zealand, but there is another Health Chief contending for the award for biggest health idiot of the Pandemic. The Chief Medical Officer from Scotland thought it might just be a good idea to go to her second home in Fife an hour or so away from Edinburgh – twice.  The family joined her.  Against her own and her governments advice.  This morning the news says she resigned, well at least she got that right! 

The other worrying news this morning is that Boris has been taken into hospital for “tests”.  He apparently says he can still run the government.  Hmmm.  We will all be watching for those results Boris. Now is not the time to lose you, even though we never wanted you in the first place. Get better soon and fast please!

Let’s hope for a good week with some bright spots in it that make us remember that this too shall pass and as our Queen said, “We will meet again!”   Keep taking deep breaths, and be grateful that we are where we are and not in a third world country or a refugee camp.  Life may not be easy for all of us, but it could be a lot more difficult. 

The cake…

On the swing…..

And for amusement, the old and technology……

With love,

Kathy  x

Feest Isolation Days – 5 April 2020

The sun is shining and we are all told not to go out. Stay at home!  Matt Hancock told us it’s an instruction. We’re listening Matt!  How privileged we are to have a garden to sit in and enjoy.  The glorious tulips, now at their peak, were planted last year by my personal in-house gardener before there was a sniff of virus around and before the world was in lockdown.

We have photographed the garden several times in the past few weeks and shared the results with you.  What we notice as we spend so much time sitting outside (except for the in-house gardener who is constantly doing something out there) is that not only does the garden change daily, but almost hourly as the sun moves around and the tulips open and close.  There is a bunch of red tulips that have daffodils behind them and depending on the light, the daffodils are befriending them or waving at them or just being petulant and ignoring them. There are many tulip stories. 

Yesterday I joined one hundred and fifty other singers as we participated in a “Stay and Sing” as opposed to the usual “Come and Sing.”  Each of us were in our own homes with our headphones on.  Hilary the Bristol Choral Society Musical Director took us through our paces at breakneck speed. We sang Mr. Mozart’s Coronation Mass. Two hours of learning and then singing together.  Except we couldn’t hear each other. Instead we sang along as Hilary conducted us and a pre recorded Mass came through our headphones. We saw each other via Zoom, and could send brief written chat messages.  It wasn’t perfect but beats not singing at all.  Choir becomes something else up there with walking and swimming that I miss.  I’m sure we will all get together and do more of this sort of thing on Zoom.  We singers are fortunate that it’s possible for us to practice our hobby from anywhere. 

The key is to do enough and not too much of whatever it is you enjoy, as  our young next door neighbour the batsman discovered. The thud thud of the ball on the back of the net had been absent for a few days, and I discovered that the silence was due to the blisters on his hands.  Invaluable lessons continue to be learned throughout all of this. 

The NHS has now placed everyone who retired in the past six years back on the Medical Register.  Terry is once again a Professor of Medicine.  He hasn’t yet heard how he can help from home, but will happily do so.  He has a way of calming people down with his deep and reassuring voice, and would be a welcome presence at the end of a phone disseminating information or mentoring young stressed doctors.  Watch this space.

The Queen is going to speak to the Nation today, and according to the BBC, she is going to tell us among other things, “that the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good humoured resolve and of fellow feeling still characterise this country.”

The psychologists tell us to keep taking deep breaths, and most importantly stay connected. 

As it’s Sunday, here’s a heart warming video. Some firemen from the Czech Republic

And I couldn’t resist this Sylvia Plath poem called Tulips. 

Yet another photo of red tulips and their friendly daffodil escort. One can never have enough pictures of flowers!

Happy Sunday.

With love,

Kathy

Feest Isolation Days – 4 April 2020

Saturday used to mean going to the market and eating the most wonderful croissants ever- brought to us by the people at Farro. The queues around the stall in the middle of our local market on Apsley Road suggests we weren’t the only family who loved these delicious weekly treats.  Sadly, the Farro website says they are trying to figure out what to do at the moment and will be closed until further notice until they have a plan.  There are only two bakers! The picture on their website of a young man with a never-ending smile means, hopefully, that the two of them will be able to figure out some way to carry on baking. I hope so!

We watched the National Theatre production of Two Guvnors on Thursday and in my gloomy mood yesterday I forgot to mention how funny it was.  Honestly, we laughed till we cried.  The opening scene didn’t grab either of us and I wasn’t sure that it was going to translate from the theatre to our living room, but by ten minutes or so in, we were hooked.  It’s slapstick and may not be to everyone’s taste but we loved it. The dining scene is a tour de force!  (Surely “Tour de Farce”! – Ed)

Hmmm. What is it about food today? Last night was Friday and so it was a dining room meal.  We had lamb with rhubarb and mint and poached plums for desert. The candles were lit and the wine was poured. These routines aren’t so bad really are they?

For the past two days the Health Minister, Matt Hancock – or as Terry calls him the Prime Minister in Waiting – has been chairing the Number Ten press briefings. He answers all the questions, has a clear strategy and agrees that they may not get it all right, but the plan is in place.  He has been off with the virus and has returned full of energy and vigour. The people around him are articulate and honest and it is refreshing to see.  The Tories are not the Tories at the moment.  Thank heaven.  He wiped out over a billion pounds of NHS debt, in addition to all of the other plans now in place, and that didn’t even make the headlines.  Strange times indeed.  There will still be frontline workers not yet tested, or properly gowned up in PPE, but there is hope for the future. Matt’s honesty and humanity is evident.

Contrast him to the in a spot of bother Health Minister in New Zealand.  The PM there must be spitting tacks.  The Health Minister jumped into his car with his bicycle and went off to a mountain bike park so he could get some exercise. Not a good example.  Bet they have a new Health Minister soon!

A bicycle sound treat for you today. Enjoy!

And greetings from dinner last night.

Love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 3 April 2020

A sneeze!  A cough.  Oh dear.  Is it the dreaded disease?  How could it be?  We’ve been indoors for twenty days.  It’s just a sneeze.  Why am I getting jumpy?  Bristol is not in the top ten for cases per 100,000 people.  I’m not sure where we are but this top ten is a pleasure to avoid. Most of the time we manage our worries and just get on. We clean and disinfect everything that comes into the house, don’t go out, no one visits. Yet sometimes that feeling of anxiety arrives and we’re reminded that our new lifestyle is not one of our own choice but came upon us courtesy of a virus that is trying to find its way into lives all over the world.

There are plans to develop a new hospital in Bristol, like those springing up all over the country. It helps me to discover the source of my current anxiety. Creating a new hospital at a Conference Centre at the University of the West of England that could take up to one thousand ventilated patients brings the epidemic into sharp focus.  Lots and lots of people are going to contract this disease. I always knew that, but reading about the local plans no one wants to talk about shakes my hard won equilibrium. There is no news that doesn’t include the words coronavirus.  Newspaper headlines (read online) screech about masks, personal protection equipment, and the television network presenters sit in front of graphics of the virus that are seared into our brains.  Daily reminders are something you learn how to process and then something new comes along and you have to recalibrate and

refocus attention on whatever it was that got you stable and coping in the first place.

There are going to be days like this I suppose. Stuck inside, unable to help. We’ve only been indoors for twenty days.  We probably have at least another hundred or so to go. We all have to dig deep.  A friend told me yesterday all the jokes were beginning to wear a bit thin.  Perhaps too much of a good thing can be just as unhelpful as too much of a bad thing.

A next door neighbour’s son whacks his cricket bat against something that makes a thudding noise and he expresses the frustration we all share.  My heart goes out to kids all over the country living their lives indoors and unable to go to school, meet their friends or do any of the things kids normally do.  Still haven’t heard from my friend about how we can help organise something for those who haven’t got the resources to buy the things that will help them through this.  I will chase that up!  Something positive to do.

I heard from a New Zealand pal yesterday. She spoke about drinking a very nice bottle of wine and I remembered the generosity she and her husband showed us when they cracked open a very expensive and gorgeous wine for a special dinner she had cooked for the four of us.  Chicken cooked outdoors on top of tea tree leaves and branches. The delicious smell of the smouldering leaves permeated the outdoor dining area. We peered over the treetops and tall palms down to the sea and watched the boats gently rocking on their mooring as cool jazz played on the Ipod and the sun set.  The evening was warm and the food and wine were as special as our human connection. That seems like another lifetime.  Actually it was only two months ago.  Those memories of the smell of the wood smoke and the cool breeze of the evening and the delicious friendship are worth tapping into just now.  And they always will be.  What memories do you have to get you through your trickier days?

Time for a few deep breaths and to get on with the rest of the day in our magnificent home. Sitting in our spring garden, it’s easy to forget why we aren’t going anywhere. And sometimes that isn’t such a bad thing.

Something beautiful to look at! – from the garden now….

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A little something for your exercise…

Enjoy.

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 2 April 2020

Book group last night! Six of us sat around my house and discussed our book. Except no one left their own home.  We were all on our preferred devices in our own homes using Zoom.  It wasn’t near as nice as being all together in the same room and sharing a nibble and a cuppa or a glass of wine, but it beat not having book group at all. We plan to “meet” again at the end of the month. Some of the group are still working and they’re all working from home and getting quite proficient at using Zoom and other methods to do their jobs.  It doesn’t take too long to adapt!

Our modern technology opens up so many possibilities!  Tonight, we plan to watch a You Tube National Theatre production at 7:00.  I like that they state a time, and you can’t just watch it anytime you want.  Nice to have a bit of shape to the evening, and I love writing a few things in the diary again.

Another observation from Grumpy of Clifton…We listen to the daily Number Ten press briefing which is on every day at about five and often learn something from the experts.  We don’t learn much from the journalists!  They keep asking the same old questions and expect a different response. Yes, there needs to be more protective equipment.  Yes, there needs to be more testing.  They could cleverly give us all a bit more information if they asked their questions in a more considered way. They all ask the same things over and over and clearly haven’t read the information that I have about why Germany is testing more for instance.  Can I please ask a question?  Maybe I’ll write to Laura at the BBC or Robert Peston with a suggestion.

Food occupies our thoughts a lot more than it used to.  Having to order weekly and not go into the shops ourselves has its benefits.  We sit down together and plan what we will have for a week and then go and order online from Reg the Veg or via text to the butcher.  Our next grocery delivery is still a few weeks away, but with Amazon to fill in the gaps, we seem to be just fine.  There is plenty of fresh food in the house and the freezer is constantly getting replenished. Nothing goes to waste.  We use every morsel of food we have in one way or another.  Roast chicken becomes left over salad and then the carcass is boiled for stock and becomes soup.  Although we’re ordering weekly, we are careful and aware that we may not have this luxury in a few months time.  Who knows what the supply chain will be like in May? Not much is thrown away.  It reminds me of our beloved Doris, Terry’s Mum, who lived through the war and never let anything go to waste. Finding uses for each and every drop of anything that came her way was second nature to her.  I always marvelled at the plastic bag she had tied onto her slow dripping bath tap.  She wanted to save the bath from  the rusty streaks that the water caused.  But one day I saw her, bag in hand with the few drops that had fallen watering one of her plants.  Nothing  wasted. Hope none of us waste food, water or the opportunity that this enforced time at home is affording us. 

This may be just one tiny step too far using technology!  But it made me smile, hope it does you, too!

With love,

Kathy x