A cold start to the day

We woke to a cold house yesterday, and horrible noises from the boiler, an acrid smell of diesel fumes, and a glowing red light as it finally switched itself off. Luckily our boiler man (who lives in Hundon) called round promptly this morning and sorted it all out, to the tune of a new oil pump and new bearings for the fan, which had certainly been very noisy recently. Eventually all was working, the boiler is silent again, and we have radiators and hot water once more.

Work is very busy now as we prepare to start a new drug trial. Because of Covid, it will be split across two centres (UK and Germany) to maximise the rate of recruitment, but it makes for considerably more work. We have finally chosen the groups that will run the trial for us; now we have to prepare the paperwork and apply formally to the two regulators for a licence to run the study. This is one complication of Brexit; there used to be just one European regulator based in London, but post-Brexit the European centre moved to Amsterdam, and the London centre is only responsible for the UK. Nothing gets easier, just more work for everyone and a lot more expense for the drug companies.

Strata 1 Dales Gorge

I am continuing to paint, following a theme inspired by my love of geology. Many rock formations show beautiful patterns with many coloured bands in the sedimentary formations where they were laid down many millions of years ago. They are fun to paint, and I may try one or two more in the weeks ahead. At least my studio has independent heating, as long as the electricity doesn't go off.

I went for my dental checkup this afternoon. I didn't expect much to be wrong, but an X-ray showed a massive cavity below an old filling. Mr Singh said the tooth was beyond repair, and would need extraction, but because of my cancer history he thought it should be done by a specialist oncology dental surgeon called Mr Patel, so he has made me an appointment for 3 week's time. If anyone wants to be wealthy in life, I can certainly recommend becoming a dentist. They seem to have carte blanche to write their own cheques - we just have to honour them. It's a far cry from the dentist I saw in London who had a large notice in his window: "Teeth pulled while you wait". 

Unfortunately, when we got back from the dentists in Hadleigh, the boiler cutout light had come on again and the house was freezing. Fortunately, our local plumber, Alen, could be round in ten minutes. He stripped it out again and found dirt in the pipework that had blocked one of the tiny valves. He is coming back in the morning to replace the valve, but in the meantime he was able to patch it up to get some warmth back, and Ann could have her bath.

The First Day of Spring

 

Tomorrow is the first day of spring, and already the skies are blue, the sun warm, and wild flowers in the local copse are greeting the world, eager to escape their winter imprisonment. In the garden, crocuses are well out and the tulips are bursting through winter's old crust. With lockdown's end in sight,  the countdown has begun.

Suddenly Boris is in everyone's good books, just because he will allow us to give our children a hug and see our grandchildren once more. I will actually be allowed to sit on a park bench without prosecution, should I tire on my short walks with the dogs. It is hard to believe how quickly and for how long these basic human rights were removed, rendering the whole country under virtual house arrest. How easily is freedom stripped away. How powerful are the police now, with drones and CCTV to monitor the whole population. The gestapo would have had a field day with such technology, and any underground resistance would have been snipped off at the bud. Saving the torture, one feels that living under a dictatorship could not be much harsher than the last year has been. Yet even a dictatorship would probably have provoked more rebellion and protest marches than our enfeebled state has mustered; it has been  incredible and frightening how quickly compliant the whole nation has been to arbitrary government diktat. 

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. Edwin and Andre called by (suitably distanced) to bring a card and gift - a n Apple Mini iPod. It came smartly wrapped in a cubic box, which I held carefully to open, gently and slowly sliding the lid upward till it came clear of the box underneath. Unfortunately, the box beneath was very shallow, and the iPod was a perfect sphere balanced carefully on a plinth to show it to good effect. Inevitably, the sphere rolled off its plinth, bounced along the tiled floor, and rolled under the table, leaving me holding a shallow box, the lid, and a deep red face. I said, "we'll have to say it didn't work when we opened it," but the boys said, "the guarantee doesn't include bouncing it on the floor!" However they must build them very strong, for happily nothing rattled inside and it still worked. Unlike my pride, it wasn't even dented.

Covid-19 News

 
The onslaught of Covid disease at last seems to be waning. Cases and death rates are slowly falling, and the vaccination program is racing ahead, adding to the celebration of Brexit successes. I had my vaccination a few weeks ago, with no ill effects - not even a sore arm or red spot. Ann has her jab booked for Saturday, and is looking forward to picking up the threads of normal existence; she has already booked appointments with the glaucoma clinic and for an eye test now we have a date for safely walking the streets again, and she may be able to revisit the shops for the first time in months. Even more important, when will the pubs and restaurants reopen? Meanwhile, I continue painting. Ann bought me a parcel of black canvases to use, and I have now done a number of more modern pictures. The Thinker is an attempt at an expressionistic style.

The Thinker

On our telecon meeting this morning, they announced that there will be a big internal meeting in March, with some of our Japanese colleagues expected to attend. As many as can are being urged to make the journey to attend in person at the Holborn office in London. Despite the jab, I'm not sure if I can risk a visit to London yet, but things are certainly beginning to open up again, bring hope for brighter times ahead. I have continued to paint a little, though interrupted by work, which has been intense recently as we move towards starting a new drug trial. Aso, as part of the research effort on Covid-19, I am getting a number of safety reports to analyse from an inoculation study run by Oxford and Manchester universities for the ONS (Office of National Statistics). These are follow-up reports for the routine jabs, but it is interesting that I am now being involved, even if remotely.

Less good news has come from Ben and Kaz. Ben has largely been able to work from home, but Kaz works with vulnerable young people and therefore has to meet them face-to-face on a daily basis. Those she works with have no concept of social distancing, and will not wear face masks, so her risk has always been high. Now she too has developed Covid, before being offered protection, and passed it on to Ben. They are fortunately recovering now, but have had to isolate for the required period.

Ann's sister, Jane, also was due to get the jab but has also developed symptoms of Covid, so is unable even to go for her daily walk and has had to postpone her vaccination. Her son John works as a delivery driver, so was always at risk of exposure from the many people he meets each day, though it is uncertain if he showed symptoms or not.

A lockdown walk in the snow

 

Dog walking in the snow

We continue with patience through lockdown number 3, unable to see anyone from another household, unable to travel further than the village, and avoided in the street even by other dog walkers who take pains to walk on the other side of the road. I am supposed to be on a priority list for deliveries, but we have yet to find a slot with Sainsbury or Tesco. We rely on Ocado deliveries which Ann has managed to book each week. 

We do occasionally travel further afield though. We head ostensibly towards Waitrose in Sudbury waving a carrier bag with the purpose of essential shopping, then stop at Rodbridge park on the way for a good stretch and to let the dogs run free. Byron has become increasingly reluctant to travel in the car and has taken to hiding in a corner when I take them out. Today he wouldn't even come to Ann's call, so he ended up alone at home as we drove out into the blizzard with Bronte.

Today we were hit by the new blizzard from the east; there was a thin sprinkling of snow, but we left in a quiet gap. However it came on again as I walked forcing us to return home and abandon even the pretence of Waitrose. It is heavy now and quite thick outside. 

Unable to go to the theatre or cinema or even a pub for a drink, we were in search of something new to watch when I read a recommendation for a BBC series, Industry. The premise is a group of young graduates competing for a position with a prestigious Investment bank. They are each interesting characters, and the story promised to be an insightful view of a world we never see, yet so often read about. In the event, it is practically unwatchable.  It turned into a prime porno series before we ever found out about the characters or learnt about the inner workings of the city. Many years ago, in the days of video rentals, Ann and I got a copy of a film called Tie Me Up Tie Me Down. The was rated as an X porno film, but was like a tame walk in the park compared to Industry. I have never seen so much naked flesh since I worked on the gynae ward. It added nothing to any of the characters, and served to hold up rather than develop whatever story lurked beneath the lurid surface. This seems to be the way modern TV is moving. Even Jeremy Clarkson in his column in the Sunday Times berated the extreme content of so much contemporary television. It is small wonder that 750,000 older people are refusing to pay the BBC Television licence fee. They are desperately chasing the younger viewers and making themselves irrelevant to the rest of their audience.

The Absinthe Drinker, after Picasso

I continue with painting, now trying new approaches. To encourage my art, Ann treated me to a set of black canvases and my most recent work is a version of Picasso's The Absinthe Drinker. I will not comment on its quality, but it is a pointer of the new directions that open if one is willing to try something new.

  

More good news comes our way

Welcome snowdrops 

The threat of Corona 19 comes closer, as the daughter and granddaughter of Ann's friend Sylvia have both had the disease, and her daughter's ex brother-in-law has died from the virus. In our immediate family, Lucy's ex developed the disease, and one of Edwin's ex tutors in a village close to Hundon has the disease. 

Floods and gales are threatening the country, yet in the fields and woods the snowdrops have pushed through to welcome our walk. Though only mid-January, we feel that spring must be lying in wait behind the gales, ready to burst upon us with welcome warmth and longer days. With the remarkable speed of the vaccination programme, we really can look forward to a better year ahead and the chance to visit a long-missed family and old haunts. I already have my appointment at a local surgery tonight. Our friend Robin (in his 70's) missed his call, but Malcolm (in his 80's) in Haverhill has already had the vaccine and my brother Richard and Chris (both in their 70's) get it at the weekend. I have had a letter asking if I can be available to help with the injection programme, so I guess they're looking for anyone who can wave a needle in the right direction.

Further good news comes on the headlines from USA as a new president is ushered in. We were unable to watch the inauguration which coincided with the time I was waiting in a carpark in Lavenham for my jab. But catching it later on the news, it looks like a promising new start for the USA following a disastrous four years of inept leadership. Biden is just my age, so if he can run a major country for four years (with hope for a further four), I can hope to continue to be active with the very minimal work I do and my untaxing hobby of painting. More power to the oldies!

Some time ago, I wrote about a vicious hair straightener from ghd (Good Hair Day) purchased from Amazon, but made in China (see kind comments and Chinese trash). It was dangerous, for it got too hot and singed Ann's hair. She wrote a stinging review about it on the Amazon site, and bought a better quality product. Today she received an email from ghd offering her £30 to remove her review! Apart from the blatant bribery inherent in this message, it is worrying for another reason. Consumer comments to Amazon are meant to be anonymous; clearly they are not if Amazon passes email addresses on to its advertisers. Do they also pass on phone numbers and addresses? There is clear danger in this practice at the hands of aggrieved companies.

Sonic boom over Hundon

 My lunchtime telecon today was disturbed by a loud bang. I thought it was a door slamming, or possibly someone shooting on the hill, but it turned out to be a sonic boom. A private plane en route from Germany to Birmingham lost radio contact with air control, so two RAF Typhoons were launched with orders to intercept and bring it down if it threatened harm. They were given clearance to fly at Mach 1.6, and as their route took them over Cambridge to intercept, the sonic boom was heard across the whole area of Cambridgeshire, West Suffolk and Essex. The plane was forced to divert and land at Stansted - the routine place for highjacked aircraft, but it this case I believe it was just a radio failure. 

Work is getting more busy with more and more telecons and writing assignments as we prepare for our next clinical trial. I sometimes think it's as well I still have a job, for I'd be walking round the carpet in circles if I had nothing to do. But at a personal level, my pruritus remains as intense as ever, if not more so. I am sleeping poorly, unless I take some knockout pills, and in the day I have to keep gripping my hands to control myself from scratching. Someone has suggested that it's worse in the cold weather, and it is certainly cold enough at the moment. We have no heating in the bedrooms and the window is kept open, so I'm glad to dive under the covers. Unfortunately I still get up every hour or two from discomfort and the need to wee, so I end up shivering every couple of hours anyway just to keep everything ticking over. 

The cold is nothing to what we had as children though. I had a bed by the window, it was north facing and I remember the clouds of our steamy breath hanging in the air. The panes regularly freezing over on the inside where the condensation froze in wonderful patterns of hard crystals. If the condensation had puddled on the window-sill, it too froze to hard glass pools. I generally had a hot water bottle, but I woke in the morning cuddling a cold clammy mass of rubber. I huddled with knees to my chin, reluctant to stretch out to the icy sheets at the foot of the bed. I would pull my clothes in beside me to warm and wriggle into them under the sheets, trying all the while not to expose more than the top of my head.  I guess I'm lucky I didn't suffer from such severe pruritus in those days.

Into the new year

 What a New Year. We celebrate with our extraction from the tenticles of the EU to launch a time of independence. Boris Johnson is getting remarkably little flack for his Brexit withdrawal agreement; does this mean he's got it right or is it just to complicated to understand? Probably the later, though the problems will only emerge with time as people try to live by the new rules. So far, lorry drivers seem to be passing through Dover with no holdups, perhaps because the traffic density is still low; but the EU has already agreed to waive much of the paper work for the first year, to give it a chance to work smoothly.

On a positive side, the UK is pushing ahead with a green and considerate agenda. They have banned the cruel and wasteful practice of pulse fishing, or "electic shock stunning," to knock out all fish just to catch a few flat fish. Though even here, reading past the headline, we note that the EU are banning it in 6 months anyway, and the UK could have banned it before the 31st December, but timed it to look good. As usual nowadays it's hard to differentiate truth from whatever message the powers that be wish to push.

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has restated her intention to leave the UK (surprise surprise!). She is determined to gain independence so she can be free to rejoin the EU, just as other countries seem to be building pressure to leave the EU and gain independence. It's hard to understand her logic in all this.; experts suggest it could take her 10 years to leave the UK and be accepted as a member of the EU. At that stage, I'm sure she'll be welcomed in, for by then it could be that the EU only has three members: Germany, France and Scotland. 

I am trying a new method to control my pruritus and scratching. I have given up on the many potions and lotions, and instead am using a new technique of conditional learning. It consists of a rubber band round the wrist, which I twang every time I feel the urge to scratch. The only down side so far is I sometimes forget to twang it, but am reminded by Ann saying, "what happened to the wrist flick?". I guess I may need another band on the contra wrist to remind me to twang the first wrist. But I must say, over the past two days, I subjectively think I am itching and scratching less.

Autumn in Lockdown

On the art front, I continue painting and have completed an autumn view of the river Stour in Clare from the old railway bridge. There is something magical in painting in oils. They are very expresive, yet at the same time forgiving. I could paint the bland autumnal scene, then add the dark railings of the bridge, to show my frustration at the current restrictions.