Christmas letter 2020

What a year.

It is 28 November, outside the geraniums in our summer window box are still in flower and inside we have been largely house based since mid March. Here are some other updates and reflections on a very unexpectedly different year.

PreCOVID19

The year started apparently as normal, except of course we already knew it wasn’t. Having returned from post Christmas and New Year in Dublin with my mother, Stephen, Liz his sister and I departed cheerfully for Zermatt as usual in January. This time I was the last man standing, the only one skiing. But Zermatt remains a gem, full of people but with wonderful views of the Matterhorn. And non-skiers can join you for lunch courtesy of the Gornergrat Bahn mountain railway. But there were a lot of people. Actually we had arrived with Stephen having had a nasty chesty dry cough bug. And I started the holiday with it. But we improved in the clear air and the holiday was lovely.

As usual I travelled on to Les Diablerets for the TBVI meeting. We had a guest speaker who I introduced in one session, English but who was working on tuberculosis in Wuhan. He had been staying with his mother in England having escaped from Wuhan. Still that was another lucky miss and I have since thought about how that meeting with its cosy meals at long tables could have seeded a lot of virus infection into the TB vaccine community in Europe.

Then my annual visit to the Institut Pasteur in Paris for their Vaccinology course. By this point we knew that Covid was in Italy, in Paris and getting about. I got in and out of Paris by Eurostar, having had a meal at a little place near the Pasteur that still does an honest simple inclusive menu of three courses for 15 Euros. Nineteen Euros with a glass of wine. The tables are tiny and packed together. The woman at the next table was coughing.

The next bigger trip that felt riskier was to a capacity strengthening programme meeting in Entebbe, Uganda. People seemed to think it was ok to go, and Covid hadn’t got into Africa as far as we knew. But I had to fly via Abu Dhabi and back to Entebbe. I got better masks from our safety people and wore one when in the airport. Not however on the plane from London having put my mask in my bag in the overhead locker. There was a Chinese looking family in the row in front, the mother having a dry cough. Back then we thought only the Chinese were infectious.

And finally... I went to Dublin, unfortunately on a weekend when a rugby match with the Italians had been cancelled, but many travelled anyway. There was an Italian man on the airport bus into Dublin who gave the most enormous yawn....

And then last things in early March. A haircut, a meeting with a friend and collaborator near Great Portland Street. A Peruvian meal in Essex Road with my Peruvian tutee in an unhealthy fug in a tiny place. We had decided to go although we cancelled another meal out that week.

And then it all stopped.

 

Times of Covid

Then the ‘new normal’ started.

At first our main anxiety was how to get food. We had only twice ever had online food deliveries and couldn’t get any. A young neighbour opposite brought us two bags of food. We got a veggie box from a restaurant food supplier that came with fruit, milk, eggs and butter. The fruit and veg were amazing quality, lasted for ages, and were a high point. Then Stephen got a click and collect from Sainsbury's on the North Circular. Then he registered himself as vulnerable through the Government website and then Waitrose, followed by Sainsbury's offered to deliver. This autumn we also got Ocado bringing some Marks and Spencer variety.

Keeping us fed and the mouse/mice out of provisions has been a major job taking a lot of Stephen’s time. We haven’t ever run out of anything and he continues to cook amazing food. I do still get croissants from the Belle Epoque French patisserie in Newington Green where I eventually trained the staff to take a pre-order by WhatsApp and bring it to me outside the shop. In month 8 we had our first takeaway meal delivery from Gujarati Rasoi [.co.uk], who had previously had a favourite restaurant nearby in Dalston.

In the summer / early autumn we had some respite when we made it by car to North Wales for 10 days. We ate out twice, to eat the most expensive hot dog ever outside the Marram Grass, (followed by a lemon posset ice cream on a stick with rose chocolate and sprinkles. I can still taste it). Then a pub meal that gave me some anxiety as the table was in a rather enclosed greenhouse. It is very sensible to isolate those together together...perhaps... but a greenhouse actually isn’t easy to ventilate.

This escape to the countryside was delayed by an apparently small thing on my nose turning out to be a BCC.[Basal Cell Carcinoma]  Amazingly through my doctor I was referred to Dermatology at UCH for an appointment with biopsy, then to Mohs surgery to skin graft in just over two months. Miraculous. And lucky as it was weaselling itself away underneath. My nose now has a bit of ear cartilage to give it strength. Much sitting and not making it bleed. But probably now you would never know and certainly not on Zoom. Classified by the consultant as the very best cancer to have. Moral, notice anything on your nose early. And Stephen got in and out of UCH for a colonoscopy, that found and removed a polyp that was benign. Lucky again.

So we and ours have escaped so far, despite having three medics in the family, David, Lucy and Simon.

The LSHTM Director Peter Piot, and another work colleague were hospitalised with Covid but made it out despite some long-lasting health issues....only one former colleague from the mid 1980s died. More colleagues have died of strokes or cancer although it is hard to say if this was hastened by times of Covid. While many LSHTM staff were advising the government, volunteering or doing clinical service.

Otherwise I just work, which has been both rewarding and tedious. And no trips. Harder for Stephen, he has had to adjust to me being underfoot 24/7. And so little opportunity to do more than Zoom, email or telephone people. Thank goodness that our internet connection has mostly been fine. Just one incident of a Telecom technician cutting us off when I was in the middle of chairing a Zoom meeting of about 70 people.

The saving graces have been the garden and nearby Hackney Downs.

In spite of the foxes and squirrels best disruptive efforts, over the spring and summer our garden has been a calm safe space to enjoy. Recently one neighbour decided he would cut off everything on his side of (our) trellis attached to our side of the shared wall. Gallingly our roses and clematis were growing better on his side. Having had it all cut off, he added insult to injury by throwing it all back to us over the wall thereby damaging more plants. Still the poor sod is out of work and perhaps a brutal prune of the roses is a good thing in the end.

The geraniums in the front window box have had their best year ever and the rose did spectacularly as well. I managed to strike a few cuttings and germinate a few seeds although I am still bad at it. As Rodney would have said, “you will never learn younger”. Cuttings and seeds need to grow if you cannot go regularly to buy any. N1 Garden Centre, otherwise called by us “The Robbers” by virtue of their pricing, did provide an order and collect service in the Spring.

Hackney Downs is our nearest open space and was historically common land. It has grass, paths and trees and has been a lifesaver. I walk it with Petroc Trelawny playing music on BBC Radio3 in my ears which distracts me from the fact that I am getting wet feet. Now I have finally found that I have one pair of waterproof shoes. You will find many pictures of Hackney Downs.

Surprises of lockdown and isolation include just how little you get done given that I have saved almost two hours a day by not commuting. I have turned out some cupboards and I clean more, but after 8.5 months we haven’t tacked the cellar, or the attic and I haven’t even started decorating.

So thanks to the food suppliers, the NHS, the BBC and the Metropolitan Opera streaming [www.metropera.org] we have survived well so far.† Hopefully the new normal will change a bit at least next year. I am now working from home until April and probably won’t ever work full time in Keppel St again. But this period has shown me just how much we have done, and what great memories we have from holidays and work trips. We will go again I hope, just not in such a manic way. And maybe that is good.

Some small escapes and pleasures

A weekend with Francisco and Pilar in Broadstairs, once a haunt of Charles Dickens. A different sort of seaside and sea, where people truck supplies down to the beach in wheeled cold boxes and sit outside beach huts. But with lovely walks along the front and the white cliffs.

Menai Bridge with trips to Newborough, my favourite non-Irish beach, Moelfre, and more. Lovely to escape. To relax and somehow feel safer and enjoy the open vistas.

The fruit and vegetable box delivered by Knock Knock groceries, restaurant suppliers who started delivering. The best and freshest fruit and vegetables ever. Which lasted way longer than anything we have ever had from supermarkets

A delivery from Gugarati Rasoi, try the papdi chaat and more. We had a meal for 4 and a papdi chaat and stuffed ourselves for three days plus. They used to have a restaurant in Dalston and a stall in Borough Market. It was delivered chilled but needed some preparation, but by not just microwaving everything it ends up tasting really fresh. Even if the instructions on the website are more legible than those on the dishes.

 

Family news

Adrienne is 94, and still at home, which is amazing. The carers continued to come, Martina is a star, not to mention Derek my brother who sorts out the blocked drains, fused electrics, dead fridge, and much more.

Hayes' Vicky and Charlie managed to buy and sell and move house to Wanstead just before the recent second lockdown. Ophelia their daughter will be 3 next Spring.

In Manchester, Simon and Naomi’s daughter Ava is 1 and getting very mobile; she starts at nursery shortly as Naomi will be returning to work.

Derek and Sara have a new Labrador puppy to induce a sense of maturity in Ellie, and they are kept busy with work. Derek is overseeing the renovation works in the house in Connemara as well as looking after Adrienne and 109.

Lucy and Greg made it to Melbourne in time to join lockdown there in July. They have delayed their wedding celebrations again.

George is busy with his data science course in Dublin.

David and Dervil have almost completed decorating their house in Edinburgh. Although not a new Professor, David will give an online inaugural lecture in early December. They now own two amazing rag doll kittens.  Of their twins, Ben is now in his third year of Pharmacy in Manchester, and Killian is doing a law course in Edinburgh.

 

Covid HEROES

Clearly the NHS, especially UCH Dermatology

Petroc Trelawney on Radio 3 breakfast

Monty Don on Gardeners World

Grace Dent in the Guardian (but also Tim Dowling with his tortoise and Seamus OíReilly with his son). And the more serious commentators.

In fact the Guardian for bringing the Guardian on Saturdays and the Observer on Sundays to our doorstep.

Metopera.org for their free live streaming, we watched a whole Ring cycle in a week in the Spring. They really know how to make a TV production of a staged opera, it is a joy to see close-up how good most opera singers now are at acting.

 

OTHER AWARDS

Best tv. A lot including DNA, Roadkill, Us, Derry Girls and the technical challenges on Professional Masterchef.

Choral evensong in Radio 3.

One to Joe Biden for winning.

And a major one to the vaccine developers and manufacturers, I hope….

 

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