Friday 1st January 2020 – An unsettling start to the New Year
Along with the rest of the UK, it was a subdued Good Riddance to 2020 in our household, and a muted and nervous welcome to 2021. My son and his partner are temporarily in residence, and they, together with my wife, opted to watch a film as 2020 drew to a close, selecting a depressing tale of child abduction, set against a sleet-grey background of small-town America, an unsettling tale to bid farewell to an unsettling year. The traditional TV offerings of Graham Norton and Jools Holland, albeit without audiences, cheered up the final hour of 2020, before 2021 was welcomed with a rather odd fireworks and lights display over empty streets in London.
Before Christmas, nursing friends reported that hospital admissions were far worst in December than during the spring time peak. In Leicester “Red Wards”, for Covid patients, now extend beyond the Royal Infirmary, originally the only hospital in the City to take Covid infectious admissions, to outlying city hospitals, partly because all hospitals are now taking more non-Covid cases than earlier in 2020. The good news is that, thanks to good practices learned by experience, most patient do not become acutely ill, and few are admitted to Intensive Care.
For many years a group of us have met at a friends farm at High Noon on New Years Day for an annual clay pigeon shoot, followed by a BBQ, originally with beer, a “hair of the dog” to aid recovery from a boisterous New Year’s Eve. Nowadays we reach for the tea-urn as we huddle around the glowing embers in the half-oil drum used to cook our burgers. Sadly, there will be no shoot this New Year.
Sunday 3rd January 2021 – Feeling Gloomy
My son’s partner, currently living with us, has felt very low because she does not know when she will next see her parents, who live in Derby, nor her friends who are spread out in far flung cities across the UK. She has also just started a new job with a small family partnership, and is uncomfortable with the poor social distancing in the office. I pointed out that, although meeting her parents, socially distanced and outdoors, would technically involve an unnecessary journey to meet more than one person, in practice the Covid-risk would be low. She explained that whereas our normal lifestyle, and meetings with friends and relatives, often involve outdoor activities, this is not the case with her family. Arranging outdoor meetings comes naturally to us. For her family an outdoor walk is restricted to pottering around shops, and a cold-and-muddy winter walk would be classed as a major expedition, for which they are unequipped. One of the first trips that my son and partner made after moving in was to buy her a pair of wellies. It has never occurred to us that some households may not have wellies by the back door, or at least available for occasional use.
As I’ve said before, we are lucky that our semi-rural lifestyle adapts well to social restrictions.
Monday 4th January 2021 – I am tested
On Monday, as I bought my wife tea and toast in bed, she asked “What time would you like your Covid test?” Whatever invitation that I might have been expecting as my wife sat up in bed, it was not this. Unknown to me she had reported a sore throat and breathlessness using the “Zoe” Covid app, part of a symptoms study by Kings College, London, and had received a text invitation to be tested, along with her household.
We booked a lunchtime appointment at the nearest test centre, a walk-in centre three miles away. We were the only “customers”, and were presented with a test pack each, before being escorted to a sparse “testing bay”, just a bare table, waste bin, and hand-held mirror. I am not good with this Covid testing business. I start gagging as soon I unseal the testing stick, well before offering it to my tonsils. Having stroked my tonsils with a lot of noisy choking, I shoved the stick up my nose for a quick twirl, whereupon everything got a bit sneezy-snotty, and distinctly messy. Never mind tissues, I needed a roll of kitchen towel. “Well, there is no way that you did that test properly!” grumbled my wife, “That will certainly be inconclusive”.
Tuesday 5th January – Result!
Pub night – our weekly gathering of friends at the virtual Zoom Arms. Just as I sat down with my first pint, having invited my drinking buddies to join me on Zoom, the result of yesterday’s Covid test arrived by text. Despite my wife’s prediction that it would be inconclusive following my bout of choking and sneezing during the test, it was a conclusively negative result. I do not have Covid, and I was able to celebrate the result in good company with a bottle of Old Speckled Hen.
Wednesday 6th January 2021 – Here we go again
And so here we are back in a national lockdown. As is traditional, Boris made an announcement of the lockdown at short notice, to be implemented forthwith. The announcement was made at 8pm on Monday, with implications for those going to work just 12 hours later. At 10pm there was an exchange of texts from the architect’s partnership where my son works, discussing who will be working at home. No doubt similar late-night exchanges with employers were taking place across England. My son persuaded his management that our household does not have the desk space to support four people working at home – architects work on desktop computers, not laptops. He commuted to the office as usual today, as did his girlfriend who works for another partnership which is too small to have IT arrangements to support remote working. The kitchen table will remain available for its intended use.
Schools were placed in an even more challenging situation, many having assured parents only 24 hours earlier that they would continue to be open, and now making last minute remote-working arrangements, as parents re-arranged their lives to ensure child care and home-schooling. Yesterday was my first day back at work after Christmas, already planned as working from home, and I was welcomed back with e-mails and WhatsApp messages from younger colleagues asking if I could cover forthcoming on-call duties, during which we must be based in the office, allowing them to work at home while supervising children. In most cases they offered to do some of my duties in late spring. I was, of course, delighted to accommodate their requests, agreeing to spend more time in the office in winter, and in return sacrificing office attendance at a time when Spring is springing in the garden.
Thursday 7th January 2021 – A pre-retirement gift
A colleague has tested positive for Covid-19, and is isolating for 10 days. He is retiring in June, and has been taking particular precautions to reduce the risk of contracting Covid, avoiding entering people’s homes for any reason. Retiring with a dose of “Long Covid” would be exceedingly unfortunate. Despite extra precautions, he has contracted Covid. His symptoms started with a bad headache and aches and pains throughout the body, feeling like a bad head cold. He has developed bloodshot eyes and a sore throat and his nasal tissues are sensitive and painful to cold air. He has not lost his sense of smell, but described how cold air has a distinct smell of sick / sour milk. So far, the illness has not gone to his chest.
Saturday 9th January 2021 – Vaccinated! (But not for Covid)
Today I received my flu jab by appointment, joining a steady stream of socially distanced people entering the GP surgery, checked in verbally as we passed reception, a leaflet pushed in my hand as heads popped out from several doors along a corridor to invite folk in to be vaccinated. I was back in the car 5 minutes after leaving it. My GP Practice has not yet received the Coronavirus vaccine, but, based on my experience, when it does start vaccinating against Covid, a rate of one vaccination a minute is certainly possible, provided that the vaccine supply chain keeps up.
Sunday 10th January 2021 – Normal service continues
One regular activity banned during the first lockdown but unexpectedly permitted in the current one, is Communal Worship. My church continues to meet, subject to careful social distancing measures. A door steward ensures social distancing as people enter, and the names of attendees are noted for track and trace purposes, whether or not the attendees have used their phones to scan the NHS QR-code for the premises, displayed on a poster by the entrance door. The entrance vestibule is divided into “lanes” using chairs, forming a signed one-way system, and a steward ensures hand sanitising and social distancing. In the church chairs to remain vacant fopr social distancing are marked with a large “X”, keeping individual households apart from others. All must wear a mask, and there is no singing. Hymns are played as video recordings on the audio-visual system, usually subtitled with the words, which we must not be tempted to sing. Instead, it is an opportunity to actually read and consider the meanings of the words. As far as those usually seated around me are concerned, a ban on singing is distinctly beneficial.
Numbers attending have dwindled as people, not just older members, feel safer staying at home, and later this week a meeting will decide whether we should close the building for worship, even if we are actually allowed to remain open. I have expressed my view that, although we meet in a well-controlled environment, our Sunday Service is an avoidable Covid transmission risk, albeit a small one, and should cease. Continuing to have the building open for a short period each week for private prayer would be a good compromise. Other churches will be making similar decisions about whether to remain open safely, or to close.
Monday 11th January 2021 – Too relaxed?
Our observations around Croft Hill over the weekend certainly indicated a more relaxed approach to lockdown rules, the Hill and surrounding area being very busy. We chatted to at least two couples who had visited the Hill for the first time, one couple from Wigston, 8 miles away – not a huge distance, but in Derbyshire people who drove just 5 miles from home for a walk in the Peaks have been fined for not remaining local (although the fines are to be reviewed). My son and his partner went for an afternoon stroll yesterday, and reported that they had to avoid the Hill itself, because it was too busy, but even on the less populated routes, there were groups walking together, clearly not from a single household.
Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, has been allocated the Light-At-The-End-Of-The Tunnel message to deliver, with an optimistic prediction of the roll-out of the Covid vaccine. We certainly know more people who have been vaccinated than we know who have had Covid – elderly friends and their relatives and health professionals, all vaccinated at GP surgeries or at the local “vaccine hub”, Oadby Racecourse.
Tuesday 12th January 2021 – Recovery
I am pleased to report that the only person, a colleague, that we know who is currently suffering from Covid-19 is making a good recovery. Having reported that he had lost neither taste nor smell, although fresh air had an unpleasant vomit odour, he eventually lost both senses after a week or so, and does not expect to regain them for a while. This is a shame since he is a trained chef, a career that he gave up many years ago, but he is still the family cook. Now he won’t know if food is overcooked until it sends up smoke signals.
Thursday 14th January 2021 – Long Covid
A colleague has described the Long Covid symptoms that his wife has suffered since contracting Covid in April. She was a fit and healthy young mum, maybe 40 years old, exercising regularly and sharing child duties. Since Covid she has constant fatigue, muscle aches, can barely walk around the block, and my colleague does most of the more physical child care. She must have been one of the earliest Long Covid sufferers, and consequently did not have a clue about what was happening. She felt unable to consult her GP at a time when GP visits were discouraged, particularly since, as far as she knew, she had clearly recovered from Covid. It was weeks before she came across an article on the condition and details of a support group. Amongst other symptoms she has scarred lungs, which is likely to mean vulnerability to lung infections for life, and of course she has no idea for how long the existing symptoms will continue. In the meantime, my colleague has to juggle shifts to assist with childcare and home schooling.
Wednesday 20th January 2021 – Apparently we are Key Workers
We have received a managerial e-mail confirming that we are key workers, and, in theory, that our school-age children are allowed to go to school. As far as I know, none of my colleagues’ children actually do so. The general thought is that home schooling keeps Covid out of the family home. Most colleagues have elderly parents or In-Laws that may not bubbled with the family, but nevertheless need support – this often includes “IT” support to keep them online and in touch with friends and family. Such support cannot be undertaken from the doorstep. Consequently working arrangements are adjusted to allow kids to be home-schooled, and reducing the infection risk to grandparents.
The Government definition of “Key Workers” is loose, supplemented by rather vague guidance on the contribution that must be made to qualify as key workers. This rather leaves it open to employers to decide that employees are key workers should they wish to keep them at their normal place of employment. My son and his girlfriend are architects, and so, are “key workers”. Why? Because they are part of the construction trade, although have never carried a hod of bricks in their lives. At least they know what a hod is.
Friday 22nd January 2021 – Retail management
I continue to drive to work two or three days or nights a week, mixing with the good folk of Leicester as little as possible, other than a trip to a local city centre small Tesco store for a “meal-deal” when I haven’t had time to prepare a packed lunch. Yesterday the presenter of a daytime consumer programme challenged a supermarket representative to confirm that maskless customers with no good reason to be bare-faced would not be served. Surely, she said, it is easy? Just place a security guard at the door to prevent entry? This presnenter probably lives in St John Wood, or Cheltenham, or similar, and does not go shopping after the post-dinner dessert wine has been consumed. In central Leicester the evening shoppers who have run out of liquid refreshment tend to hunt in noisy packs. With pubs closed, a forgotten mask is not going to delay their evening of lager and Netflix.
Monday 25th January 2021 – A slippery slope
Like much of central England we have had a few cm of snow. With Croft Hill at the end of our Lane, we have one of South Leicestershire’s premier sledging venues on the doorstep. I was delighted when one of our dog-walking friends agreed to come sledging with her eight and 14 year old sons – it would give me an opportunity to enjoy a couple of descents. A 60+ year old sledging without kids would seem strange.
The Hill was busy, and we stayed away from the large group of adults and children at the top of the main path up the Hill, now a compacted, icy toboggan run, the fastest and longest slide to the bottom. It was clear that each individual group was pretty much made up of a single household, with excited children, even more excited Dad, and a calmer Mum holding coats and other paraphernalia. But social distancing at the top of this main slope was difficult, and from the cars parked along the road, some people had been a little flexible in their definition of the permitted “local exercise” – maybe 30 to 40 people, maybe 8-10 households, were using the long toboggan run, either watching or sledging, but any close contact would have been brief, and obviously outdoors.
Tuesday 26th January 2021 – Playtime
Nursery schools continue to be allowed to operate, including the playgroup using our church building. They are currently the only people using the building now that we have once again ceased holding services, a welcome income at a time when we have no Sunday collections. Not surprisingly parents are torn between the benefits to their offspring, and the risk from children mixing in a public building, with the potential to catch Covid and introduce it into the greater family. The playschool operates with stringent precautions, with OFSTED guidance on the number attending, which is half of the full licenced capacity to allow social distancing. As an extra reassurance the school has started applying a weekly “antiviral fog” to the parts of the premises that they use. Having checked the data sheets provided by the manufacturer before “approving” the fogging, I am happy that the chemical is less harmful to users of the building than an average kitchen surface cleaner, and was delighted to accept the playgroup’s offer to fog any other parts of the building should we decide to use these other rooms for some reason..
Thursday 28th January 2021 – Travellers (old) tales
As usual at this time of the year, we enjoy travel and nature TV documentaries on long dark evenings. There has been a problem this year. No-one has been travelling. Consequently, we have been entertained by a sort of “Best Bits of Michael Palin’s Travels” and “Interesting People That I Have Met” by Simon Reeve. Both quite enjoyable, but we look forward exotic and unusual destinations opening up, and to the new documentaries that should result in due course.
Sunday 31st January 2021 – Worries of the elderly
Mum-in-Law joined us for Sunday lunch, back into the routine after her decision to stay at home while my son and his girlfriend were temporarily in residence. Christmas inter-generational entertaining was fine, since we had all tested negative for Covid, but with the “youngsters” mixing with colleagues at work she decided to stay safe until they moved into their new house. She has a close friend who is in her nineties, who lives in a local care home, who she has visited regularly, but since Covid, “visits” have been restricted to phone calls and waving from a window. Residents received their first Covid vaccination a week or so ago, but within a day or so there was an outbreak at the home, and residents were confined to their rooms. Sadly Mum-in-Law’s friend contracted the virus, and was taken to hospital at the weekend, which, unsurprisingly, Mum-in-Law has found very unsettling. A large glass of wine and a dose of our company helped.
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Symptoms, testing and we get The Vaccination earlier than expected.
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Life in the UK changed for everyone in March 2020.