December 20

~ coronet22 ~ 2 Comments

Well, sadly, my euphoria at having been vaccinated didn’t last long. I made the mistake of putting in some thorough research as to the coverage gained from a single dose of Pfizer Biontech, and the results are extremely depressing.The best information I have found is on the BBC Website “How effective is a single vaccine dose against Covid 19?” It deals comprehensively with the complexities of how each vaccine works and its conclusions, after much detailed analysis, seems to me to be that no-one knows what will happen if the second dose is delayed by 12 weeks, not even whether there will be any protection remaining in those who have had the first.

These are quotes from the article written by Zaria Gorvett.

“According to Pfizer data published in December 2020, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is roughly 52% effective after the first dose. Out of 36,523 participants in the phase three trial – the final stage of testing where people either received two full doses, 21 days apart, or a placebo – who had no evidence of existing infection, 82 people in the placebo group and 39 in the vaccine group developed Covid-19 symptoms.

However, this early protection comes with some important caveats. First, the protection doesn’t kick in until at least day 12 – until then, there was no difference between the two groups. Secondly, one dose is still significantly less protective than two. The latter is 95% effective at preventing the disease after a week”.

Pfizer and BioNTech themselves have already urged caution on the grounds that their data ends at day 21, and “there is no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days”. It’s possible that the protection people seem to have will suddenly drop off after that point – in fact, this wouldn’t be surprising based on the way the immune system usually works. “

I stress that these are excerpts from a website, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210114-covid-19-how-effective-is-a-single-vaccine-dose.

I have no medical knowledge and anyone interested in the full story should research for themselves . However, I would add that in last night’s “Newsnight” on BBC2, it was suggested the latest research shows only 32 per cent protection after one dose.

The fact that there are no data to show that there is ANY protection left if the second shot is left for longer than 21 days has certainly blown away any of the excitement and relief I had gained.

In the meantime, Labour Peer, Joan Bakewell, concerned at the decision to delay the second dose, has crowd -funded legal representation to sue Matt Hancock for the decision. Bakewell, says “Older people are in limbo: they need to know whether delaying the Pfizer Vaccine is both safe and legal. I am bringing this case because I believe the government needs to make this clear.”

Her case is principally concerned with whether the government has the right to flout the conditions under which the vaccine was authorised and as Bakewell says, “there’s a bigger question, too: should medical procedures be overruled by political and social needs. ” 

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To end on a more cheerful note:

CHEESE STRAWS!!

Before this latest lockdown began, “The Writer” and I visited Marylebone Farmers’ market.

Our friend, Trish, makes THE BEST cheese straws on the planet and, since food treats have become our single most important reward for everything from a hard day’s work to sewing on a button, we were missing her cheese straws, always plentifully strewn on tables during pre-meal drinks, when we visit for her equally magnificent lunches.

Seeing a stall featuring a rustic basket of cheese straws nestled in red gingham that look OK – not up to Trish’s standard, but then that would be like happening upon a unicorn tethered to a Marylebone lamppost – we buy a mass of them at insane urban farmers’ market prices and scurry home.

Only when we take them out of their bag, do we realise that what had looked crisp, knobbly and inviting in the basket are actually flaccid fingers of lumpen dough. We are so disappointed that, in an effort to cheer us up, “The Writer” suggests putting them in the oven to crisp. We wait in anticipation as the smell of cheese wafts through the kitchen – but when they come out of the oven they are transformed only into flaccid fingers of warm lumpen dough.

Sadly, we throw them in the bin and tell ourselves we must be content with the memory of a perfect cheese straw. We reminisce about our last lunch at Trish and Tod’s , the succulence of the roast chicken, the piquancy of the red cabbage, the fluffy crunch of her roast potatoes -and, Oh the cheese straws! We even tell Trish at our weekly Zoom of our disappointing purchase.

And yesterday the cheese straw cavalry arrived! Touched by our tale of woe, Trish laboured all day in her kitchen, made a massive batch of perfect cheese straws and drove them over, sirens wailing as I imagine it, to us and to Amy and Peter.

And here they are – crisp, brittle and flaky, studded with succulent knobs of tangy cheese- some – the most sought-after – even frilled with extra cheese around the edges. We ration ourselves to two with morning coffee in order not to eat the lot at one go, and agree only to indulge if we are both present to ensure equity. Nevertheless, during the following days, the contents of the tin mysteriously diminish. It’s as as though one of us is sneaking into the kitchen and snaffling a cheese straw when the other hasn’t been consulted and isn’t looking.

Could it be me?

January 14 VACCINATION DAY!!!!!!

~ coronet22 ~ 3 Comments

This afternoon we went to Lord’s Cricket Ground, not to see a match but to be vaccinated against Covid-19. A phone call from our GP surgery yesterday evening at 5pm allocated us appointments at 2:35pm and 2:40 pm today. After a small celebration dance around the kitchen together, the first thing “The Writer” did was to consult the weather forecast. It predicted heavy rain all day and ,as usual, he trawled through every App on every device ,hoping for one that might suggest, if not sunshine, at least dryness. But it was not to be. Rain all day. There followed an agonised discussion as to whether we could face walking the two and a half miles each way to Lord’s in the rain or should we take our biggest risk since March and go by taxi. We debate this all evening and most of this morning, in the end agreeing to walk to Marylebone High St. – about half way – and see how wet it is. In the event, it’s not too bad and we make it on foot to St. John’s Wood, home to Lord’s, in good time. Since we have appointments, we assume that we will saunter into the building and get jabbed straight away.

The first thing alerting us that this might not be the case, is a cluster of umbrellas in the distance.

As we draw nearer, we see the queue snaking round the building with no end in sight. We tell one of the stewards we have an appointment. He apologises with charm and tells us to join the queue.

We take up our positions, watching the very elderly being helped on their sticks to The terrace of The Lord’s Tavern, where there are some seats for those who can barely stand. The stewards are polite and helpful and it’s sad to hear one young woman complain to her friend “Can you believe it, I’ve just been abused!”

After about 20 minutes, we are ushered up the steps into The Thomas Lord Suite which advertises itself as “The ideal venue for weddings, Barmitzvah’s, Christmas parties, cabaret and dinner dances”.

Judging from the way we all look as we trudge up the steps, the dress code on the invitation for this event must have been ‘Vaccine Grunge’

Inside the crowded room- the closest we have been to any other human being since March –“The Writer” muses in on the likelihood of our catching the virus in the vaccination queue- an irony he would appreciate in fiction but which we agree we could do without in fact. We are asked to sanitise our hands then give our names to staff at a long table, who find it hard to hear either of us, as we are wearing face masks and visors, the visors misted with condensation from the rain and the masks sodden. Our names are written on a slip of paper. which we take with us as we join a line of five chairs to see the doctor. When I get to the front, Dr.Abt. asks three questions: (There may have been a couple more that I was too excited to remember)

Do you have any illness at present?

Have you had a vaccine in the past seven days?

Are you on blood thinners?

I tell him about my severe allergy to oysters, which he ignores as soon as he has ascertained I haven’t been prescribed an epipen.

And then it’s done! I am the proud possessor of a muscle full of Pfizer Biontech and a card telling me the batch number and the date on which I had it. The section for the date of the second dose is blank.

“The Writer” is next in the queue and we then sit for a while to make sure we have no allergic reaction.

Outside in the drizzle, we do a little dance of glee, indulge in a brief hug and then, to fortify ourselves for the walk back, sit on the window sill of The Danubius Hotel and drink tea from the thermos I have carried in the rucksack on my back .

The walk home is wet and windy but we are euphoric. Three more weeks of hiding from the world till the vaccine takes effect then we are free – To do what, I’m not sure, since the world will still be locked down, but we are too thrilled to care.

January 13

~ coronet22 ~ 1 Comment

Today, we re-entered the 1950’s and I discovered skills I never knew “The Writer” had.

Yesterday, while we are drinking our morning cups of tea in bed, I hear an ominous, rhythmic, bleeping sound coming from the kitchen. On investigation, I discover that it is being emitted by the dishwasher, running so cups and saucers would be ready for breakfast. When I open the door of the machine,I am greeted by a light display worthy of Blackpool illuminations. Every single light is on and the display panel of the machine looks like an aircraft cockpit. We have had problems with this machine before during lockdown and have felt proud of ourselves for repairing the inlet drain and cleaning the impeller, courtesy of YouTube tutorials. (Notice the casual use of technical terms here). I rush to the computer to find a solution to this breakdown, only to discover that “all dishwasher programme lights on” ” appears to be a fault never suffered by any other machine at any time and Google is silent on the subject.

I phone the manufacturer, where a young girl, obviously working from home, sips her tea while riffling through pages of the service manual – the same one I have been combing for the past hour- and finally suggests turning it off and then on again, a piece of advice reiterated weekly as a joke in “The IT Crowd”, a sitcom of recent years and a suggestion I have always found invaluable . Unfortunately, this time it doesn’t yield and we are left having to drain all the water out of the machine for the fourth or fifth time with a basting syringe. (I always knew it would come in handy for something).

I spend the afternoon on the Amazon website …….Yes, yes, of course I should have shopped at John Lewis, which is struggling and threatening to close down half its Oxford St. Shop, something that would greatly impoverish our life…….But I want it straight away to avoid scratch marks on the sink so I give in and fill Jeff Beszos’s coffers even fuller.

This morning, I unwrap an black washing up bowl and a black dish drainer, the smartest I could find to ornament our newish kitchen, and, after breakfast, I am astounded when “The Writer” leaps to the sink, flourishing a tea towel and commanding, “Leave it to me”!

I put up the least resistance to his suggestion you can imagine and watch while he polishes off a load of washing – up in seconds, folds the tea towel, upends the bowl to drain and sits down. Then I remember that in a previous life he was part-owner of a restaurant and, though he was meant to be front of house, he was more often than not relegated to the role of pot -washer, having drunk the house wine, misbehaved and whispered inappropriate suggestions in the ears of customers. (That’s how he tells it, anyway.)

Whatever the truth of this, he is obviously a willing, practiced and even enthusiastic washer-up, I’m delighted with this hitherto undiscovered talent and will be exploiting it to the full until we are prepared to risk a service engineer visit.

This is a first-world saga, I know, but there are some luxuries we come to take for granted.

January 7

~ coronet22 ~ 2 Comments

Having to skirt round yet another anti-lockdown protest during our most recent walk, and waking to the news that one in thirty Londoners has the virus and London NHS hospitals are two weeks from being overwhelmed, we have decided to keep off the streets until we are vaccinated. That means retreating to our terrace for exercise as we did in March last year.

I must admit, the prospect filled me with dread – not being able to stretch one’s legs properly and having no wildlife to enjoy – that is until I looked at our lemon tree for the first time since the Summer.

“The writer” is more cheerful pounding up and down our small, empty space than he has been lately walking gingerly in the park and so much of our time at the moment is spent glued to CNN and the goings on in the U.S., exercise anywhere is the last thing on our minds, as we sit, aghast, in front of the TV.

All I need now is a recipe for what to do with unripe lemons, as there are masses on the tree that I assume won’t get enough light to ripen. If anyone has a (polite) suggestion, please add it to the comment box.

January 6

~ coronet22 ~ 2 Comments

This third Lockdown has given rise to a continuing debate between “The Writer” and me as to which of us is being the more careful. He regards any advancing stranger in the street as a potential killing machine. If they are wearing a mask, he is content with stepping off the pavement into the road to pass them. If not, on spotting them in the distance, he gives vent to a muttered diatribe about why they are so inconsiderate, selfish, malign and stupid, before crossing the road to walk on the opposite pavement. If they dare to jog towards us in the park, first he repeats the diatribe but with “stupid”higher up the list of transgressions, then, standing stock still ,he faces away from the offending path the jogger is pounding, as though to admire the view and makes sure to give the air plenty of time to clear before setting off again.

Yesterday, two cyclists on a completely empty road fully ten metres away from us had the temerity to hold a shouted conversation with each other, only to be accused ,not to them but to me, of “filling the air” with virus.

While other passers-by smile fondly at little children clustering cutely in the park, “The Writer” steps through them as though picking his way through vermin.

Once more, going out for a walk is a complex operation. He opens our front door wearing one plastic glove, which he also uses to press the lift button – both of us masked during the descent, in case someone has only seconds ago vacated the lift. He retains the glove to open the front door of the building then dumps it in the nearest bin and sanitises his hands. Considering myself the guardian of logic, I wonder why he can’t just take off the glove without touching the outside of it, thereby having no need of spray. He moves his mask up and down as he perceives approaching threat, often touching the outside of it with his hands in the process, mine hangs from a mask holder with clips either side and I imagine it to be crawling with virus so only ever touch the clips when taking it on and off.

My logic deserts me however, when we get home. If the mask is crawling with virus, surely our outdoor clothes must be the same, yet I cheerfully take off my coat and hang it on the hook in the hall.

Since March, we have been sanitising incoming parcels , food containers – and even food. I don’t think I will recognise the taste of an apple minus the delicate flavour of 70% alcohol. Letters are left where they land by the front door, to be opened only after a suitable time has passed for the virus to have died away – though we have never decided how long is a suitable time. Now, though, I have started to kick the post around a bit as it lies on the floor to try and work out who the letters are from – just in case one of them is our invitation to get vaccinated and we miss the appointment through not having opened it in time.

I can barely believe that this envelope, when it arrives, will be our passport out of this madness: we will be flinging open doors heedlessly and ungloved, grinning happily at joggers, gazing benignly at toddlers, actually choosing what we want in a shop instead of receiving something that looked fine in the picture but whose use-by date is tomorrow and is anyway a substitute for what we actually wanted – and that’s before we even start thinking of getting away to some sunshine.

Roll on the Rollout.

January 5 (Lockdown 3)

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These probably don’t look like instruments of torture to you but, as I begin the year with a mangled hand, I can assure you they are capable of inflicting hideous pain.

Wanting to make something festive-looking for New Year, I decided on a strawberry pavlova – a dessert that I feel is great cookery value, in that it is easy to make but looks dramatic and tastes divine. Beginning with the meringue base, I had got to the point where the egg-whites were at that translucent stage, before even starting to become white and creamy, when I dropped my small hand mixer on the counter. The obvious next step would have been to turn off the plug at the wall but, for some unaccountable reason, I decided I had to turn off the actual machine. I lunged at it as, still spinning, it travelled along the counter like a demented two-legged octopus. And that’s where I made my mistake: I tried to pick it up, still spinning, whereupon the beaters tangled themselves into my fingers. As I screamed, my hand was dragged around the worktop by the maniacal beaters before I could pull the plug out. After sitting down with first water, then brandy and my hand wrapped in frozen peas, I managed to finish making the meringue, which, to my slight disappointment, was not swirled with red from my bloody wound. It did, however, when cooked, feature multiple cracks and those sugary outcrops which occur when the sugar is not sufficiently beaten into the mixture. Not my finest oevre.

The second implement attacked on the following day. One of the features of having all food delivered is that I place the order so far in advance, I can’t remember what’s in it, am too lazy to check and end up with multiples of things going bad in the fridge. This time, it was apples – What can you do with six, huge, Bramley apples? Well, I’m sure the cooks among you will have a hundred intricate and delicious ideas but for a definite non-cook, stewed apple with sultanas sprinkled here and there seemed the obvious answer, as a healthy breakfast addition to “The Writer’s current granola obsession.

And, while peeling the apples, that’s when I managed to peel the skin off the parts of my hand that were not already a bloody pulp from the mixer.

And so, I go bravely into Lockdown 3 with five plasters on my left hand and an even greater aversion to kitchen implements and their uses than I already had.

January 1 2021

~ coronet22 ~ 1 Comment

We have seen in the new year for the past nine years out on our terrace, surrounded by friends, as we watch the magnificent firework display orchestrated by Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – the wheel ablaze with a corona of light. This year he obviously had other things on his mind, so “The Writer” created his own triumphant start to 2021 – a display befitting our newly-sovreign state.

And, yesterday, though I wasn’t looking for signs and portents of a better 2021, a couple just appeared:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

December 30

~ coronet22 ~ Leave a comment

Today, the Oxford Astrazenica vaccine has been approved!!!!!!

One dose, with a booster three months later. Easily transported, easily stored and cheap!! This surely marks the closest we will get to liberation from Covid 19-for the foreseeable future.

So why aren’t I euphoric and jumping for joy? Firstly, because I’m a cynical, catastrophising human being and secondly, because there are just so many imponderables: Brilliant that we will be protected after only one dose – or at least we will not get the illness so badly if we do get it. What does “so badly” mean? And what about the jab being 70% effective? Does that mean 70% of people are protected ? Or that everyone who has it is protected 70% of the time? And how do we live our lives 70%? Will it be effective against the new strain of Coronavirus? We don’t know for sure. We think so. Will those of us who’ve been vaccinated still be infectious? We don’t know for sure. We think so. And, if everyone who gets the shot is still infectious, surely we will have to go on wearing masks, social distancing and disinfecting? So in what sense will the pandemic be over? Until, that is, we have achieved herd immunity- this year, next year, sometime, never?

“The writer” declares himself happy at the prospect of being rid of the fear that has haunted him throughout the pandemic but I, who have been mega-cautious but not afraid, am only just beginning to fear. As things are now, I feel in control: if we stay far enough away from others, don’t meet people indoors and disinfect both ourselves and what comes into the house, we can be reasonably sure of not contracting it.

Once we have been vaccinated, all is uncertain and we have to be constantly wondering what percentage of risk we are prepared to take – or at, least I will.

Maybe these fears will prove groundless the more data are published and the more work is done. My reservations and anxieties feel churlish in the face of such brilliant scientific achievement. At the beginning of this pandemic, anything that guaranteed we would not be in ICU on a ventilator would be the panacea we had dreamed of. And, hopefully, it will be. Either way, we will be first in the queue when our cohort is summoned to the nearest vaccination centre.

November 5 (Lockdown 2)

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I have just found this unpublished post among my drafts. It was written on the first day of Lockdown 2 and I thought I’d publish it today because I like the main picture, and was fascinated by the event.

This was the last thing I saw before my husband “The Writer” and I locked down for the first time, last March. I had no idea who had attached this lock to a tree in St.James’s Park or why but I liked that it gave me something to wonder about during the first few days of our incarceration.

Oddly, The Gods of Lockdown have offered me a similar mystery to ponder til we are supposedly released from this one on December 2nd:

Walking down Oxford St.,we came upon a sight more familiar in Vietnam or China than on the main shopping Street of Central London.. When I asked the smiling gentleman f I could take his photograph, his response was “Of course, it’s my birthday!” I took it, popped some money into the cardboard box nearby, which said on it “It’s my birthday, please help me” and walked away with “The Writer”.

A few minutes later, he noticed I was distracted from our conversation and enquired as to what was making me so jumpy. I confessed that it was driving me utterly crazy that I hadn’t asked questions of both men and got the full story of the little scene we had witnessed.

“The Writer” was aghast. “I think he was homeless and the barber, who is a professional, was walking past with his hairdressing kit and kindly offered him a sprucing -up birthday haircut” or “The barber is homeless and the barbee is a wealthy businessman who said, “Since today’s my birthday and you’re obviously a bit short of cash. I’ll give you some work. You can cut my hair and I’ll pay you handsomely for it”.

“Yes but”, I began, “What’s the TRUTH?”

“Why on earth would you want to know when it’s so much more interesting to make up a good story”, demanded the writer, genuinely perplexed.

I remembered a previous occasion many, many years ago. We were sitting in a bar in Navaho country, frequented, almost entirely, by Native Americans. Suddenly and without a word, they all got up, formed themselves into groups and began to do what we, as children, would have called a war dance.

We looked on, fascinated. Here we were, privileged to watch these complex sets of uniform movements, which “The writer” was thrilled to elaborate on, holding forth to me on what the dance must represent in terms of ancient tribal culture.

It wasn’t until about ten years later that Line Dancing arrived in Britain and I got my truth!

But there it is, however much more prosaic the truth is than the many available fictions, it’s what I want to know. I am a documentarian to my soul and he is a weaver of fantasies, a dreamer of dreams and the custodian of nightmares.

Where do you stand on truth versus fiction??