The Nightingale in empty skies

I wake at dawn. No cars disturb the peace, only the joyful greeting of the birds awakening in the garden trees to join their morning chorus, not as a choir but as a company of different voices, like a great Mozart opera where individual soloists sing their own lines to make something whole, greater than its parts. Above all, the nightingale, who never sings the same note twice, or in the words of an old English writer who did not mess with short terse phrases:

But, independent of all combinations of time and place, so various, sweet, and continuous, are the notes of this bird, that, in comparison, the songs of other warblers, in their utmost extent, are insignificant. His variety appears inexhaustible; he never repeats the same note twice without some change of key or embellishment. As often, indeed, as this leader of the feathered choir prepares to conduct the hymn of natures he begins by feeble, timid, and indecisive tones, as if to try his instrument. By degrees he assumes more confidence, becomes gradually more warm and animated, till he captivates and overwhelms his audience, with the full exertion of his astonishing powers.
Nature displayed in the Heavens, and on the Earth, according to the latest Observations and Discoveries. By Simeon Shaw. (1823).

Or, apt now for our present time, Keats' Ode to a Nightingale:

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
    And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
  What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
  Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
   And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
   Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

though what, one wonders, drew Keats into contemplations of age and death at the age of 23? But he died aged 25, so perhaps his foreboding was not misplaced.

My window looks East towards the approach path for planes coming into Stansted. Usually, it is criss-crossed with contrails but this morning, the air is clean and still. Not a single plane litters the sky, and Flight Radar, usually heavy with its yellow-flagged morning traffic, confirms the desolation of lost holidays and business. Two solitary crosses mark the death of aviation.

Solitary Skies over Stansted

Drawn together by isolation

As the period of mutual isolation continues, there seems to be a mood developing of comradeship, and "we're all in this together". Walking the dogs, people I've never seen wave and say hello, before we cross the road to avoid each other. If we see our neighbours we shout down the road to ask how they are, and we are getting phone calls from people we rarely hear from, as though keen to know the world is somehow continuing outside our four-walled cells. Today, Ann Hynard, an old friend from Edwin's school days, rang for a chat, mentioning the difficulty of looking after her aged parents. She only lives in the village, but normally we don't see her or hear from her. Simultaneously, our friends Rae and Malcolm rang to swap stories of how we are all managing, and who buys our food now we're confined to the house.

We are lucky that MA does ours, though this week we shared our Tesco shop so she came round again to pick her bags up from the garden and shout through the window. Even while she was here the phone rang again and it was Anne in Luxembourg who we never usually hear from. Her children live in UK, so she has to rely on church members and neighbours to help out. Her husband Colin's Alzheimer's is worsening since he had a fall, and he remains in a care home in high dependency. Anne had been visiting each day but is now barred from doing so, so their son is trying to fix up a FaceTime link for them to use; at Colin's end, the carers can help, but the hardest part will be getting Anne to use it by remote-teaching.

Our Hundon Men's Group can no longer meet as an excuse for drinking. We are not given to long, intelligent conversations, so we don't do long or expressive e-mails or phone-ins, but today we went each other a simple email expressing our sentiments: various ways of saying "Cheers!" and each raising a glass in absentia.

It is announced that a mortuary is to be built in Epping Forest for CV19 victims from the new Nightingale Hosptial. Epping Forest is an appropriate site for this, because there are so many bodies buried there already (see Picnic in the forest); but another one at Milton Keynes Icerink less so; people won't want to think of skating over the bodies when this is over. Another bizarre thing is the new government slogan: "Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives!". If Dominic Cummings dreamt this one up, he must be loosing his touch, or perhaps we was touched with dilerium from his own CV infection. This is too negative: the NHS is supposed to protect us. A better slogan would simply be, "Stay home, Save lives".

Swimming pigeons

I have just witnessed an unusual sight: two pigeons taking turns to jump in our deep pond and swim across. They float with wings outstretched, and somehow with a mixture of flapping and foot waving they reach the other side, where they scramble out with a great flapping. This morning, enthused with the elixir of Spring, they were billing and cooing on a branch above the garden, prior to mating. Now it looks like they're taking a douche to complete the job, to the disgust of the goldfish. Alas, I was not quick enough to capture the moment on my phone, so I have copied a picture of a swimming pigeon from the internet. Our son-in-law Sam, who knows about these things, says it is not our woodpigeons, but some different type: a feral pigeon? 

Mary-Anne has been most helpful in supporting us, bringing shopping and leaving it at the door. We continue to self-isolate, apart from the dog walks. Bronte normally walks docilely to the lead, but coming back past the church she suddenly livened up with the excited grin she puts on whenever she sees Mary-Anne, and tried to pull me across the deserted road towards MA's house. When I got back home, I discovered MA had visited while I was out, so Bronte was right to scent her and try and pull me over. We have not been able to book any grocery delivery slots after this week; luckily MA has two booked for the next fortnight and we can add items to her orders. Tesco is presently only allowing 80 items per order so we are restricted even in this, as with the two children in her family, her order necessarily dwarf ours. Hopefully more slots will become available soon.

northern girl

Northern girl
no heart on sleeve
shrugging cold shoulders
asking no favour
existing in an unyielding cocoon –
until drama strikes
with its speared wing
and you are there
up to the fierce challenge
and not afraid of anything.

Annie Elliott

I had my first CV19-related piece of work this morning. One company I work for produces an inhaled analgesic for emergency use, and there was an inquiry about whether this device might put medical staff more at risk if the injured person had CV but needed analgesia. It's interesting to be drawn into the raging debate, if only remotely.

All my contacts are now working from home. This is something I have done for a few years, but many of them are trying to acclimatise to the new norm and confess to missing the contact with people in the office, or just the buzz of London. The word is, many of these jobs will remain home-based when this is over, as companies realise they don't need hundreds of staff on site and will seek to reduce the huge costs of rented office space now their staff provide it freely, including paying their own heating and electricity and Wi-Fi bills. The companies don't even need to pay for the coffee machines or water coolers any more, so I think many staff workers are going to have to get used to the new normal.  Along with the rest of the economy, companies building new office blocks or dealing with commercial rents are going to take a big hit. The future will look as different as seeing swimming pigeons.

UK Lockdown Week-2

A stroll around an English Village in lockdown

Never has it looked so pretty
with its barber shop lawns
and wallpaper flowers
rainbowed colours
saluting a Nation's change –
no sound of words or laughter
no humming noise of passing car
just an eerie, weird silence
as death hides beneath the hedgerows

Annie Elliott

My habit each morning is to listen to Bach Before Seven on the wireless, before catching the seven o'clock news. This morning, there was no news broadcast. The BBC has cut back on the number of live presenters as part of their stay-at-home policy. Petroc Trelawny, whose calm, mellow voice eases in the day, has been presenting Breakfast on BBC Radio Three for years. He at least was still in the studio, but he didn't read the news - perhaps it is against Union rules.

The boys came yesterday, Edwin and Andre. They too are confined to their Cambridge flat, working from home. Edwin is still getting work from the University, setting essays and marking, so came to collect his big desktop computer rather than struggling on a laptop, and brought some shopping we needed: bread, milk and a Sunday paper. They left the bags on the doorstep and we left the computer in the Saloon in the garden. It had been snowing and was bitterly cold, but Ann would not let them in the house so we could only speak to them from the door, shouting above the wind. We would not even let the dogs down to greet them, and were both in tears when they left, not knowing when we might see them again if this lock-down hardens with roadblocks round the cities.

Now the clocks have moved forward, Ann walked the dogs round the village in the light evening. She was struck by the total silence and absence of cars or people, recording it in her new poem. We hoped to do some gardening with the idle hours, but even the bin men are providing a reduced service. The council have notified us that the brown bin collection has been suspended for the duration, so hedge trimmings and grass cuttings must be piled up to rot in the corner.

Meanwhile, whatever happened to the wine lake we used to hear about? There are rumours that wine is running low. Certainly, it is getting more difficult to order through Amazon or Tesco. A trip to the pub for afternoon wine was one of our regular pleasures. Since we can no longer visit even for lunch, or dinners, we have transferred our socialising to the home, so naturally we need more wine. This is not hoarding, but a necessity for simple survival. Cheers!

Predicting Covid-19 deaths in UK

The total deaths recorded in the UK to date (28 March 2020) is 1,228, an increase of 209 since yesterday. The Health Minister is predicting that a final total of 20-25,000 deaths will be a good outcome. Taking today as Week 0, I have applied a little maths to the figures released so far, and the accelerating rate of change. This will not of course go on without limit, or the whole population would be eliminated. This might be a good outcome for Extinction Rebellion, but it is not the ideal outcome for the rest of humanity, and I for one would like to see a few more summers. I am therefore presenting this forecast based on the limited and ever-changing information we have at the moment, here and in other countries.

Projection of possible total deaths in UK

As we now know, Covid-19 is highly infectious, and dangerous because people are infective at all stages, both before they show symptoms and for some time afterwards. It is particularly dangerous for elderly men with pre-existing health problems, which makes me take it seriously as I try to avoid any contact with the world outside my home.

This prediction is based on a final death figure of twice the best case figure, i.e. 50,000. The rate of increase is exponential at the beginning: it will rise to a peak, and then begin to level off as the number of immune people rises and the rate of infection tails away. It assumes no vaccine over the next few months, and that the infection will not abruptly stop from the release of a miracle cure, nor die from warmer weather. Although very provisional, these data suggest the magic peak will occur in 3-4 weeks time, when the rate may be as high as 2,000 deaths/day.

The good news for most people is, in two months, it may all be over, except for small pockets of residual outbreaks. The majority of people should be able to return to work or schooling in one month's time, especially if they can be shown to be immune. The bad news is for people like me, who will continue to be at risk until it is completely eliminated, or until a vaccine or good treatment is produced. But at least there should be a huge surplus of ventilators and intensive care beds available by that stage.

Filling the day

We have been in self-isolation for only five days. It has passed quickly so far, though we haven't done much. Ann is young and healthy, and God willing will come through this well. Indeed, we do speculate that she may already have been exposed in January when we were in Singapore, and she had very severe flu-like symptoms with high temperature and dry cough. We were in a hotel, and she thought she was dying and couldn't move for three day. Of course, no one suspected CV-19, and the doctor she saw put it down to standard flu. But now, we wonder, could she have been an early victim?

Unfortunately, I am not young nor particularly healthy. We read stories of those with terminal respiratory failure feeling that their lungs are bursting, unable to breath, and it does take me back to my childhood days of asthma, when I used to gasp for breath during an attack. Inhalers were in their primitive infancy and my only treatment was a hand-held glass bulb nebuliser. This contained isoprenaline which gave some relief; only now, with my drug safety-hat on, do I read of the epidemic of deaths in asthmatics associated with this drug in the 1950's. Modern treatments, with bronchodilators and inhaled steroids, didn't come into use until the 1960's, by which time I had outgrown my childhood asthma. Now it has returned, probably secondary to other illness and medications. It would be ironic for me to die from CV-19, having survived everything else, so Ann is desperate to keep me from getting infected with it. No one is allowed to come into the house. I am not allowed contact with anyone. Even Ann has stopped going out, relying on what we have in the cupboard and what Mary-Anne can bring round and leave at the door.

Edwin wants to come round to collect his computer, to work from Andre's apartment in Cambridge. Ann told him we'll leave the computer in the saloon ready for him, but he won't be allowed in the house. He was a bit annoyed, but had to agree as the alternative was no computer. He won't be allowed to walk the dogs, or even see them: Ann says she will lock them upstairs to stop them barking their noisy greeting and jumping up him.

I still walk the dogs each day, combining my daily allowance of exercise with taking them out. It is a cold north wind today, so I only take them once round the playing fields opposite. The whole village is like a ghost town: I do not meet even another dog walker, and not a car moves along the road. The only sound is the cold wind in the trees; the only movement the rooks flapping hard above the trees to move slowly against it.  I have a slight cough, but it is not a dry cough so I must be OK, and welcome the phlegm as a sign of just an innocent cold. We measure our temperatures each day with the comment, "It's 36.6, we're still alive, so we should get through the day!" On Thursday, we stood at the door with countless others ready to applaud for the NHS. We felt self-conscious, and wondered if we should be the first or only ones in Hundon, but in the far distance, we gradually heard a ripple of applause in which we joined, then people started whooping and sounding horns and whistles. We are a tiny village, but clearly we stand apart united, determined to beat the bugger.

Ann is doing more housework than ever, cleaning cupboards and polishing till everything glows. I am not allowed to help with ironing, washing, even clearing the dishes away, as she says it gives her something to do. I think she should write: she always has such deep insights into situations and people and relationships. Everyone shares their worries or problems with her, and she always comes up with supportive advice backed by sound common sense. It is no wonder she is so good at Tarot reading. Her poetry is penetrating, arresting and deadly in its aim. If she ever does write a novel, I know it will be brilliant, and we would all queue to buy it, though hopefully I would get a signed complimentary copy! My only fear is, I know she would write about people she knows, and I suspect I would read myself into every bad character or deed, though I know she would deny it vehemently with the comment, "It's not all about you!" But it will be a book worth reading.

American Gothic and Wagner

Virus

 Vivid illness, you've got my number
 I know you're not far off
 Retreat is all I can muster, as
 Ubiquitous, you stalk me with calm intent
 Surrounded by beauty, I fight you with solitude

Betsy Marston

In common with millions of others we are sitting out CV-19 for the duration. When the first World War started, people were telling each other, "It'll be over by Christmas." Now, Trump has pronounced, "It'll be over by Easter." Easter is two weeks away, but London and New York are still on the accelerating slopes of the plague, so they are going to have to reach their peaks very rapidly to meet the president's schedule.

Meanwhile, we sit enjoying the sunlight, doing some gardening and enjoying the early spring sunshine. Mary-Anne came round yesterday to bring some shopping; she left it on the table on the patio, and talked to us through the open window. She took a picture of us, saying we reminded her of Grant Wood's American Gothic. We are so fortunate to have each other; so many people must be forced to sit this out alone.

Sitting out CV-19

The Hundon Gazette came yesterday. It had a large poster we have put in the window warning visitors to keep away, and has collated a list of local volunteers offering to help those in need. It is so good to be reminded that the world is not all evil, but there is also goodness fighting the darkness. Even so, the usual naysayers immediately swung into action decrying these actions, and saying the Gazette should not have been delivered because it risked bringing infection into people's home. Well just burn the thing, I say, if you're frightened to touch it!

In common with many others, we are reading or writing; or watching television, Netflix, and old videos while awaiting the figures of doom announced as the deaths mount round the world. Nine years ago, we started to watch The Ring, or Der Ring des Nibelungen to give it the full title, staring Bryn Terfel as Wotan, broadcast live at the Arts Theatre Cinema in Bury. We could only see the first two because of prior commitments on the second weekend, but later Ann treated me to the DVD set.
It is based on characters from the Norse sagas, and as potent a story as Tolkien's, depicting as it does the forging of the ring symbolising power made from the theft of the Rhinegold, then the repeated wars to possess the power. Last night we watched the first, Das Rheingold, and were transported into that other world. For a while we could leave our own worries or fears as we were swept away from this earth, such is the power of the music, the sets, the characters and the story.