“The writer “is transformed!!
GOING………………….
GOING……….
GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 16
April 13
Our walk today took us to the Covid Memorial Wall started by bereaved family and friends of Covid-19 victims and featuring 150,000 hand-painted red hearts – roughly one for everyone in Britain who has died so far. The wall is the work of the Bereaved Families for Justice who are calling for a statutory enquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic and who have chosen this spot because it faces the Houses of Parliament and can be seen by any politician glancing out of the window in the hope of spotting impending signs of Spring . As such, the wall is, of course, a political statement. But when you see the bereaved crouching on the ground or standing on tip-toe on trestles, deep in concentration as they fill in the names of their lost loved ones, you realise this statement has taken on a role far more important than that.
People have come from all over the country to London, defying travel restrictions and carrying with them their flowers, hopes and memories. They gather at the wall, talk to one another, read the messages left by others and take comfort in their united grief.
Yes, there should be an enquiry but, more importantly, the wall should be preserved as a lasting memorial. The government has talked of monuments and statues but they already have something better than anything decided by oommittee or won in competition- a simple, spontaneous manifestation of the country’s anguish.
Friday April 9
I haven’t posted for over a month because there really hasn’t been a great deal to say but, for those of you still attempting to follow what Lockdown life is like in London – in particular in Soho-
HERE IS THE NEWS:
The threat of Avian ‘flu must be over as the five pelicans in St. James’s Park who have been locked up for months are now free again to join the one they couldn’t catch .
This was the scene of calm efficiency at Lord’s cricket ground when we received our second dose of Pfizer ten weeks after the first and proceeded by much anxiety as we had heard so many stories about vaccine supplies being about to run out. I was vaccinated by a British Airways flight attendant who confided in me. her worry about whether she would still have a job post-covid.
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We had our first gourmet meal of Lockdown ,courtesy of Tod and Trisha’s daughter and son-in-law ,who ordered it for Tod’s birthday from one of London’s most famous restaurants. As they arrived at the restaurant to collect the meal, our friends rang to alert us to warm plates – then rang us again not long afterwards to say that the restaurant couldn’t find the order. A secession of ‘phone calls followed with Trisha becoming conspicuously more drunk each time, as she quaffed the Prosecco the anguished restaurant was begging her to drink.
Eventually, everyone gave up, Tod and Trish made their way to our apartment and the meal followed about half an hour later delivered by a gentleman “The Writer” described as “looking like a butler” who staggered under the weight of a massive box. The fact that.the restaurant had put into the box five or six jars that had nothing to do with the meal as an apology for the mix- up, made working out which ingredients actually formed part of the meal an excellent parlour game. We had arranged to eat on the terrace with two tables placed suitably far apart, however, it was so freezing cold we quickly agreed to move indoors, keeping all the windows open and reassuring ourselves that we had all been vaccinated twice. However, as we put together the meal, social distancing became the second casualty as we rallied round heating ,stirring, serving and pouring.
It was a brilliant meal and a terrific evening, laughing, drinking, enjoying one another’s company, all the things we used to take for granted pre-Covid. We parted feeling elated and optimistic.
Only afterwards did I think, we are four people, in our seventies, who regard ourselves as models of good behaviour and, in my and “the writer’s” case, have been obsessively careful for over a year of Lockdown. If we found it impossible to keep to the rules, how hard is it going to be for the young?
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And finally……………
March 13
The Americans are very keen on the aphorism “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”
My British version is “If life gives you lemons, make lemon curd”
“Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat”
I decided the hard, green fruit would be fine in lemon curd as the sour lemon flavour has to fight its way through so much sugar.
I had to make it in three batches as I never know whether a recipe will double or treble and the final yield was a mere three jars. Problem is, it tastes so divine, we will have to battle hard not to spread it on everything!
Trisha and Amy, your jar will be handed over when we next get together.
I had a few rock hard lemons left over and was delighted to find a recipe for “candying” – “for use as snacks or cake decoration” the recipe said.. Well, let me tell you, you’d only snack on them or put them near a cake if you had a dentist in the family – preferably living in the same house, preferably in the same room. “The writer” is always very gallant about my culinary efforts but even he could only manage “Well the middle’s are very nice.” So the only thing they’ll be decorating is the bin.
Today, we met Trish, Tod and Peter in the park-purely by accident, of course- and, by a stroke of luck I happened to have with me their two jars of curd to hand over in exchange for yet more fabulous cheese straws and a nifty tube of hand-sanitiser and hand – cream combined. We chatted for half an hour in the biting wind and then had to concede defeat.
Since then, I’ve had an enthusiastic email from Amy and this from Tod:
I confess I’ve never thought of eating it on cake!
March 7
Craft has never been one of my or”The Writer’s” strong points. I would spend every school art class outside the door, having been bundled out of the room by Miss Longford for distracting the class by “Daydreaming”.
How the quiet pursuit of daydreaming could prove a distraction to others, I could never work out but the result was that my artistic genius, such as it might have been, was efficiently nipped in the bud. (I did manage to do a couple of paintings, whereupon I was shouted at for producing a crowd of minute figures huddled in the centre of acres of white. “FILL THE PAPER!!!” shouted Miss Longford “OR GO OUTSIDE”. The huge area of white was so daunting, daydreaming in the corridor seemed infinitely preferable to trying to fill it). So there I was, outside again.
What has reminded me of my art class misery is the fact that next week our friend, Donald Zec, will be 102. We haven’t seen him since Lockdown began and won’t be attending the usual fabulous party given by another of his friends every year.
What to give a very distinguished man of 102?
We are bereft of ideas until “The Writer” suggests making a birthday card from one of the many photographs of Donald with the superstars he used to interview when he was Showbiz Correspondent for The Daily Mirror.
Zec’s career in journalism began in 1938 with a three-day trial at the paper. Interviewed in 2009, he recalled: “I was so embarrassingly bad that no one had the courage to tell me, so I stayed for 40 years”
His interviewees included the likes of David Niven, Humphrey Bogart, Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe, who, he always delights in telling us ,could never remember there was a time difference between LA and London so when the ‘phone rang in the middle of the night, Donald’s long-suffering wife, Frances, would answer half – asleep and grumpily hand over the receiver saying “It’s Marilyn again, for you”
We trawl through the mass of photographs on line -Donald on the bed with John and Yoko, Donald with Sophia Loren, Donald with Kim Novak, Donald with all the most beautiful actresses of their day (And a few actors!). As he always says, “When you think that a small, bald Jewish man got to spend his time with all those gorgeous women, there’s hope for you all.”
Eventually, we hit upon a picture that seems suitable, Donald with a young and glowing Brigitte Bardot. While I cut and paste “The Writer” occupies himself thinking up a lexicon of possible captions.
First, I go to one of the websites that allows you to upload your own picture with which to personalise your greeting but when I try to insert the photo, bought for single use from a picture agency, the site somehow knows its provenance and won’t allow it to be used. I suppose they think I might be trying to reproduce the card and sell it in its thousands. No choice, then, but to MAKE one. No-one who routinely makes things can imagine the horror with which we approach the simple task..
We receive gorgeous, intricate cards from all our friend’s grandchildren adorned with enough glitter, beads and stickers to furnish a market stall. They are professionals in the art of card-making and we love to receive them but can hardly call on them to make it for us. “The writer” is as cack-handed as I am so we don’t hold out much hope for anything recognisable as a card. But we knuckle down, find some cardboard and some glue and the writer rehearses versions of his and Donald’s perennial joke about the fact that when he takes round Donald’s favourite salt beef sandwiches (of which nowadays he just about manages to nibble a quarter), my husband forgets , every time, that Donald doesn’t like mustard on his beef. Donald then spends the whole of lunchtime gloomily and forensically scraping the mustard off his sandwich, all the while mercilessly twitting “The writer” about having forgotten yet again.
Finally, the card is finished – scruffy and so amateurish that the aforementioned grandchildren would disown it in a heartbeat,. It just about stands up and, at 102, we wonder if perhaps Donald will be short-sighted enough not to notice the grubby fingerprints, gobbets of paste and wonky paper cutting.
Then we remember that Donald, who only took up painting in 2006, won The Oldie Magazine’s inaugural British Artists Award for artists over the age of 60 six years later. A year after that his portrait of his late paternal grandfather won The Hugh Casson Prize for Drawing.at The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and soon after that success, he took up painting on his iPad! So hoping he won’t notice lack of artistic merit is a bit vain.
All we can do is hope he is prepared to acknowledge it’s the thought that counts while we get on with the next task of arranging to get a salt beef sandwich over to him while it’s still hot. (WITHOUT mustard.).
Happy Birthday Donald
February 5
Our walks in St. James’s Park are regularly punctuated by stops to admire the six pelicans who usually spend their time on the paths where walkers gasp to see the bird with the second-largest wing span in the world strolling companionably beside them. Sometimes, for a change, one of them will Clamber up onto a bench to sit nonchalantly next to a nervous admirer. And on days when they are not feeling gregarious, they may all make do with sunning themselves on their rock in the middle of the lake.
During our past few walks we have seen only one of them – is it Isla, Tiffany, Gargi – or one of the recent additions – Sun, Moon or Star ? We have no idea. But we do know we’re seeing the same one each time – the pinkest one- and we are truly anxious as to what has happened to the others.
We make up tragic stories:
All the others have migrated to the warmth and this one is left alone and pining.
The others have had some devastating accident and this one will have to build a life for itself without its family.
This one has been ostracised by the others – too pink, perhaps – while they make a new home for themselves down the road in the lush gardens of Buckingham Palace.
Generations of pelicans have lived in the park since the Russian Ambassador presented the first birds in 1664 and the idea of their no longer being around is truly upsetting.
Eventually, I can stand the speculation no longer (I have talked in this blog before about the difference between “The Writer”, who would rather have a good story, and me, who would rather know the truth. Fiction versus documentary.)
I ask one of the army of gardeners preparing the park for Spring. (Planting and burgeoning is going on all around us, flower beds being laid out, trees sprouting their first shoots of green and snowdrops dotting the ground.
The true story, of course, turns out to be more prosaic than any of our attempts at High Tragedy: There is a pandemic of Avian ‘flu raging, so the birds have been Locked down in order to avoid infection. They are isolating in a small house on an island in the lake and taking their daily exercise swimming in its small private pool.
So why is this one bird left at the mercy of the virus ?
It turns out our renegade peli. has evaded all attempts at catching him and quarantining him with the other because he, alone of the gang, is able to fly far and fast enough to outwit his keepers. Far from being unhappy and alone as the hero or of our fantasies, he is free to roam the park while the other five are confined to barracks for the foreseeable future, no more to relish the click of camera shutters or preen themselves to star in a thousand selfies.
“The Writer” is right, of course, the stories were better.
But when we discover that the birds turn pink in Spring when they’re ready to mate – and look at the blushing bird remaining at liberty, there is scope for a whole new series of tragedies about the sad pelican who is ready for love but will never, never find it because of lockdown.
December 31
Remembering the hours I used to queue to see Nureyev and Fonteyn dance together at The Royal Opera House, remembering watching them from high up in the Gods, often standing, watching the greatest art I had – or have – ever seen, I couldn’t help feeling he and his sublime partner should be buried side by side. Ridiculous, of course, since Fonteyn was married and lies with her Panamanian husband , Roberto Arias under a modest stone in a garden cemetery overlooking the Panama Canal.
They are in death as they were in life: Rudi the fiery, tempestuous, Russian who flung himself into the arms of a Le Bourget airport policeman seeking sanctuary to avoid going back to Russia and Margot, The Royal Ballet”s most un-diva-like Prima Ballerina Assoluta, quiet Peggy Hookham from Reigate in Surry, galvanised into a dancing renaissance by the spectacular artistry and emotional depth of her flamboyant partner, 19 years her junior.
The last time I saw them dance together was in Romeo and Juliet. Fonteyn danced until she was almost 50 and played the fourteen-year-old Juliet with utter conviction partnered with what seemed like balletic telepathy by Nureyev.
I don’t believe there is a more romantic story than theirs.
January 28
Vaccine wars are under way, with the EU threatening to withhold the Pfizer Vaccine manufactured in Belgium, unless we give them some of the Atrazenica product, made here in the UK. In each new Press Conference, our government quotes the magnificent number of people vaccinated (and it is magnificent) and publishes the planned time-scale for vaccinating the next cohorts, beginning in late February or early March.
They seem to have forgotten completely to factor into their timetable the millions of second doses required by the elderly and vulnerable, which would delay the remaining cohorts by over a month.
I think that, after boasting about its success, the government can’t bear the thought of admitting to the world the reduction in numbers second doses would entail, and it is my suspicion – and fear – that the second doses may never be given. Or, that at twelve weeks , the current time-scale, there may be a shortage of Pfizer Vaccine in this country – one of the concerns raised by the British Medical Association in their recent letter to Matt Hancock.
As far as I can discover, Quebec seems to be the only place to have altered the Pfizer regime in the way we have. I do acknowledge the need to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible but, unused to and desperately anxious about the lack of control over what is done to my body, I have been looking to see whether other people are as concerned and are protesting in any way that might persuade the government to take notice.
I have already mentioned the campaign by Labour Peer, Joan Bakewell and I have now discovered another, instigated by Dr. Michael Markiewicz, a leading consultant Paediatrician, who is also trying to crowdfund a crack legal team on a Just Giving page.
One cheering thing about having been vaccinated, (Do, PLEASE ,send me your list of “reasons to be cheerful”), is that I’m assuming the redoubtable Dr. Fauci’s insistence that “double masking” is now required against the new Covid strains won’t be necessary post- vaccination, even if one’s second mask does have a fetching penguin colony on it. I have also stopped disinfecting the post (“The Writer” is not happy about that ) and am even wondering whether to stop sanitising incoming shopping (Will be pondering that one for a while).
January 26
It has been upsetting to watch the news agenda change and our second dose anxieties first of all slip down it and then out altogether, despite the fact that the British Medical Association’s letter calling for the delay of the second dose to be reduced from the proposed 12 weeks to six was headline news only a few days ago. Anxieties about new variants of the virus, quarantining of those coming into the country, the need for schools to go back and possible shortages of the Pfizer Vaccine altogether, have taken over all media.
In this morning’s interviews with Nadine Zahavi, on BBC Radio Four’s “Today” Programme and LBC’s “Nick Ferrari at Breakfast”, the implications of delay were not even raised.
On Sunday, Speaking on BBC One’s ‘ The Andrew Marr show”, Israel’s health minister, Yuli Edelstein, said there had been debates within his ministry about delaying the second dose. “I’ll be very honest, we had debates about it in the ministry. And we decided to follow the instructions given by Pfizer. There were different opinions on that in Israel too. But as we have very little information at that stage … So we decided to stick to the instructions we get from Pfizer’.
It was a pity that the show’s production team decided to transmit the Israeli health minister’s interview after the one with Matt Hancock , so being unable to raise the second dose delay with the Health Secretary even if they had been willing to do so.
I think the concerns of those who have had the first dose and are anxious about the delay to the second are regarded as selfish, given that there are so many other major difficulties to be overcome . However, if the eminent scientists who believe that the Pfizer Vaccine may have lost its efficacy at 12 weeks are right, the vulnerable will be still more vulnerable, believing they are protected when they’re not and the vaccination of front line workers, police and shop workers, teachers and the younger members of society may be delayed as the process of protecting the elderly has to begin all over again.
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I thought High Vis jackets had proliferated as much as was possible but I’d never seen these wearers before.
December 21
The debate about whether the second vaccine doses can safely be delayed is ongoing:
The BBC website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55734257 maintains that the results of the Israeli study have been taken “Out of context”.
Professor Stephen Evans, of the London School And Tropical medicine says: “The reports that have come from Israel are insufficient to provide any evidence that the current UK policy in regard to delaying the second dose of vaccines is in any way incorrect.”
But publications such as the British Medical Journal Blog; https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/20/revisiting-the-uks-strategy-for-delaying-the-second-dose-of-the-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine/ are far less certain about the wisdom of delaying.
“Public health, medical, and scientific support has been divided. Support for a “finely balanced decision” has come from speciality medical royal colleges, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the British Society of Immunology. The NHS currently faces enormous pressures from an unrelenting covid-19 pandemic and critical care is in crisis. [3] Therefore vaccinating as many people as possible, and as soon as possible is of great urgency. However, support for delaying the second dose has not always addressed the supply issues and scientific concerns underpinning the case for delaying the second mRNA dose. Some scientists have opposed the delay, especially to the Pfizer vaccine, due to a lack of evidence of effectiveness and potential risks, both personally to individuals vaccinated in this way and to the population at large.
International organisations such as the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) in the US; and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have advised that the vaccination schedules, as defined from the published peer reviewed studies from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna (the other mRNA vaccine), should be followed (respectively 1/22 day and 1/29 day first/second dose vaccinations). [5] The German and US governments have recently stated that they do not intend to delay the second covid-19 vaccine shot and Pfizer and Moderna do not support the delay strategy.”
Maybe it’s because I’m a slavish adherent to rules that, though I understand the political imperative to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible so we can boast about having done it FIRST !!!!, I can’t for the life of me see a legitimate reason why our government should be ignoring the manufacturer’s instructions and making up this most serious medical protocol as they go along. I hope this decision will be revisited FAST.
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This beautiful crop of lemons from the tree on our terrace is now reduced to this far less beautiful jar of lemon curd – yes, just the one jar!
Locked down in London 