shewhomust | Entries tagged with covid-19

That is the question of the moment, and I answer it on an ad hoc basis, not quite on a whim but asking myself is this something I can do online? and how much do I actually want to do it? I listen to news reports of rising infection levels, not to mention the daily death toll, and the lesser but not negligible threat of other infections, flu and that nasty cold that's going round, and think stay in; I consider those things that can't be done online, not to mention those which can, but are nonetheless returning to in-person mode, and think go out. The current tally of recent events ( includes dentistry and festivals (with a bonus appearance by Paul Robeson). )

Still to come: ( goodness, the diary is filling up! )
This post is a mixture of diary entry, purely for the record, and thinking aloud, process not product. The result isn't terribly interesting, but it can't be helped. Some posts just turn out that way.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/768030.html

I know there are people who have been impatient for the return of in person events: I am not one of them. The purely social (that visit to York to meet the Bears, dinner last night with S.) I am happy with, more than happy, and I don't have any problem about going inside friends' houses, or public spaces like art galleries, even shops, if they are not crowded. But meetings, pubs, book festival events (because it is that time of year) I am reluctant, and likely to mutter about can't we do this online?

Increasingly, I am being outvoted, and when the choice is to do it in person or not to do it, sometimes I have to bite the bullet and do it.

So on Thursday I went to the first meeting in 18 months of the residents' association. I still think we could have held this online, and I certainly think that there were more people in less space than I found entirely comfortable - actually, there was quite a lot of space, there was just a very good attendance at the meeting. People - people who are not me - were enthusiastic about doing it again next month.

And in a couple of weeks' time, the pub quiz will return to the pub: and since the Quizmaster is keen that this should happen, and that it should be well supported, I will be there.

So one way and another, I'd better get used to the idea.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/767078.html

Tuesday started out pleasantly enough, but soon started to rain, and didn't stop. This was the day we spent sitting under a gazebo in J and J's garden.

Wednesday was bright and sunny, and we accompanied a different J to a photographic exhibition in a dimly lit gallery.

So it goes.

( In the garden, in the rain )

So that was fun. The next day we had a date with another J, to see an exhibition of photographs by Elaine Vizor (on Facebook) at a gallery in Newton Aycliffe (there's an art gallery in Newton Aycliffe? Apparently so, based in the community college. (ETA: There was at the time of writing, but the website seems to have vanished, so who knows...?).

( With or Without (a camera) )

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/766725.html

Most years autumn is well advanced before our GP summons us for our flu jab. This year is not most years, and last week

durham_rambler received a text inviting him to make an appointment. He made appointments for both of us, in fact, so we shall never know how the surgery would have contacted me - I don't give out my mobile number, because it is ao rarely switched on.

Appointments were being booked at one minute intervals: ours was for 10.24 yesterday morning. I thought this precision was optimistic, but when we arrived at the surgery there was a steady stream of people going in, past the two reception points (under or over 65) into one of several rooms and then out through the back door, so that traffic flowed one way.

A day later, I have a slightly sore arm - my left arm, because the nurse asked nicely: We have to record what we do, and if we do something different it takes longer... - and, I hope, immunity to this year's flu variety (it usually works).

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/766520.html

Back in April my optician wrote to say that my regular eye examination was now due. In fact, my eyes are being examined regularly by the opthalmologist, so I know that the reason my vision is deteriorating is cataracts, in both eyes; and we have discussed this and decided not to take action on it right now. So there didn't seem to be any urgency about contacting the optician.

On the other hand, every time my glasses fall off - and this is my main problem with wearing a face mask, that my glasses fall off - I think that maybe I should get in touch with the optician, and even if he can't do anything about my sight, maybe he can adjust the fit of my glasses. This morning, full of post-holiday virtue, I have picked up the phone and made that appointment.

Jonathan's first available appointment is on January 17th. Or maybe it isn't, now, because I've booked it. He's worth the wait.

Fortunately I bought next year's diary on Saturday, at the National Trust shop at Fountains Abbey.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/766232.html

durham_rambler had to test himself as a condition of attending the count (in the Parish Council election); he hadn't had cause to do it again since, and I never had. But I was impressed by the reassurance of a friend we have a date with next month, that she and her husband are testing regularly at home. We are beginning to go out more, and making plans to see other people: testing twice a week, as recommended by the government, seems like overkill, but once in a while, as and when, seemed like a good idea. We have a social date tomorrow: so there is no time like the present.

It's a palaver, isn't it? Open this, prepare that, read the instructions...

durham_rambler was very kind about talking me through the process, which felt like being the audience for a conjuring trick: I am opening this sachet, and you will see there is a wand inside it. Take hold of it - carefully! by the end! between thumb and forefinger! I had been warned that swabbing the back of your throat is unpleasant, so it was the sticking the thing up my nose that took me by surprise. I was sneezing for half an hour afterwards.

I have an uneasy feeling that if it's that complicated, I've probably done it wrong. But for what it's worth, we each have a recent negative test, and can party with a clear conscience.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/763803.html

July has been, in a very small way, a month of seeing people in Real Life; we have had three, count them, three social engagements. I am still trying to process whether this indicates a gradual retuen to some sort of sociability, or a continuing reluctance to leave my shell...

Early in the month we were invited to a gathering of people involved in the drawing up of the Local Plan, to celebrate the acceptance thereof. I'm wary of this sort of event at the best of times, the assumption that people who have worked well (and amiably) together towards a specific end will have things to say to each other if you bring them together without that purpose. From which you may deduce that I am natually antisocial, because of course it was very pleasant. I was there as durham_rambler's plus one, which was not a problem: oddly, of all the people present, the hosts were those I knew least well. We trouped through their impressive house, and sat in their almost as impressive garden, and some of us drank Pimms (it's not a drink I particularly enjoy, but it adds to the summer ambiance if someone else is willing to drink it), and there was the odd moment of this person is standing closer to me than I am comfortable about but mostly it was fine.

Mid-month we finally managed to agree a date to take F. out to lunch for a birthday treat (only a month after her birthday). We took her to our favourite farm shop, which she had not previously visited, caught up with all of each other's gossip over a very relaxed lunch in their coffee shop and then visited the shop itself before delivering her home. We all agreed that this was a thing we could do again; or we could visit F. and drink tea in her garden; or think of another way not to let the time between visits stretch so alarmingly. Which is good, in theory.

Yesterday we made a lunch date with anef who has been in Durham for the Classics Summer School (Greek) and S. who has been commuting from Newcastle for same (Latin). Given how little I have been going into the City of late, and how even less I have been checking the possibilities of lunching there, I took the plunge and suggested they both come here to lunch. First time I have cooked for anyone but ourselves since - oh, actually only since June, when valydiarosada and D. stayed over on the way up to Holy Island, which suggests that I think of valydiarosada and D as more or less 'ourselves' - but it felt like a big step. People Inside The House! People Downstairs! We cleared the dining room table, which allowed us to sit well spaced, and open the back door for as much ventilation as was comfortable (if the weather had still been hot we could have opened the door onto the area, and created a through draught, but it wasn't and we didn't). And it was fun, even if once our guests had departed I felt too limp to do anything but lounge on the sofa and read Pratchett (~~Faust~~ Eric, which I have no recollection of reading before, so it's almost like having a new Pratchett to read).

I'm in no rush to emerge from lockdown; but it's good to know that I'm not absolutely determined never to emerge, either. Balance is all.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/762149.html

Which sounds like a contradiction in terms: but I don't think it was just me. Possibly it was an effect of covid. The audience was as crazy as ever, and didn't look any more spaced out: it was one of a series of experimental and highly-monitored events, and there my have been fewer people there than usual (I think this was mentioned) but I wouldn't have guessed. The Icelandic entry was represented by a film of their rehearsal performance, since one of the band had tested positive and they were self-isolating in their hotel:

durham_rambler voted for them regardless, though this may in part have been out of appreciation for their entry last year, which was odd and quirky and deserved to win. This year's entry was pleasant enough, but I don't come to the Eurovision Song Contest for "pleasant enough", I come for those moments of bewilderment, of WTF? of "did I just see what I think I saw?" and no, didn't get many of those this year.

Perhaps the Russian entry - the staging, not the song. The format is not a fair test of a song, because it usually takes a few repetitions to hook me - but there's usually at least one song I can recall as long as the start of the voting. Not this year. There was a lot of rap-inflected, rhythmic stuff, which may go some way to explain it. The Russian entry (Russian Woman, though the singer comes from Tadjikistan) alternated this sort of chanting with something anthemic (is it, in fact, a national anthem? if not, someone should claim it!). The official video is only a faint echo of the staged production, in which the singer in her red boiler suit emerges, not from a mere oversized dress but from a rigid construction, as if she were hatching from a giant matrioushka doll. She doesn't seem to have won many votes for her impeccable feminist message; nor did the Netherlands for their Birth of a New Age, which I thought more melodic than most - and gave brownie points for being partly in Sranan Tongo, a language of Suriname.

I liked the Ukrainian entry, too, which combines Ukrainian folklore and electronics, it says here. Again, the official video goes beyond the stage setting, which I preferred: its unreality had charm, while the realism of the video falls into the uncanny valley - for me, at any rate.

I didn't stay up for the voting, but

durham_rambler did, and was able to tell me, when he came to bed, that Italy, the favourite, had won, that France had come second (by channeling Edith Piaf) and that the UK had scored our traditiopnal nul points. All very sober and sensible...

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/755674.html

This was not going to be the next thing I posted about; there are several other posts queuing up in my head, waiting to be written. But what can I say? This one has jumped the queue, and this is what you get.

I'm one of the very few people in Britain who has never seen Bake Off. I didn't watch Sewing Bee, or The Great Pottery Throw Down. But finally they came up with a twist of the formula that did appeal to me, and I have been watching All That Glitters. The exhibition space of Birmingham Scool of Jewellery serves as a huge and palatial workshop in which a group of working jewellers - initially eight, working down to three - are given a series of tasks by two stars of the profession (I had never heard of them, but why would I have?).

Each week there are two challenges, the first to design an item which could become a best-selller, the second to produce a bespoke piece for a "client" who provides the show with a human interest story (the drag queen who is about to open a solo show, the couple who lost their engagement ring in a burglary). Each week one contestant is sent home, one has their bespoke piece chosen by the client, and one is named Jeweller of the Week. There is, in other words, far too much palaver, and unnecessary jeopardy, and of course everything has to be done against the clock - and comedian Katherine Ryan hosts, and works very hard to ensure that the audience isn't bored. She is nowhere near as irritating as this sounds.

There was never any risk that I would be bored: I was perectly happy to watch these very skilled people making pretty things, working precious metals, setting stones, twisting wire, cutting and twisting and setting, and only occasionally melting something they didn't mean to. I enjoyed hearing them explain the technical choices they were making - and I enjoyed seeing the pretty things that resulted.

ETA 1: I looked at the layout of the early episodes and wondered whether they had been filmed in lockdown: those very well-spaced workstations in that huge echoing space... But no, because a subsequent episode began with the explanation that filming had been suspended ar the advent of lockdown, and they had only now found a way to resume.

ETA 2: This is, I think, another pleasure for which I should thank Lucy Mangan. Her recommendations don't always work for me (the first episode of The Pursuit of Love is an hour I won't get back) but without her my viewing would be even deeper into its rut!

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/755002.html

Yesterday, in honour of World Book Day, I may have ordered a book. It's a bit uncertain, because I was so excited about it being available from Waterstones that I tried to order from them - and I may have succeeded in doing so, though it felt as if there was a final step missing (possibly because payment is due on dispatch, and there are still a couple of weeks to publication ...)

Oddly, the other book I was thinking I needed, and for the first time this year, is a diary. It felt odd at the end of last year not to be shopping for a diary, but I haven't actually missed having one - until now, with the year a quarter passed. Suddenly there's a Bank Holiday weekend I hadn't been expecting, and I want to be able to consult an actual paper diary before saying 'yes' to appointments (and then to write down what I have said 'yes' to...)

Am I just jumpy because I have agreed a time and place for my second vaccination, and don't want to get that wrong? This is, like my first vaccination, out of sequence: durham_rambler has a long-standing appointment for the day after the Bank Holiday, but despite being younger, I will be a week ahead of him.

Last night we attended a virtual 'wine tasting and tapas' event, organised by local wine merchant Guest Wines (they took over the business of Michael Jobling, expecting, I think, that Michael would be retiring, and so acquired both us and Michael): they work with a caterer, who turned up on our doorstep with a selection of little dishes and little bottles. At the appointed hour we fired up Zoom and (with two other couples) were talked through a tasting of the wines, and then encouraged to consider how each wine worked with the food. This was slightly awkward: we wanted to, and eventually did, start eating while we were still supposed to be tasting, and actually this was the right call, because if we'd done the tasting properly we'd have had no wine left to go wirth the food, and where's the fun in that? But our guide surprised himself at how well the fino sherry worked with the chorizo and bean stew, and I was sorry not to try that - I ate it wirh the Monastrell, which was good, but not startling. The star of the show was probably the white rioja, completely atypical and out of my price range. A glass of PX to accompany the dessert was a treat, but had me checking the Wine Society's list rather than tempted to order this one. Outstanding taste of the evening: the prawn croquetas.

What can I say about the lead story in this morning's news, other than that I was not expecting to be lectured about integrity by Dominic Cummings? This, possibly: how far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves would you say Boris Johnson fell when he made the Downing Street rose garden available to you, Dominic, and backed your explanation of why you had broken lockdown, and vouched for your phone giving 'proof' (which he wasn't going to share) that you had made no second trip?

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/752457.html

On Monday, shops not deemed essential were allowed to reopen in England. I listened to the radio news, which included descriptions of queues outside shoe shops, and children in the queue having their feet measured on the spot. Really, children's shoes are not essential? We should send them to school barefoot, in the snow? Perhaps we should, but the risk is that we would send them instead in shoes they have outgrown...

I wasn't tempted to rush out and shop, but I did place an order with Ocado, and was wrong-footed by the unavailability of midweek deliveries: Tuesday evening, or Friday evening? Neither was convenient, but by Friday we would be running out of essentials, so I opted for Tuesday, and hoped the delivery would arrive at the end of its allotted slot, and not clash with the Zoomed talk we planned to attend.

Time was tight, but it really was essential to defrost the fridge before refilling it, so on Monday evening I set that going. Memo to self: durham_rambler will never notice that the fridge needs defrosting and take action, but he enjoys the challenge of the ice, and will do more than his share of the work once I take the initiative. Task completed within 24 hours, and the fridge was reinstated by dinner time on Tuesday.

Which is just as well, because our Ocado driver was running early: he arrived before the start of his slot, so instead of the talk being at the questions stage, the speaker was still in full flood. I had to check that there was nothing frozen (even the day after ordering, I can't always remember what made it into the final order, and what didn't) but having done that, left it until after the talk before unpacking. A quick grouse about that: Ocado seems to have completely given up the pretence of sorting the shopping - three packets of cereal were in three different places...

Today is the third Thursday of the month, which is Farmers' Market day. Or not: we went, but without great hopes, and how right we were - there were very few stalls there. I bought some bread, and some (orange and sea buckthorn) marmalade, and thought about buying some soap but decided not to. Inside the covered market I bought smoked salmon from the fishmonger, a book from the bookstall (I had been confident that I would get a copy of Richard Osman's detective story there, and I was right) and a bottle of interesting (Uruguayan) wine from the wine shop. And there were pens and a notebook from Paperchase. I'd call that a very satisfactory mixture of essentials and inessentials.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/751376.html

I'm constantly irritated by news reports - mostly on the radio - which tell me to enjoy the new freedoms bestowed by the government: to host a barbecue, or flock - on a responsible manner - to the Lake District, or the seaside... I would love an outing to somewhere nice, but at the best of times I try to avoid Bank Holiday weekends, and these are not the best of times. Oh, well...

Here's a strange and tiny landscape, almost on my doorstep:

Spotted on our very brief walk on Wednesday - I was out out of breath by the time we reached the top of the hill (it was a hot afternoon, but I am indisputably very unfit), and although I recovered, I was wary about going too far down the other side, because of having to come back up again. A pleasant stroll down a lane lined with daffodils, a conversation through the hedge with a neoghbour, a glimpse of a miniature elsewhere - and home in time for tea.

Wednesday's pub quiz opened its virtual doors wider than usual. The quiz itself is online, and open to anyone who wants to play with it, but we are two teams who take the quiz every Wesnesday evening: our team Zooms with the Quizmaster, and the other team communicate with him by WhatsApp (or similar). We celebrated our year's anniversary by all Zooming together (plus a third team, hooray) and conferring in break-out rooms. This worked well enough that we will do it again, though not every week...

I have been immersed in S.J. Morden's Gallowglass: Simon Morden writing in the hard and technical SF vein, not to mention the bleak outlook, of his One Way / No Way Mars books. Gallowglass took me out beyond Mars, just, to the asteroid belt: runaway Jack takes the only job that will have him (because reasons), asteroid mining, risky, unregulated and potentially hugely profitable - what could possibly go wrong? Well, everything, obviously. Then, two thirds of the way through the book, when you think you know what shape it is, there's a shift, and you are somewhere else...

Courtesy of GirlBear: A Wing and a Prayer, stained glass art installation under the wide skies of Suffolk's wetlands (scroll down to find the video).

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/750153.html

Today is

durham_rambler's birthday. There's no point in sending him birthday greetings, he doesn't read this.

A year ago, we were just entering the time of lockdowns and cancellations, and I was able to buy him a birthday lunch - though since he was due at County Hall for a meeting, it was a fairly low key affair, at the Garden House. We didn't eat out again until August, and it wasn't what I'd have chosen for our last meal out - except, of course, that for reasons completely unconnected with the pandemic, it was what I'd chosen.

One year on,

durham_rambler's birthday treat is to go to not one but two (virtual) meetings. I have ordered a restaurant meal kit for a special dinner, something I haven't experimented with before, so we'll see how that goes...

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/748944.html

On Sunday afternoon,

durham_rambler declared that he wasn't getting enough exercise, it was a lovely day, he was hoing out for a walk. If he'd been planning a gentle stroll in the unexpected sunshine, I'd have joined him; but he wanted to explore a route around the site of the battle of Neville's Cross, which I knew would take him up and down hills and through mud, and would make me cross and breathless, so I stayed home. Sure enough, he returned not very much later, and collapsed onto the sofa declaring that he had been climbing hills and was worn out.

On Monday morning he was still feeling tired; he spent much of the day on the sofa, and this didn't refresh him much. He didn't have a temperature, and he wasn't coughing more than usual - less, if anything - but he didn't really taste his lunch. Was this COVID? The only way to find out was to send off for a test, so he did.

You may detect a certain lack of sympathy in the tone of this narrative: it wasn't impossible that he had been infected, but it was pretty unlikely, and he didn't have many symptoms or feel that unwell - I was a bit worried at how mopey he was on Monday, but by yesterday morning he seemed quite a lot better. Nonetheless, if we are taking this seriously, we'd better take it seriously: the house is large enough that he could pretty much self-isolate, if I slept in the spare bedroom. That gave us a bathroom each, and use of our own study as normal.

The test kit arrived yesterday, and went back into the post the same day; the negative result arrived by e-mail today, in time for us to lunch together in the kitchen. I'd call that a really impressive level of efficiency, and a happy ending to the story.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/747948.html

The Leibniz Institute documents the state of the Germman language. In an average year, it reckons to identify some 200 new words; in the year of the pandemic it has collected a list of 1200, and counting. This is German, after all, a language in which Coronavirushotspot is a single word.

Some are more interesting: what does it tell us about Germany, that it has a word for a socially distanced beer (abstandbier) - as compared to the UK where we can currently meet a friend (just one) for outdoor exercise, but must not drink coffee while walking together / apart? I liked, too, Schnutenpulli - a jumper for your muzzle: the example given is verdammte Schnutenpulli - as in, where is ... muttered while fishong in the bottom of your bag for the necessary item.

Guardian article.

BBC World Service (starts 18 minutes in).

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/747676.html

I regard myself as a fairly cheerful pessimist: I'm pessimistic because you get fewer unpleasant surprises that way. Optimism makes me grumpy. I'm probably just being contrary, but the suggestion that things may be improving makes me automatically think the opposite. Promises that the vaccine unlocks everything did not make me anticipate any great change in my routine, and as for Boris's long-awaited road map out of lockdown - well, would you buy a used road map from this man? The proposed date of June 21st (one of the dates which the map was not going to contain...) just left me grumbling bit late for midsummer...

Despite which, when the drive home from my vaccination took us past Lidl, I did think, maybe we'll be up for visiting Lidl soon.

And even with no faith in Boris's roadmap, just the reminder of midsummer set me searching for holiday lets on Lindisfarne. As D. had reported earlier, there seemed to be fewer propperties on offer, and most of them already booked for the crucial week - but eventually I found something acceptable, with room for four of us if the current schedule holds and D. and

valydiarosada are able to join us, not too big for two if the rules chage and forbid that - or permit them to join us, but only on the 21st... Who knows?

I am trying not to think of this as a promised holiday (in fact, not to think about it at all, now it's sorted). It's insurance, because I would be so angry if the trip turned out to be permitted by restrictions but impossible purely because it wasn't booked while it was available). But I do feel more cheerful this week; perhaps that's just because the sun is shining.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/747470.html

Barely a week after

durham_rambler had booked his vaccination with the Nightingale Hospital - and had been advised by the GP not to accept their subsequent invitation (which was for the first dose only, whereas he had dates for both), I too received a phone call from the GP: could I attend their session the next day? Which was yesterday.

I said yes, of course. And yesterday evening we slid the car carefully down the icy hill in the dark -

- This was my fault. I am so well trained to remember that

durham_rambler has a Very Important Meeting every other Friday afternoon, and may not emerge before five o' clock, that when the surgery offered me a 4.30 appointment, I asked if they had anything later. It was only after we'd agreed on 6.45 that I remembered that that was the other Friday. -

I wasn't apprehensive about the injection itself, though I was anxious about the icy roads, finding the surgery, what to wear: I liked this comment from Edinburgh GP Gavin Francis, in a Guardian 'Long Read' about vaccinations:

It's a much joked-about law within medicine, at least in Scotland, that anyone arriving for vaccination must remove at least three layers of clothing before we can get at their arm. (Those who turn up in a vest under one thick overcoat – we salute you.)

In the end, given the icy cold, I put on my coat over a very sloppy jumper (over a t-shirt), and that was fine. And once we got onto the through road, that was fine too, and we only briefly overshot the (not our usual) surgery.

While I was being seen (or not - it's the 15 minutes observation after that takes the time and limits the number of patients)

durham_rambler organised a Chinese takeaway, which we accompanied with the Society's Stellenbosch chenin blanc and that Long Read.

And afterwards we watched Alice Roberts at Stonehenge, explaining how Geoffrey of Monmouth was right - but that's another story.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/746434.html

This morning's e-mail from Ocado asks: "What are your Valentine's Day plans, SheWhoMust?"

But Ocado, I thought we had a date!

Valentine's Day is not a day we habitually celebrate - although this year it is a red letter day of sorts, since I have secured an Ocado delivery, and

durham_rambler has booked his first vaccination at the same time.

durham_rambler received an e-mail inviting him choose between three locations for this:

the nearest (Sunderland), the most convenient for public transport (Newcastle) and the silliest (Kendal, 70 miles away and on the far side of the Pennines): he has chosen to drive to Sunderland.

Of course, the following morning the GP's surgery phoned to offer him a vaccination there; but he will stick to Plan A.

In other medical news, we have been to the dentist

for our regular, though somewhat delayed, check-up.

durham_rambler will return for a filling, I get away with it for now.

While we were there...

The dentist is just along the street from the shop which stocks sourdough from the Claypath Deli, so I called in and bought a loaf. This is not quite essential shopping, but close enough, I hope.

This afternoon our blocked drain was unblocked

by a nice man in an orange jacket. The drain is at the bottom of the garden (and if you must have a blocked drain, that's where you'd want it to be) so the disruption was minimal. We had been warned that they might need a water supply, which would have been fun, but fortunately he had enough water in the van - though this made the van heavy enough that he wasn't sure he'd get it back up the hill from the back lane ...

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/745603.html

I should probably set up a 'First world problems' tag: it would be a perfect fit for this post, and no doubt for others, too. I know how lucky I am to be in a position to solve some of the problems of lockdown by paying an upmarket grocer to delivery. But seriously, Ocado...

I have just taken a delivery: the advance notice - written as if from the delivery driver - warned me that it included substitutions but If you’d rather not have these substitutions, let me know before you take the shopping in − I'll take them back and get them removed from your bill. I try to make the best of substitutions, because it's more convenient all round, but on this occasion I really did not want: a mixture of things I would not choose to buy, and things where multiple iterations of s single item had been substituted for a selection of different ones.

That note implies that the substitutions are all neatly together in one bag, and that when I say 'no', the driver picks up that bag and departs. This is not how it works. Once upon a time, purchases were neatly packed like with like, in bags labelled 'store cupboard' or 'fridge' but even this sysyem has fallen apart, and a bag may contain a pack of cereal, three pots of yoghourt and a bar of soap. Yes, I realise that supermarkets are struggling to keep up with the demand, but the time they save not sorting the bags is then lost on the doorstep, as I tell the driver that I don't want the substituted items, and he asks me what they were ...

In theory I cannot fish out and hand back the items I don't want, because the driver can't accept items once I have touched them; but how much do I want him to sort through my shopping and extract items? It's not ideal. In practice, we compromise: he removes a couple of clearly visible items, decides that he doesn't have time for this, tells me to keep the balance and he'll credit me anyway.

The moral of this story is, the offer to take back items substituted is a bluff.

ETA: A subsequent e-mail asks me to rate "my" driver, and exploring the details of what I should and shouldn't take into account in answering this I found this instruction about substitutions: Simply tell your driver you do not want to accept them, and you won’t be charged for them. (That's on this page of the FAQs, which includes a link to "this page" for a coronavirus update - unfortunately, clicking it takes me to a 404). I didn't know that, and neither did my drivers -

Oh, but wait: could it be that the reason we didn't know is that we were relying on this alternative page of advice, linked from the delivery notification e-mail, which repeats the text from the delivery note which I quoted above: You can still reject substitutions at the door. The only difference, for now, is that your driver will first ask if you’re happy with them and, if not, will take back the substitutions before you pick up the shopping.

Make your mind up, Ocado.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/745171.html

A neighbour messaged the street WhatsApp group: that day was his significant birthday, and if we put glasses in front of our houses, he would come down the street and pour fizz into them. So we did, and he did: it was cold and wet but not actually snowing, and we wrapped up warmly and kept our distance, and raised a glass to the birthday boy (crémant de Jura, explained his wife). Not the birthday celebration any of us would have chosen, but a celebration of sorts ...

I'll pass the same milestone myself in a couple of months. So S. and I are very much of an age, and he, like me (and everyone born in the UK at that time) missed out on the big coming-of-age birthday. When I was 18, the crucial age was 21; by the time I reached 21, a legislative change had reduced the age of majority to 18. A whole cohort of us came of age as the clock ticked over to January 1st 1970. Many of my university friends celebrated their 21st birthday anyway, but we language students missed that too, as the course required us to spend that year abroad. I celebrated my 21st in Versailles: my sister was visiting, and at the end of the school day we went to a café where we were joined by one of my pupils (she should have returned immediately to the boarding school after her swimming exam, but she was able to steal a little time first).

So my "significant birthday" happened on a day that wasn't my birthday; and not just mine. Later, it happened again: throughout my working life, the retirement age for women was 60, and men retired at 65. Sex discrimination legislation brought about a change in this, and it's no suprise that the change wasn't to level up to the more generous date. Instead they introduced a sliding scale, and I passed retirement age somewhere between the ages of 60 and 65 - no, I don't know when. I could look it up, but what is more relevant than the actual fate is precisely that it wasn't a day that had any significance for me. And again this fofn't just affect me, but all British women of around my age.

Because I was born in the year I was, I have missed out on two significant birthdays. It's a curious coincidence, and I complain of it from time to time, though without any real sense of grievance. Which is just as well, because this year puts it into perspective: as the calendar comes full circle to a year of lockdowns and restrictions, almost everyone in the world has missed out on a birthday, and some are about to miss out on a second. And if that's the worst the pandemic brings us, we are getting off very lightly. So I don't know what the point of this post is, it's just something I've been thinking about.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/744636.html

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News from Nowhere

Entries tagged with covid-19

Should I stay (in) or should I go (out)?

In person

Many shades of cyan

Rush hour at the surgery

Looking ahead ...

Baby's first lateral flow test

People in the flesh

A very sober Eurovision

All is not gold...

What do five things make?

Essential / inessential

Widening horizons five steps at a time

How we celebrate

The phoney war

It's only words...

Roadmaps for the soul

Out of sequence

Five excitements

Calling Ocado's bluff

The lost cohort