Of mice and flies

Since the lockdown, we see pictures of some towns invaded by wild goats or deer, enjoying the quiet streets and freedom from humans. We are invaded by mice. We had a plague of flies in the kitchen yesterday, hundreds of them swarming round even with the windows closed. I pulled one of the kickboards away from the bottom of the cupboards, and found several dead mice, some in an advanced state of decay, naught but scruffy fur left like a pile of fluff in the far corners. I pulled out what I could of the remains, but was not feeling well with sweat pouring down my brow, and collapsed on the Chesterfield to recover over a large glass of Remy Martin.

I was in no condition to pull off more kickboards, so Ann called our son-in-law, Sam, who is a life-saver on these occasions, and who promised to come round as soon as he'd finished walking his dogs, and had his tea. We are aware of the rules for isolation, but pest control is allowed under the restrictions, so I certainly would describe his work as an essential service and we didn't feel badly about him coming round. Ann kept a discrete distance down the hall; I remained on the couch.

He cleaned out another large number of mice in the far corner, and this morning came round to cement up a number of holes he'd found in the brickwork outside. Inside, we pulled everything from all the cupboards and had to scrub them hard to clean out the droppings. This in one disadvantage of rural living; but I suppose mice inhabit towns too. Between them MA and Sam have been so supportive, doing our shopping and helping in other ways. We can never repay them.

Our PM continues in intensive care, a lesson to all of how dangerous this disease is. It is not like the figure of death stalking in the night with his little scythe, but more like an army of  great tractors towing giant reapers round the world. Even in extremis, he is sent some messages hoping he suffers and dies. It is incredible the depths of dirt some people's minds grovel in; how vicious the on-line community can be.

Astronomical note: the moon is at its closest approach to earth tonight. From my window it is full and crystal clear, being the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. It even has a special name: a pink supermoon, but I missed the pink display when it rose above the horizon like a flaming red sunrise.

Predicting CV-19 Deaths in UK Week 2

One week ago, I showed a graph I produced showing how the infection rate and deaths from Covid-19 might change in the UK from week to week (see Predicting Covid-19 deaths in UK). Yesterday, I updated the published figures, shown below.

At the moment, the black crosses of actual deaths are rising slightly above my red line predictions. The daily rate of deaths was also rising much more rapidly than my predictions (blue line), but the rate of increase is now tailing off. We are all in virtual house arrest, so must hope this represents a genuine slow down from the huge restrictions to liberty we all face.

The graph below shows the same data, but with the projected deaths shown on a logarithmic scale. This shows the increase in deaths more clearly, but also suggests the curve is beginning to level off. Anyone with comments on the projections or wanting copies of these is welcome to contact me (Gandad_John) by the message link.

Meanwhile on a brighter note, following the Queen's Address to the Nation, Ann has written a new poem celebrating the same sentiments.

Tomorrow

We will party again
blow out birthday candles
walk freely in the park
enjoy God's sunshine
smell the cut grass
touch hands
kiss cheeks
feel once more
the comforting embrace
of a well loved family face.

Annie Elliott

Deaf or daft?

Deaf

Tumbling world

fired up in anger,

flames burning

like Notre Dame

its holiness

rising in smoke

or burning bush

with unheard message.

Annie Elliott

With age, deafness becomes an increasing problem. As I grow older, I find  people have more difficulty in hearing me. They ask a question, I reply, and they ask, "Why did you say that?" They seem to think I am answering a question they didn't ask. Really, of course, I am answering the question I heard them ask, but it doesn't always match their memory. This is particularly true of Ann. Both she and I grew tired of me constantly asking, "What did you say?", so I've started to guess the question, and answer in a general way, and hope that will cover it.

Sometimes, I get away with this technique, but Ann does look puzzled sometimes. The biggest problem is when Ann brings something up and I'll answer, "I didn't know that! Why hadn't you told me?" and she will say, "I did tell you. I told you last week." Then I have a dilemma; I don't know if I didn't hear the first time, or if my memory is going.

One solution will be to get a hearing-aid, which I've resisted. My father had one, and my recollection is of us having to shout, "Dad, turn your hearing aid on!", or listening to a horrible feedback screech if it fell out. Now, however, I have the perfect excuse: no one can go for hearing tests during the lock-down.

This morning, I tackled another job that has waited for a few months: painting the kitchen door frame, which had become very grubby. The dogs feed in the kitchen, so although I cleaned it and rubbed it down some days ago, I intending to paint it at night once I'd put the dogs to bed. The trouble with that idea is, by that time I'm ready for bed myself. So this morning I woke early to a brilliant warm day and had the thing painted before the dogs got up. Clever, eh?

Doing something physical that requires no thought, it is fascinating how the mind drifts from one idle idea to another. As I painted, I found myself singing, "Bless this house," probably through an association with doors. That led to thoughts of my mother who, being from Lancashire, was an avid fan of Gracie Fields, a local lass made good. Mum listened to her as often as possible, drawing us in to share her liking. Not many know "Our Gracie" now, but one song of hers made an appearance in an advert recently: "...and it's the girl that makes the thing that holds the oil that oils the ring that works the thing-ummy-bob that's going to win the war," written in 1942 at the middle of the war, boosting the role of otherwise unnoted people in the war effort. Interestingly, the advert edited out any reference to war.

The doctor is in

I have received an unexpected letter from the General Medical Council: they are reinstating me as a GP for the duration. I am still on the GMC register as a pharmaceutical physician, but haven't had direct contact with patients for some years. Now the government is so desperate, they are looking for anyone they can get to help.
The trouble is, as someone at high risk, I am supposed to be self-isolating, so I suppose I can do no more than offer telephone assistance. But all our conferences and work is done remotely these days, so perhaps I will have to see patients using a video link to ask them questions, and ask them to point their phone at the area needing examination. Perhaps I can ask them to press their own stomachs too, and tell me if it hurts. Not sure how I can listen to hearts and lungs though - I wonder how sensitive the iPhone microphone is when pressed against the chest.

Repairing the Chesterfield

We continue to fill our day as best we can, introducing variety in our surroundings to break the day. In the morning, I have breakfast at the kitchen table. We take lunch in the dining room; then for our evening meal we laze before the television and I eat with a tray on my knee. Ann has moved the furniture around a few times to get some variety, but currently it has ended back where it started a week ago.

We have a large Chesterfield we bought at action some years ago. I have mended a few of the springs, but it had grown tired. Some of the old underlying sacking had torn through from children bouncing on it, and I have been meaning to mend it for some time. Six months ago, I bought the sacking on Amazon. Three months ago, I bought the tacks. Yesterday, we upended the beast and I finally tackled it, replacing the old sacking. At this rate, I will get the outstanding jobs done by Christmas.

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.