Day One

Feest Isolation Days – 15 March 2020

We are all beginning to take on board the implications of this virus. It seems to me that we have all been in what Kubler Ross identified as the five stages of grief. First there is the denial, then the anger, followed by bargaining and depression until finally acceptance arrives. I can admit to going through all these feelings which are really to do with the grief for life as we have known it which is now irrevocably changed.  Like grief, it arrived swiftly,  unasked for, and unannounced.  I think my denial was pretty intense, my anger measured, but my depression very real.

Until just under three weeks ago, we were in New Zealand. Just before we flew home, the New Zealand Herald had an article splashed all over the front page telling the story of the first person in the country with coronovirus, but the next day on page three we were told they’d not tested positive.  We got on the plane armed with antiseptic wet wipes and cleaned everything we touched.  Getting back into our lovely home in Bristol was wonderful and friends asked if I was happy to be home – as though I hadn’t totally enjoyed New Zealand!  Now, on Day One of Isolation, New Zealand seems a distant dream.

For those of you who don’t know, Terry and I worked in Auckland for a year and fell in love with the place and have returned each winter for the past eight years for nearly three months. We spend about six weeks living in Auckland and travel around the country before and after our time in that fabulous city.  We walk and swim, Terry catches trout, I keep writing, and we socialise with our many friends.

Since we returned, I have scoured the Internet for info about the virus and tried to do everything I could to feel a bit better.  The information came fast and furious from every news outlet in this country and across the world.  I binged on news and became a news junkie for awhile trying to figure out what was happening to us all.  Our first weeks back home slipped by with my usual daily long walks and stationery bike effort, catching up with friends, getting over jet lag.  We went to the ballet, watched a modern dance programme, dined with friends at theirs, had dinner out with others and went to the theatre.  We saw all of the kids…taking the train to Salisbury and then Exeter. I was in London on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I met our youngest son in Hackney for a quick cuppa at a Costa on route to visit a friend with dementia.  After spending the night with her, I travelled back on the train from London to Bristol.  While I was in London, I used the tube and the over ground to and from Liverpool Street to Hertfordshire.   Londoners were subdued and I was careful with hand washing and the rest but only in a kind of unwilling compliant way. (Bargaining and denial). I was grateful to get home and knew by the end of the week that we were all in a bit of a denial phase.  An uncomfortable beginning of acceptance of what was hitting us all nibbled away at me and I tried to ignore it. 

I’d just carry on!  We’d be fine.  We would wash our hands and use our sanitizer and the world would soon return to normal. Then the impending advice to keep over seventies away from the virus was announced.  It wasn’t happening just yet, but it would and soon.  They would be asked to self isolate for MONTHS.

Terry and I are now self isolating. This is DAY ONE.   As a reminder about the two of us – my darling husband is a seventy six year old retired Professor of Nephrology, I’m a retired sixty six year old with an eclectic career.  My last position was with the Department of Health as a SPAD (Special Advisor) and an Associate Dean in Bristol in Post Graduate Medical Education, my area of expertise was first and second year doctors.  Since retirement, I have finished writing an as yet unpublished novel, started another and settled on a different one which I am currently working on.  I’m writing a play with my friend Anne, and we are trying to figure out how to continue working together remotely.  Life at a desk at home is familiar territory.

We are theatre, ballet and concert goers. I’m in a choir and Terry is a keen trout fisherman who ties his own flies. He belongs to a film club, we both belong to book groups.  We socialise a LOT, dinners with the Feests are well known to our friends and if  friends aren’t at ours we’re at theirs on both sides of the world!   We read, listen to music, and travel a lot – or used to. For now we are in lockdown. We will walk in isolation.  Terry will fish ( very self contained sport)  I will write. All seventy year olds will soon to be told to self isolate for months. We are starting the process now.  It’s scary stuff. 

To be honest I love humour where we can find it and love that we have a wonderful home and garden to live in.  I’m not so keen on telling our son, (my stepson) that he can’t stay with us while he works in Bristol in a week’s time. (That made me cry) I told Terry he had to do that. Then it dawned on me.  Naomi our stepdaughter can’t come either.  Nor Alexander our youngest.  The grandchildren can’t come either.  It all became very sobering.

This can’t be happening.  A great deal of water separates us from the Continent.  Not here. Not us. We won’t become as bad as Italy.  Or France. Or Spain – yet.

One tiny word that means so much!  Yet.

I decided to keep a daily account of what our life is like in Isolation.  I wanted to share my feelings with our many friends who are scattered around the globe. Terry may from time to time share his thoughts too. Social isolation is upon us and we are social beings.  Coronavirus is upon us.  Finding ways of continuing to live our lives and love the lives we live is our challenge.

My  promise is to offer not just what my and our feelings are, but something regularly that is either uplifting, funny or just plain pleasant.  It is my gift to you all.  My many many friends who have always told me to keep writing. I shall.  And I hope to hear from you, too. 

We all come to terms with this pandemic in different ways at different times and are on the Kubler Ross journey.  It isn’t a linear trajectory and some days will be better than others and tears will flow.  And we don’t even have this dreaded thing….yet.

On a brighter note. The birds are singing the daffs are up and despite it all, in writing this and sharing it with you I’m already beginning to feel like me again despite this damnable situation.

Lots of love

Kathy x

Below is the first thing I found that made me laugh about this virus. Hope it makes you laugh too!