Feest Isolation Days

Feest Isolation Days – 16 May

The debate rages about whether kids should be able to go back to school on the first of June.  The head of an academy responsible for thirty-five primary schools says opposition to schools opening is “rather middle class”.  Forty-five per cent of the kids in his school are eligible for school meals. He suggests that the view of middle class parents is lopsided and children need to get back to school for a variety of reasons. Kids stuck in gardenless, deviceless homes need school. 

Anne Longfield the Children’s Commissioner for England said that the government and teachers’ unions should “stop squabbling and agree a plan” to reopen schools safely.  She is concerned that many disadvantaged children were losing out because of schools being closed for so long.  For a variety of reasons, she says not every household is able to home school. 

The Unions, led by the National Education Union, have drawn up five tests which, it says the government should meet before schools reopen. These include regular testing, protection for vulnerable staff, and a national plan for social distancing. The union’s primary demand is that there is a “full rollout” of the government’s test, trace and isolate policy, with targets for testing being consistently met and the numbers of new cases of Covid-19 falling. While testing targets have indeed risen and been more than met over the past few days, and new cases are probably falling, it seems that the Unions are still not happy.  There are also concerns that teachers will have to clean their school rooms in order to keep them safe, and the unions don’t think this is a good idea.  I have to say, I haven’t seen one word about students in the Union’s demands. The science does not seem to be leading the way on this.

The science is available to assess more of our risks than anyone seems to be discussing. My husband, who spent a great deal of his working life using statistics,  is surprised that we aren’t getting more analysis and interpretation from the scientists and the government of the simple statistics recently released, which could give us so much more information about death rates and numbers in the population who have had the disease and when they had it, and who is most or least at risk. He thinks the journalists should be clamouring for this.  My view is the journalists don’t know how to ask the appropriate questions and not many are statisticians. Perhaps Terry will play with some of the figures and give us all a few more insights soon.  Or if the fishing lakes open in England, he may not!

Sensible intelligent leadership has certainly worked in New Zealand!  We are so happy for our friends there.  They have now moved into the next stage of reopening the country and at level two, life is beginning to cautiously begin post lockdown.  People are going to be able to get their hair cut (and coloured!)* amongst other things that we all long to do. Friends write to tell us they celebrated by having a meal at a restaurant!  The rest of us can only serve up the next meal and wonder when we, too might be able to say that!  Jacinda has proven that she belongs at the head of government and I hope the people of New Zealand agree she deserves to stay in office. We shall see what happens when the electorate cast their votes later this year.

Here it is the weekend again, and that means last night the wine flowed and with our new found Zoom weekend dinner parties, the conversation flowed as well.  Zoom has been such a boost to everyone. Getting out of the house to someone else’s place for a meal or having them come here will truly be the sign that something approaching normality has returned.  We are not there yet. 

The baby plants in the garden survived the cold snap and I think you’ll agree the white border is looking rather special! Have a Happy Saturday! See you tomorrow!

With Love,

Kathy x

* I will dye my hair rainbow colours!  Ed.

Feest Isolation Days – 15  May

There are objects around our house, and I’m sure yours too, and you wonder, why? Just why would I hang onto that or them?  Who knows?  But we get to a point where keeping something seems to have become a habit and before we know it, life wouldn’t be the same if we no longer kept whatever it was.  These things have to start somewhere I suppose, and then before you know it they have developed into a routine that becomes normal. 

Cleaning the house at the moment without the wonderful help we usually have reminds us both that a) we don’t like doing it anymore now than we did when we started this lockdown and b) we are old and our bodies creak from cleaning c) we live in a very big house with lots of stuff.

Cleaning the gadgets and gizmos you acquire is one thing but thinking about why you don’t toss them in the bin is quite another.

I have been wearing the same perfume for years now, Moschino gold, the original before they branched out into dozens more fragrances.  The packaging has been the same for all the years I have been buying it.  A gold box which holds a nicely shaped glass spray bottle and a little ribbon that is the colour of the Italian flag. The connection with Italy is clear; Moschino is an Italian company.  When a new bottle is required every four or five months or so, the package gets opened and the cardboard is placed carefully in the recycling bin, the cellophane goes in another bin, the old perfume bottle nestles in my lingerie drawer and the new glass bottle is placed on the shelf.  But the little ribbon?  For some reason, I have no idea why, I keep the ribbon.  It sits on the perfume shelf in the bathroom and meets up with the other ribbons that I put there in previous months. From the collection I’ve acquired, I’d say I’ve been doing this for just over five years.  Math has never been my best subject, but there are fourteen ribbons. (I’m sure my editor will sort out my maths as I often refer to him as both my calculator, and compass – what skills!) But why do I do this? I have absolutely no idea.  Yet on every bathroom cleaning expedition during lockdown, (and there have been far, far too many of them!) I couldn’t bring myself to throw these little Italianate ribbons away.  When I open a new bottle of perfume if I am in New Zealand, the ribbon goes straight into the bin along with the box and the other packaging.  Here? Nope. It doesn’t feel right.  And now it’s become like a little art work, an homage to Moschino.

Perhaps my journals will tell me what was going on in my life when this habit began. My shelf is filled with diaries and I see that I have been recording words and experiences for many years. Is that a form of hoarding?  There are a few hints in those words, but I can’t share everything with you now can I?

I’m convinced I’m not alone in this harmless obsession (not the word hoarding but the ribbon collection). It would be good to understand the whys and wherefores, but I suspect that’s too much to ask. 

I’m certain my time would be better spent thinking about the second wave of coronavirus that is bound to hit if somebody doesn’t sort out public transportation. Or perhaps I should worry about the fact that the police don’t seem to have powers to act on ensuring that the latest advice that the government has set out is adhered to.  But then again…maybe not!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 14 May

What is one of your best memories about the past few weeks?  Is there something that happened to you, or that you did that made you feel so tip top you wanted to shout to the rooftops? Come on, there must have been!  Even though we may have problems (and some of them may have nothing to do with coronavirus), there must be something that springs to mind?

One of mine was the first time I realised that I could keep in contact with everyone!  I didn’t have to become a hermit, I could reach out, try to stay connected and be in touch with my many friends, sharing the thoughts as I would in other times over a coffee, or a meal.  Realising that I could keep in touch no matter what else was happening, made me feel alive and happy. I know we’re connecting because many of you keep reading these musings and tell me so.  It is a lovely memory of the coronavirus time that I will not forget. Inspired by the sharing, it has enabled me to keep on writing other words that I have wanted to for years. I have been writing things down since I could hold a pen though if the truth be known!

Several years ago I was hospitalised and really unwell (it was not a good time, Terry was immobile elsewhere with a slipped disc). I wrote an article that eventually found its way to the Chief Execs office and appeared in a hospital publication. You never know where musings will end up.  I thought I’d share that story with you today. As it’s a few pages long, I’ll leave you with that today and see you tomorrow. It’s called “We’re All in This Together”. Seemed apt!

And finally….

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 13 May

Some days the shared sadness of so many friends who are worrying for their grown up children deflates my usual buoyancy. Adult kids with children and no jobs, with money beginning to run out and futures that are unclear, are increasingly causing many parents to wobble. Many adult children are now in jobs that are no longer possible to do because they are either shut down or involve practices that can no longer occur. Who knows when this will change?  I can tell when many of my female friends are troubled because of their silence. They don’t know what to say.

We all listen to the commentators and hear the fears and frustrations that fuel many of their unhelpful questions and statements to ministers. Their steadfast disavowal of anything that could be construed as positive has become the norm and they poke at the flaws.  And there are of course flaws.  The MSN newsfeed tells me that the Chancellor plans to end the furlough payments to all of those who desperately need this support.  Then, within minutes I see a news strap that says, in fact that is not the case at all, and furlough payments will be extended for another four months until the end of October.  Fear, uncertainty, the inability to maintain control, hearing constant reminders of latest coronavirus deaths, all this takes its toll on our mental strength.

Hold firm! The world is not the same place as it was sixty some odd days ago.  Try as we might, we can’t imagine how it will look in another month, or two months or six.   To all the (especially) female friends of mine who’s hearts are breaking for the broken lives of their kids, please stay strong!  Your strength is important to keep them going; to cheer them on and to encourage them to think positively.  I know it isn’t easy, I too share your feelings and sometimes the tears do fall as I worry for the fifteen year olds, the eighteen year olds, the twenty somethings and thirty somethings, and the rest. I wish the government had started the latest advice with Stay Strong! 

Sixty days into this new way of life seems a good time for a few reminders about tips on long time coping strategies that can help maintain our mental strength.

1. Put your feelings into words (affect labelling). Studies have shown that naming your negative feelings takes the sting out of the feelings they induce. Recognising what your emotions are is important.  Check in with yourself a few times a day and see what you’re feeling. Saying you’re sad or anxious, or whatever you are feeling is a helpful first step.

2. Schedule some worry time.  Plan a session when you will worry about everything!  Death rates, scarier headlines, the kids, all of it.  Think about all of your concerns for no more than fifteen minutes a day, then stop.  Then go and do something else. Studies have shown that limiting worrying to “scheduled worrying” works. You’ll feel better the rest of the day.

3. When you are concerned by the dreadful behaviour of others, do something kind.  Send a nice text, or email or letter to someone. Bake cakes with your grandkids (remotely pf course!).  If you are going out, drop something at a neighbours who can’t leave the house. Practice kindness. You’ll feel better!

4. Express your gratitude. Studies show that gratitude boosts happiness levels. Think about what you do have to be positive about. Nothing?  How about the electricity that is still working, the water that we don’t have to fetch from a dirty well?  Keep a journal if that helps.   

Know that you are NOT alone!  We are all going through a rollercoaster of emotions and when the ride ends, we all want to be able to continue to be mentally strong.

Laugh!  Dance!  Enjoy!  Remember when those adult kids were small and you would tickle them out of a mood, or coax them to stop crying?  Now that they, and we, are adults, you can still help them. Don’t damp down your joy.  It’s infectious and will help you to help yourself and others. Try some of the above and use whatever works for you. Stay strong!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 12 May

The Evening Standard’s headline on Monday was  “Muddle Monday”.  Some tubes were packed as workers returned to jobs once more, heeding the governments call on Sunday night that if people can’t work from home that they should  head back to the office. Except, according to Dominic Raab on morning telly when he said workers weren’t  meant to return until Wednesday. That’s clear then!  The lack of Social Distancing in the workplace and on transport has to be a worry for everyone.  The peak of the coronavirus may have passed, but unless there are better systems in place, especially on public transport, all the lockdown measures everyone has taken could put the country back to square one.  Strong leadership needs clarity and consensus and it would appear that these twin requirements are currently somewhat lacking. 

Last night, Boris took the daily press briefing and stood between the Chief Scientific Officer, Patrick Vallance and the Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty. Suddenly, there was more clarity.  Questions that everyone had about the changes to lockdown were answered and the government’s message became clearer. There will be tiny steps forward, work places will need to be capable of social distancing and employers will need to be sensible.  Why Boris gave his muddled message on his own on Sunday evening is beyond me.  The speech was pre-recorded; perhaps his learning curve in the hours since he filmed it was great enough to necessitate changes and more clarity.  We shall see what happens over the next few weeks. Everything is conditional on the R – the level or rate of infection staying below one.   Let’s hope it keeps falling.

Whatever the politicians tell us is in store, we still need to find that inner place of calm as we remain locked down. Examining the new rules, we understand that there are a few baby steps we can begin to take as we move out of total isolation. There will be more walks in the country, Terry will be able to fish sooner than he anticipated, and all will be done carefully and legally. Socially distancing is a given for the foreseeable future.

Just as well that we have several Zoom sessions with friends booked this week – we will both delight in the lift that socialising will give us. Our Zoom dinner parties have worked so well we plan another one on Friday, something to look forward to!  My makeup will be refreshed, I’ll find a dinner party outfit, light the dining room candles, turn off the music and fling open the dining room door to friends – electronically of course.   It’s the best we can do for now and beats not having the contact. 

We sang Happy Birthday twice this weekend and intend to fully celebrate all those

missed birthdays in person when the world is truly out of lockdown whenever that will be. 

The little girl who lives next door raised money for the NHS by circling her garden two hundred times at the weekend.  It took her three and a half hours to emulate Colonel Tom.  Bravo! We are told that some teenage kids are beginning to get itchy and long to see their friends and return to their way of life. This pandemic is not easy for them. In many ways, we healthy older people with partners we love and financial security are the luckiest of the bunch. We are aware that we mustn’t be complacent though, as the virus seems to like older bodies the best.  We won’t be visiting anyone anytime soon. No hugs!

We are back to bundling up with our hats and coats on in order to share a cuppa on the swing. Our hearts go out to all of those who battled the wind and the cold to get onto a packed tube to get to work this morning. Let’s hope that with the experts at his side, Boris really can sort this next phase out. If not, we are all back to square one.  Lockdown!

And finally, for those of you not in the UK, to clarify where we are now…

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 11 May

The Prime Minister’s announcement last night of what the immediate lockdown future will look like is in every newspaper and on every commentator’s lips.  The discussions and disagreements about the approach will continue for a long time.  There isn’t an easy straight forward answer, decisions have to be taken and now they have been.  We will be here for a long while yet. For the record, I think the message is wrong and unclear.  “Stay Home” is much more effective as a concept than “Stay Alert”.  The coronavirus is not something that you can swerve around like one of the many pot-holes in our streets. We await the details of what appears to be a confusing and mixed message. 

Like the recommendations about our movements, the weather too has changed. Those recent balmy summer days are now a thing of the past and the wind coming from the Arctic is keeping the heat on and our doors closed.

In some parts of the world it was Mother’s Day yesterday.  Britain celebrates this event in March, but as my own Mother was an American, a pause to remember her seemed in order. 

My Mother died thirty nine years ago when I was pregnant with my son.  She had cancer and at the age of fifty-three it carried her away.  Mother was two different people for many years of her life.  She was the woman she wanted to be out in the business world, and the woman she needed to be at home.  In the nineteen fifties when most women were exclusively home makers, my mother went out to work.  She lived in the world of stocks and bonds and numbers and money.  In an age when these things didn’t often happen to women, she was head hunted to work in a Savings and Loan company – the equivalent of a British Building Society.  Her intelligence and hard work meant that within a few years she became a Vice President and Secretary of the company.  Her name was embossed on all the checks drawn at the bank.  Impressive indeed! 

As she began her married life one wouldn’t have guessed what she might achieve. It wasn’t until about ten years ago that my siblings and I discovered a family secret.  Mother was pregnant with my brother at the age of eighteen and she and my father married against the wishes of my mother’s family in a quiet ceremony somewhere out of State. When my Aunt told me this piece of family history she asked if we had never wondered why there were no wedding photographs around. I hadn’t. I was the youngest of three children, and checked with my brother and sister.  They didn’t know about this either. It explained a lot to all of us!   Our house was filled with a great deal of tension and not so many happy photographs. 

Mom became the President of the Business and Professional Women’s group in her later years, and her drive and interest outside of our home was always a success.  My father couldn’t quite totally accept the dynamic businesswoman he had married, and there were many domestic rows when we grew up.  She was a trail blazer and a woman who taught us by example to follow our hearts and do what we needed to do.  There were lots of hugs and warmth and kindness aimed in my direction. I hung onto them when my parents decided that their job was finished when I graduated from high school, and left me to fend for myself. When my sister’s first child was born I was able to see the sort of affection Mom had given to her own young children. She adored her granddaughter and showered her with the sort of easy love that one can when the past has settled into the distance and the here and now is happier. Rest in Peace Dolores, you didn’t do a bad job if I do say so myself! 

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 10 May

After the celebrations, flowing wine, and singing with the family and friends on VE Day, it’s a new day with new things to enjoy. The small things that matter to us hold our attention once more, and we return to our routine.  The weather has held so we were able to breakfast in the garden yesterday.  Today we’re told the north wind arrives and we will need to reach once more for our winter jumpers.  Terry will put the tender plants inside just in case.  We remain locked down and await the news that is going to give us the road map for the future. 

Today marks one hundred days since the first case of Covid 19 was confirmed in the UK.  Without a vaccine yet, and no known cure, the steps out of the pandemic will be incremental.  Lockdown will no doubt continue for some time.  There will be no sudden end to this coronavirus crisis. The NHS is coping, even though the PPE in some places is sometimes not sufficient.  Care homes are the source of many deaths now, and the NHS has turned its attention to helping those facilities.  They are not geared up to deal with what has hit them.  The NHS will offer its expertise and hopefully help where they can.  The real problem is that those in care homes are the most vulnerable to this disease and their underlying medical conditions are why they are where they are in the first place.

Study results have now become available from scientists testing all sorts of behavioural measures in response to the lockdown measures.   One of the most worrying findings is that young men between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four are breaking the rules more than anyone else.  Eight out of ten people stopped or fined by the police were this age. In a study of two thousand young men in this age group, nearly half said they were feeling significantly more anxious during the lockdown – and this was particularly true if they had a parent who was a key worker. Clearly more needs to be done to help these young men deal with the situation they find themselves in. Their long-term mental health needs ought to be addressed.  These are worrying times for everyone, but as a particular group has been identified as needing more support, they must get it. There are many wonderful groups working hard across the land to ensure that they do.

Every news outlet in the country seems intent on pre-empting the Prime Minister’s announcement that will be delivered today, Sunday, at seven o’clock in the evening, setting out the roadmap plans for the easing of lockdown restrictions.  The unknown is frightening territory for many, and the coronavirus has brought with it an unknowable future.  There have been steps in the right direction, the peak of the curve of disease has been flattened, the social distancing measures have worked; the NHS has not been overwhelmed.  Many in society, not just young men, are still struggling and many more are helping them.

As the Queen remarked in her VE Day speech, “our streets are not empty; they are filled with the love and the care that we have for each other. And when I look at our country today, and see what we are willing to do to protect and support one another, I say with pride that we are still a nation that those brave soldiers, sailors and airmen would recognise and admire.”

“Never give up never despair.”  The Queen says that is the message of VE day.  A message we all need to remember as we go forward with our lives.  We are all and will continue to be in this together.

This Springsteen song is all about running away – which doesn’t sound too inspiring, until you appreciate that it’s also about starting all over again with a new outlook. I defy you not to move…..(and it has an amazing sax solo).

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 8 May

Victory in Europe Day –VE Day. The Seventy Fifth anniversary of the end of World War Two. A glorious yet also sombre day as we remembered those who gave their lives for all of us. The usual celebrations, and remembrance services, were not able to take place.  No standing at the Cenotaph, no wreaths, no serenade of the Last Post (taps in America).  No lines of servicemen and women snaking through London.  Coronavirus has changed even our most cherished and noteworthy dates. 

But there were imaginitive commemorations….

Victory in Europe and remembering all those who gave their lives in war zones around the world made us all pause for a collective silence at eleven. Except that there is no sound other than bird song as the silence is already there.  We will fall silent on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  Perhaps we will be able to come together to collectively mark the end of the first World War, when the calendar flips round to November.  We live in hope.

Hope is what has tumbled through the decades to us all from those that served in what was one of the darkest times in the recent history of the world.  Staying home, for however it long it will be, seems a slight and easy task by comparison. There are no bombs dropping overhead, no fires, our food supply continues.

As is the way during these lockdown days, we met with our friends and family on Zoom and we sang the song of hope that Dame Vera Lynn made famous.  “We’ll Meet Again, Don’t Know Where Don’t Know When”.  How true.  And we will indeed.  In the meantime, we are thankful for those who served their countries so ably.

Our house, which is close to the Downs, was requisitioned by the Army during the war. The owner at the time wasn’t displaced, as he rented out the property and there were no tenants living there.  As someone who grew up in America,  it was quite amazing to discover from our deeds that the house I’ve called home for nearly thirty years was once lived in by  American Servicemen! I had heard that the Downs were covered in tents where GI’s billeted, and thought that was why the location of our house was of particular interest. In fact, the reason was that it is only about a five minute walk to Clifton College. 

Clifton College played an important role during the war.  It became the headquarters for the American First Army led by General Omar Bradley.  Bradley and many of his senior men took over a mansion, The Holmes, in Stoke Bishop. The premises  included a ball room, stables and, importantly for Bradley who was keen on delivering excellent cuisine to his innumerable guests, a large kitchen. The house also had plenty of other rooms for the many distinguished military personnel who  stayed there during the war; some for days, others for weeks.

The Holmes now houses the Bristol Botanic Gardens, a University Department, and is also a hall of residence for Bristol University.   Photographs line the entry way walls with pictures of the men who passed through Bristol as they participated in the planning of one of the many extraordinary battles of the war. It is well documented that Bristol was the location for the planning of D Day.  Eisenhower, Patten, Bradley and photos of many other World War Two notables are displayed. In addition, a letter of thanks signed by Dwight Eisenhower is proudly displayed.  Our humble home would have housed officers who were working for Bradley at Clifton College.

Bristol was a welcoming place and Black American servicemen found themselves in a city where many of them were  treated in ways that they hadn’t experienced back home.  They were able to enter and drink in pubs and could ride buses and trams without hindrance. The other (white) GI’s took exception to this, but the people of Bristol did not harbour the prejudices that many Americans did. 

One day when I find my story, I shall write more about this!  In the meantime, a thank you to those who gave their lives so that we can live ours in the way we do. 

We pay tribute to all of them on this important day.

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 8 May

     We left early for our weekly country walk and there were few people and even fewer cars around.  The day was slightly chilly at first but became the most splendid of warm, sunny May days.  We had our breakfast picnic and enjoyed the warmth and the expanse of green all around us.  We happened upon the only bluebells we’ll see this season.  Normally, (that word that no longer exists for any of us!) we would have been seeking walks where bluebells grew plentifully. At least we saw one carpeted spread of the splendid flowers (splendid that is as long as they’re not in your garden).  The walk meandered next to a river Terry often fishes and he would have no doubt preferred spending his morning casting into the water for his trout, but that isn’t possible yet.

Bluebells this year, our only chance…

But last year………..!

   

  The Oxford Scientists have begun a vaccine trial and what usually can take years is being concertinaed into months.  We all hope they can move swiftly as all around us the longer we are unable to move out of lockdown, the more businesses suffer and will undoubtedly fail.  Virgin Atlantic Airlines has let over three thousand employees go and have said they will not return to using Gatwick as an airport; but have held onto slots there just in case.  British Airways has also laid off thousands of staff and they too, are unsure of the way they might use Gatwick in the future.  As we all cancel more and more plans for the rest of the year, it’s hard to imagine getting on a plane for a very long time.

     For as long as I can remember, we have travelled the world.  We have been to  over a hundred countries and getting to places like Paris, Amsterdam and Venice was once as easy and as economical as getting on a bus.  Over the years we have come to know these cities well. It is hard to imagine that we will not be visiting them soon again.  During the post retirement years when we began returning to New Zealand regularly, we saw less of these marvellous places, telling ourselves that as we got older and long distance travel became more difficult for us, we would visit them once more.  We still go to Europe once or twice a year, but there was a time when we were working when it was more like once a month! Whether for a holiday or work, or various conferences, we were always happy for any excuse to visit.  Who knows when we’ll get there again.

     We never wanted the UK to leave the EU and now that we have officially left, this unreal coronavirus reality has taken precedence over any and all thoughts we might have about Brexit.  But what will happen at the end of this year as our government shifts away from Europe?  It is hard to see how ministers of any country can concentrate their efforts on the UK and their interests rather than concern themselves with their own coronavirus situation. Suddenly we move back into politics.

     My interest in politics has radically diminished over the months since Covid 19 appeared, and as the virus is apolitical, I believe so too, should the solutions to our problems with it.  Keir Starmer is now the head of the Labour party and in a socially distancing Parliament, is holding the government to account. This must be correct in any democracy.  However, my hope is that the parties will all work together with each other to get out of this situation.  All the talk of Brexit for years was weary making.  Let’s hope that the talk of the coronavirus is short lived and we can get back to political business as “normal”.  Politicians debating once more how we should or shouldn’t do this or that. What a luxury!  I tired of Brexit talks early on. The coronavirus discussion is also already getting tired, let’s hope it doesn’t last as long as the Brexit debate did – and has a better outcome!

     To all the Scientists in the world, good luck!  We are on your side, whatever your political persuasion.  One third of Americans polled believe you have already developed a vaccine and are just not sharing it. 

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/24/coronavirus-one-third-us-believe-vaccine-exists-is-being-withheld/3004841001/

Politics in America at least has never been more important.  Let’s hope the correct party gets into the White House in November! 

Here, there are whispers that new lockdown plans are afoot.  We have to wait until Boris speaks to us all on Sunday night to find out what they are.  Meantime, the walk was refreshing, and gave us what we needed to carry on in lockdown and keep going. Who knows for how long yet?  Watch this space.

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 7 May

if you’ve read any of these isolation days entrees, you no doubt know by now that we are enamoured with New Zealand.  We have spent every winter there for eight years in a row, and we also worked there for a year.  We have made many many good friends and it has truly become our second home. Several friends from there were meant to visit us here this year and over the years the traffic has been both ways, Bristol- Auckland- Auckland- Bristol.  Jacinda Ardern the Prime Minister announced this week that it will be a very long time before the New Zealand borders are open. My heart became heavy on hearing that. Not only will not be able to return there, but our friends will not manage to head this way either.

This is not good news for us but we make the best of what  we can. Thank heavens for Zoom!  This morning my pals from Auckland included me in their book group.  When we worked there, one of my colleagues invited me to join the group and every year since our return, wherever we are in Auckland, our house is the place for the summer meeting.  What a treat seeing them all again and connecting with the land and people we have grown to love. They have been on lockdown as well and are beginning to head towards the next phase of awakening.  The same sorts of things we moan about here are irritating many of my female friends there, too.  We all are most fed up with cleaning our houses!  It takes so long and none of us are used to it.  The problems of the privileged.  All I can say is it was all a lot easier when I was younger. 

This evening, there is more from Auckland on Zoom.  My Pilates teacher joins me electronically once more in my garden room and will put me through my paces.  She is amazing and we hope to carry this on for months and months to come.

As lockdown continues our routines are becoming embedded in our way of life and  the new normal includes such different things! I secretly love the chance to see my NZ friends and am delighted that there will be at least one more Zoom book group.  I don’t want them to end…I miss my pals and the thought of not seeing them this year is sad. Zoom beats nothing.

On the positive side, here “Theatre” trips with friends have returned. Friends watch the same performances on line at roughly the same time we do and then we have a meal and discuss it. It worked so well last week we are doing it with a different couple this week.  Roll on Friday!  Friends!  Wine!  Theatre!  (almost) Normal. 

Tomorrow we plan to go for our weekly country walk.  I must admit yesterday when we planned it I really needed the idea of getting out of the house.  For some reason, it felt like time to break out of all of this now, it’s been long enough!  I wanted to go out for dinner and drink my tea in a coffee shop with a girlfriend and go to the actual  theatre, and to the ballet and to London! I want to hug the kids and the grandkids and drive around going nowhere just for the hell of it! But today, after two Zoom book groups and the conversations after with friends on What’s App, life feels fine again. Normal?  Nearly!

My friends with younger grandchildren tell me that a certain restlessness has set in for some of the kids and they are becoming quite fatigued by lockdown. The little ones want to get back to their friends at school and get out of the house. As do the teenagers who are in limbo as their exams are cancelled and the work they’ve done is complete for now. They miss their boyfriends/girlfriends and their life that came to a juddering halt.

Grandparents who are seeing the younger kids electronically keep coming up with different ways to engage with them.  One of our friends is cooking with the little ones electronically, making cupcakes, or small cakes and even pancakes together.  Each person in their own house, mum and dad ensure the ingredients are to hand, and depending on the age of the kids, they can be on their own with grandma.  It’s a way of amusing the kids and keeping up that important grandparent connection.

Conductor Sweet!  Why we love kids. This child was well amused!

The weather here is tempting us once more to be outdoors and by tomorrow for our long country walk it is even supposed to be warm!  I’ll let you know.

Meantime, keep on going everyone, and enjoy the beauty all around you.  And remember, you wouldn’t be “normal” if there weren’t a few down moments.  We all have them. For now, I need to rein in my inner swimmer (really missing those pool moments) and get back on my stationary bike and go and read (or write!) my book! Tomorrow is indeed another day!

With Love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 6 May

The entire world is trying to figure out how to come out of lockdown. What lessons will we learn from each other and how will it look while we wait for Scientists to develop the vaccine that will ultimately end this Pandemic?  While there is no doubt that eventually a worldwide vaccine will ultimately stop the spread of the virus, what about the next phase? 

It is reassuring that there were so few reported deaths today from the coronavirus, but there was also some published research that suggests that people are unwilling to end the lockdown yet.  Here in Bristol, there can be little “herd” immunity as there have been so few cases – less than seven hundred in the entire city.  Is it possible that we will have a big second wave of illness and death when the next phase of the lockdown begins?  How to move forward is a difficult issue for the government and the many scientists who are working tirelessly on the answers to these problems.

For many, being in lockdown is wearing, but the certainty of the results of staying home far outweigh the uncertainty of what could happen. As Matt Hancock the Health Secretary said a few weeks ago, the best mask for everyone is keeping your front door closed. Of course, the country needs to get back to work, and school, and the rest, and we will eventually. For many of us though, staying put is going to carry on for some time. Let’s hope all goes to plan when the plan becomes known.

When you need that extra bit of grit to keep you going while waiting for that magical vaccine that will change our lives and reopen our front doors once more to family and friends, its often a good time to recount some of those stories that are passed down the generations in a family.  Those stories circulate because they often offer a glimpse of something special in the protagonist.

My Great Grandmother Blosick was a formidable woman by all accounts. She was a feisty lady who left the “old country” and sailed to America taking with her the spirit of the times. During her years in America, the government began Prohibition; the legal prevention of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. The dry period, (or semi dry period as it turned out!) lasted for thirteen years.  Our months of lockdown suddenly seem a whole different order than those societal changing times in the States! And Prohibition did change society, but not always for the better. A historian writing about the era reminds us that we need to watch out for solutions that end up worse than the problems they set out to solve. Organised crime got its foothold during this time – think of all those old black and white films and the shoot outs in speak easies that occurred.

“Normal” people, having nothing to do with organised crime, also did what they could to supply the alcohol that so many wanted, while helping them to make ends meet. During the Twenties, a tribe of Native American Indians called Hootchinoos, were known for their drunkenness and gave us the term “hooch”.

Great Grandma was one of those who found a market and brewed her own hootch to order. She arrived outside the coal mine in Pennsylvania every morning and collected up the flasks of the men who were working down the pit, and when they returned each evening black faced, sweaty and exhausted, she would hand them back their flasks.  Instead of a hot beverage, their flasks were now filled with Grandma’s hootch.  When pay day came, she stood outside with the flasks and returned them after she had collected the weekly fee that each man owed her for her troubles. 

Great Grand Ma Blosick

Her basement brewery kept the miners going for years.  One day, while in charge of my father who couldn’t have been more than about seven at the time, she was called urgently away and left him guarding her still.  She handed the little boy an axe and told him if the thing started to blow to hit it with the axe and run like hell! 

I don’t think many of us would leave a little boy on his own or in charge of a still, let alone hand him an axe! I’m not surprised that one of her sons, my Grandfather, raised canaries and sold them to the miners though. Needs must!

It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.– Mark Twain

My hooch of choice is wine.  Pinot Noir especially and I suspect that many more bottles will be consumed while we wait patiently for the virus to leave us alone. I often wonder what my Great Grandma would have made of the times we live in but I’m pretty certain that she would have offered unfailing encouragement and found ways to cope with the situation. As of course we all will! Enjoy your hooch of choice…

A Coronavirus Tale: Had too much wine last night. Have no idea how I got home from the sofa!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 5 May

Baba’s rugs. Wherever my grandmother lived, she always had a Singer sewing machine and a bundle of clean “rags”. Collecting old clothes and cloth items from anyone willing to donate them to her was the first step in her rug making process.  She would then turn old skirts, dresses, shirts, curtains, bedspreads and any other outdated materials into long strips of cloth that she sewed together on her Singer.  With that first step finished, she would then plait the colourful pieces together and finally, she would hand sew them with a big needle and white thread going round and round and round until she had the desired effect and size she wanted. Some of the rugs were small and others could fill a huge room.  She never sold any of them, but instead gave them all away.  Never learning how to drive, even after my grandfather died, she would often take long bus journeys to visit family or friends and by the time she arrived at her destination, as often as not, she had the address of the person that had been sitting next to her for the four or more hours drive. They would soon be receiving a package wrapped in brown paper and bound in string in the post. She didn’t go many days without sitting at her Singer and creating her rugs.  She had no idea where they would end up, or who would walk on them, only that she knew she had to make them.  She made thousands in her lifetime!

Sometimes I wonder why it is that my drive has always been to write away, and my grandmothers was making rugs?  These musings are to me what my Baba’s rugs were to her. Who knows where our hobbies and passions come from?  One thing is for certain, all those things you haven’t bothered with while at home during this enforced lockdown are things that at some fundamental level are just not that important to you.  I wonder what you have spent a big dollop of your time doing over the past few stay at home weeks and months? If you are lucky enough not to have been working, or home schooling your kids, what else did you get up to besides the cooking, cleaning and ordering of food?  It’s worth checking in with yourself on that from time to time.  Whatever it is probably means it’s your passion. And having more than one passion is not a bad thing either!

One of our friends has found online dance classes and does at least one class most days, another is singing in one choir or another every day, still another is cooking for people who can’t do it for themselves, while another friend is baking cakes; another plays her violin with friends.  Whatever “it” belongs to you, enjoy it and keep going!  These projects and passions enrich our lives in ways we may take a long time to realise.

There were many “last goodbyes” to my Baba which involved trips across the Atlantic.  Inevitably, the real last goodbye was at her funeral.  Coming from a Catholic family means a wake and prayers in front of the open coffin for at least a day before the actual funeral mass and cemetery proceedings.  My Uncle who knew my grandmother well, draped one of her rugs across the bottom of her coffin. I still have one of them at my feet in my study.  Baba’s rugs. My inspiration in life when nothing else works. What’s yours?

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 4 May

Hello everyone!  It’s me again. I think Terry, the husband, editor, techy did a great job yesterday.  Writing once every twenty five days seems to be enough for him though. Bit like me and gardening, once a year I manage to do some pots.  When I say “do” I mean I plop the plants in the already prepared (by the editor) soil in the pots. Good partnerships work well when each person plays to their strengths and then we teach each other all sorts of useful things.  Before I met Terry I could just about tell a dandelion from a daffodil. I’m so pleased one of his favourite pleasures is the garden.  I don’t know what I’d do without it – especially now. (or him for that matter…!) You’ll have to ask him what I have taught him over our nearly thirty-five years together.

What a hectic and busy weekend we have had!  Hard to imagine I know but it was.  Friday starts with Zoom Yoga then Saturday was filled with two hours of singing along with over one hundred others. If anyone is interested in singing from wherever you are in the world, you too can join. Let me know and I will share the link with you. We sang Jerusalem, I Was Glad When they Said Unto Me, and the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. It’s surprising how you can imagine being in the same place as all these other people singing away even though what you hear is not their singing, but a pre recorded rendition. The rousing choice of music meant the soprano part of each of these songs soared through my study window and into the garden! (sorry neighbours)

Saturday evening we watched a Hampstead Theatre production of “Ai Wei Wei’s Arrest”.  Another couple we share our love of theatre with watched at the same time and then we had a Zoom dinner party afterward and discussed the play. Inevitably there was also a long discussion about the coronavirus.  We can’t really get away from it can we?  It wasn’t quite the same as having them sitting at the table with us, but better than nothing. The wine flowed, the conversation filled the dining room and the food was excellent, too, and three hours passed.

After all the activity of Saturday, Sunday seemed especially quiet. In a nice-time-to reflect-and-consider-the-week sort of way.  In fact, the world IS quieter than it has been for many a year. There are few trains, not many roaring jet engines, and traffic has markedly declined. Scientists are already beginning to analyze our unprecedented global quieting. Seismologists are looking at the collected data of our hushed planet.  The heightened stillness during lockdown is even enabling them to detect faint or distant earthquakes that they believe they previously could have missed. The quiet might also be helpful in order to study the natural murmurs of our planet, the sounds of gushing rivers, the thrum of the planets other activities.

In all this quiet, can we blossom and thrive? Yes, and especially if we take the opportunity to reflect, recharge, and notice what comes to the surface.  Our busy busy noisy lives have been dialled down and embracing the stillness can be special.

Silence sits between the notes of the greatest music ever written. We don’t always notice because multiple tracks of vocals, percussion, string and horns block it out. But the silence is there. Without it, our music would just be noise. Change where the silent moments occur and the music changes.

Silence is also a feature of most of the greatest speeches in the world. The dramatic pause……..has been mastered by the best orators of our time. Our earth is currently experiencing one of the greatest dramatic pauses of our lifetime. Enjoy the music AND the silence, what lovely gifts! Coronavirus has changed so much, and some of the changes aren’t so bad. Peace.  And quiet.

Charlie Chaplain in the Lions Cage…

STOP PRESS!!!    

AMAZING Theatre!  We watched Frankenstein last night with Benedict Cumberbatch. The performance is spectacular. You have this week until Wednesday to watch it for free on You Tube.  It’s a National Theatre production.  Join over a million and a half people and watch an actor transform in front of your eyes.  We will watch once more on Thursday when Cumberbatch takes on the role of the creator and Jonny Lee Miller plays Frankenstein. This is theatre at its most impressive. To be experienced. 

Love,

Kathy

Feest Isolation Days – 3 May

The 50^th day of self-isolation.  50 is a golden number, why I am privileged to try to provide the golden words I am not quite sure, but I will do my best.  For those of you who do not know, this is the editor/publisher/techy writing today, aka “the husband” or simply “Terry”.

After 50 days I have to confess that I am  quite happy, I would not go as far as saying I am enjoying it, but as someone who scores somewhat on the introvert scale, I m not finding it too bad.  I am of course highly privileged, we have a house large enough for me to have my own study, otherwise known as my “man cave” or den. I am surrounded by books, photographs, a mass of electronic equipment, computers, and all my fly-tying materials. The study is only moderately tidy – all those tidying jobs I have been meaning to do for years, and for which I now, at least theoretically, have time, have not been done. Just as I did not look forward to doing them in more normal times, I don’t fancy doing them now, and I suspect they will never be done.

Kathy and I have discussed why we feel reasonably content in this strange situation.  We think it is because as we are retired, we have a regular pension and therefore secure income , we have routines for doing things at home, we are used to spending a lot of time together in the house (but not necessarily in the same room!), and in lockdown most of the things we do are things we would do anyway.  The difference is that in the “old normal” we would also have done a lot of other things as well.  This is a lot less dramatic change than that which younger couples are experiencing, when for the first time both are at home, children are not at school, jobs may be lost or part-time at home, finances may be difficult.  We are very lucky – me especially, I live with Kathy.

Having said that, there are times when I wonder whether it would not have been better to have not been able to fly home and to have been trapped in New Zealand! We wanted to come home to see family and friends, but we can’t see them anyway, only on Skype or WhatsApp or Zoom etc, and we could do that from anywhere in the world!  To be locked down on the Rangitikei River with all that walking and fishing, or by Lake Rotorua or in some other remote place does have its appeal.  And there is no virus there now, it shows what action by a decisive woman leader can do!  There is however something very comforting about being home, and the family do feel close if an emergency arises, and there is not a twelve hour time difference, we can talk with them at normal times of day, and this is a lovely house, and we love the garden, so being home is  best.  The garden is a mystery, I am spending more time tending it than ever before and yet there is always more to be done.  How did I ever manage before?

• 

• 

So what else do I do?  I play a lot of chess, but am not improving, I read a lot, but the pile of books waiting is still huge, I  plan food deliveries, plan menus and cook, eat and drink, but still get hungry, and spend a huge amount of time talking to family and friends on various forms of social media from the telephone to full video.  As a friend said, this should not be called “social distancing”, but” physical distancing”.  I cannot go fly fishing, but I can practice casting in the admittedly limited space in the garden – I ought to be quite adept at it when I eventually get to the water again!  My fly tying has improved, and my fly boxes are very neat and tidy, ready for the day when I get out.

• 

• 

And then we watch the daily briefing from Downing Street.  Apart from that we largely avoid the news!  The daily briefing is a good discipline.  It always starts with the government view, to be interpreted but not dismissed, and it frequently gives insights into the logistical problems of dealing with this crisis.  Then there are the statistics and the views and answers to questions from the scientific and clinical experts, always illuminating.  It becomes apparent that for the moment this is not a political issue but a logistical problem which involves us all, and that as a country we are being directed by science, experts, and what information is available in a rapidly developing and changing situation: I am thankful for that, some other world leaders should take note!  Finally the journalists ask questions, which largely seem to demonstrate their inability!  Polls have shown that from watching this the public (including us) are becoming more and more disillusioned with the journalists, rather neutral about the politicians and more trusting in the less extrovert experts.

The public are also fickle.  One of the popular games at the moment seems to be “choose your expert”, i.e. the one who says what you want to hear.  A supposed expert who says what people want to hear can gain a huge following.  There was a recent interview with a Swedish professor saying that lockdowns are wrong.  This has proved popular, although it is largely based on a hunch and several bits of false data: it is not impossible he is right, but if he is right he is lucky, not an expert.  David Icke had 30 million followers on Facebook whilst propagating completely unfounded claims about 5G spreading the virus as well as much other similarly false information.   Thankfully Facebook have removed him.  People pushing this stuff are dangerous and will cause untold harm.  Taking disinfectant will not be mentioned further!

I am lucky, at heart I am an optimist. 

Amidst all the political bluster and press rampage, it looks as if we are learning and beginning to see a way forward.  We have suppressed the virus peak, we have not overwhelmed health services, the NHS has shown the value of a co-ordinated service which has responded rapidly to demand, there have always been more than enough doctors, nurses, ITU beds and ventilators for patients.  A first drug has been shown to have some effect in treating this disease, and amazing progress has been made on vaccines.  We are beginning to frustrate the grim reaper.

The government has put out a financial package to try to mitigate some of the economic effects of this pandemic, a package which concentrates largely on people, not on big industry and the rich.

And there have been worse plagues than Covid….

We know that for a long time we cannot go back to the “old norm”, that there will be a “new norm”, but I am optimistic about the new norm.  We are having to learn to behave in new ways in this pandemic, to look at new ways of working, travelling, shopping, interacting.  Not all of this is bad, we have to take the positive lessons into the new norm, the new norm could be better than the old!

These rambling thoughts demonstrate why older people should retire gracefully. 

You will be pleased to know that Kathy will be back as blogger tomorrow!

Keep cheerful,

Terry

Feest Isolation Days – 2 May

There are some days when you wake up and forget that there is a pandemic in the world and go about your morning as though nothing is different than it ever was. Terry and I went for a walk together in the early afternoon’s pouring rain and not too many other people were out and about. On our return we had a bowl of leftover nourishing chicken soup to warm18 us and then did the sort of normal house things we would do on any rainy day.

Who am I kidding?  Normal has gone out the window and suddenly I remember that the day is far from normal and wonder what that will look like when it arrives. Several friends have been reporting that they don’t sleep very well these days and I marvel at the eight hours I get most nights. A certain resilience is required during these times and cultivating a spirit of acceptance, not to mention routine, does help.

It also helps to stop looking in your diary. I was supposed to be in Bath having lunch with a friend next week.  Another friend tells me she has a host of wedding and party invites sitting on a shelf and she is letting them stay there as a sort of shrine to her old life. She has cultivated a whole new way of being in the world at home, as we all must.   In with the new and on we go. Life on hold? No!  Life isn’t on hold, it’s changed and changing.  Apparently, we are past the peak of infections.  Let’s see what that will mean.  What will the next phase of “new normal” look like.  We shall find out some of the steps the government have in mind next week. 

At my regular  Zoom yoga class (yes there is a new way of doing things!) one of the women said she heard we were all going to be allowed to choose two people that could join us and come in and out of our “bubble”. She knew exactly who she was going to choose – her hairdresser and her cleaner!  Love it.  I may follow suit if that plan comes to pass.

Unusually, we decided to share a bottle of Champagne on a midweek night – Thursday. We toasted first our son who was celebrating his birthday in London, and then Captain, now Colonel Tom, who makes us all feel positive, and then another friend whose birthday it was.  I then discovered that our next door neighbour’s daughter turned thirteen and became a Quaranteeny! Champagne and the dining room go together so we lit the candles and held our glasses aloft.  I made one red pepper that we shared before we tucked into the previously prepared food that emerged from our overflowing freezer.  Those of you who join us in Auckland for the annual January summer party will know that  Feest red peppers are always a given for that special lunch date when we see all of our kiwi friends together for the first time each year.  This year was summer party number eight!  It was strange making just one pepper as I normally make at least two dozen. I stop myself from thinking about what January next year will look like. One day at a time!

Tomorrow will be fifty days of lockdown and Terry will become the guest writer for Feest-Isolation-Days.  Every twenty five days he gets a go. I wonder how many he will have to do?  Or me for that matter! I have said I will keep writing as long as the lockdown is in place.  Thank you all for continuing to read my musings. It is such a comfort to know that even though I can’t see you all we are still in touch and I am able to share my feelings, thoughts and activities about all of this with you.

Life has certainly changed, but our close connections have not, we won’t let them!  We are in some ways even more connected to each other than we were in the past and that’s very special.

Amidst the personal trials some of you are facing, we each have a splendid place to live, plenty of food, the odd glass of champagne and each other.  The final toast we made on our special Champagne evening was to each and every one of you. We are fortunate indeed. 

“Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes, the special occasion is that you’ve got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge.”
― Hester Browne

And something to brighten the day……..

 Wishing you carefree days and Sweet Dreams! 

With Love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 1 May

Pinch punch first of the month! Saying ‘pinch punch for the first of the month’ is apparently a way of welcoming in a new month and protecting yourself from bad luck. Well we could use a little of that these days so pinch punch to you all. According to ancient playground rules, saying ‘pinch, punch’ must be followed by ‘white rabbits, no return’, which means you can’t be pinched and punched back.  This is something that hadn’t crossed the Atlantic when I was a child, or at least not that I remember. 

Another month has passed in Lockdown, and it is hard not to wonder how many more there may be.  As yesterday was Wednesday, it was cleaning day at our house.  The two of us set about it and several hours later, we were both knackered and in need of a sit down and a cuppa.  Besides taking a great deal of time, cleaning the house is a destroyer of nails.  I always wear nail polish not just for effect, but because I have very easily broken nails.  One thing I haven’t managed to find on our electronic super market shelves is nail polish remover.  Just my luck I was on the last teeny weeny bit when this lockdown happened. Nothing else gets nail varnish off your nails but polish remover and possibly house cleaning.  Maybe I might put some back on next week and see how I fare.

Meantime, in America the death rate from coronavirus has surpassed the death rate from the Vietnam war.  What a tragedy.  Of course the White House takes no responsibility for any of this.  My head is shaking as I type.

When we travelled to Vietnam a few years ago, we were struck by how gentle, kind and helpful the Vietnamese were.  We had a conversation with a cab driver in Hanoi and asked him how people viewed the Americans since the war. For the first time, I heard the war called the American War.  Our cab driver said that people didn’t hold a grudge, it wasn’t within the inherent nature of his countries people, and anyway they won!

When I was in High School, we marched in the streets against the war, male friends tried to think of ways to keep out of the army, and we watched the television news nightly showing the shocking bombing and the escalation of deaths in a place that not many of us had heard about before. I’m pleased to say, I also made it to Washington once and marched against the war there, too. 

To think that Covid-19 has claimed more lives than the Vietnam – or American -War if you’re from there – is truly heartbreaking.  So much more could have been done in America and sooner. 

Here, in Britain, we listen to the Daily Briefing and see the death figures begin to drop. Lockdown is tough, but when I remember that we are all doing our best to help save lives, it isn’t so difficult.  When we marched through the streets all those years ago we held lit candles and sang “all we are saying is give peace a chance” trying to save lives.  Perhaps our song now needs to become “all we are saying is listen to the science”.

When this is all over there will be plenty of time to consider what was done well and what could have been done better. The UK hasn’t got it all right that’s for sure. The Americans on the other hand at the moment look like they are losing another “war”.  Will they never learn?

Captain (now Colonel Tom) and Michael Ball….Number one at one hundred.  There IS hope for us all!

With love

Kathy x

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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