Supsliskans in lockdown. Week 46, 18-24 January 2021

 Angela, 21 January 2021

 Dear All

A very Happy New Year to everyone too from soggy Norfolk. It is good to hear news from other Supsliskans. I sympathise with Sylvia over visitors to Hereford. We had a similar problems here, but lock-down has mostly sorted it out.

As for most of us, we just saw the family virtually on Zoom over Christmas. Freya in Ealing and her cousin Lily in Nottingham were definitely not ' on mute' for present opening! it was good to be able to see them though.

I wonder how the jab situation is with everyone? We were quite excited to have our first one last Tuesday in Sheringham. It was very well organised and easy with no nasty effects so far. We did have a funny incident on the way in though. A nice elderly gentleman volunteer took great trouble to help us find parking and then gently asked Leo 'are you dropping your mother off'!! We burst out laughing and I told him I didn't think lock-down had had such an ageing effect on me! The poor chap then tried to redeem the situation by saying he meant to say 'daughter' and that he wasn't wearing his glasses, but it was too late. Leo is of course feeling very smug!! it did make our day though.

I very much like the word 'Quiddling' Sylvia and think I could qualify for a Ph.D. in it. Strangely, we are finding time passing too quickly during this lock-down, or is it just us slowing down? We have lots to do, but seem to take ages actually getting things completed! The weather doesn't help in stimulating activity, but doing some gardening just now, it is really cheering to see the first snowdrops and lots of bulbs starting to come up. I am finding the daily online fitness classes and weekly ballet are a real help as they do create some structure to the day. Our book group finally had its first Zoom meeting yesterday, so we now have some new titles to get into. My pebble art painting is quite absorbing, though messy! and finding the right shaped stones is a good incentive for a walk to the beach. Leo is creating a photobook of our trip to the Galapagos which was 20 years ago. It is taking a while as it was pre our having digital cameras so he is having to convert slides and prints. I am doing one on the development of the garden here but have a huge number of photos to sift through. Our house was only built in 1956, which compared to lots of houses around us is relatively recent, but we did get to meet the grandson of the second owner who let us copy photos of the original house and garden with pictures of the pebble walls, which we thought were ancient, being built! We also have photos from 1985 when we rented the house for a couple of half term holidays.It is fascinating to see how dramatically the vegetation has changed over the years.

I did think that the US inauguration was a huge milestone and a really positive and joyous event. It was a great achievement to be able to stage the event such a short time after all the rioting, chaos and damage. Poor Biden has a massive number of problems on his plate, but it is a relief not to have to hear any more from Trump ... we hope!

Hoping you all get the jabs you want. Keep safe and well. Love, Angela

Jane 21 January 2021

Dear Angela - and all,

You have beaten Grumpy Jane to it! She was about to enquire how Supsliskans were doing as we had not had any news for a while.

The report from St Andrews is that she is grumpier than ever. 70+ year-olds in England are receiving the vaccination and a friend In Durham the same age as David has had both. David at 82 has not even had an appointment, and we have stopped going out for walks together so that someone is always in the house in case there is a phone call from the GP practice. Our Nicola has promised that everyone over 70 will be vaccinated by mid February so I have kept the headline in the newspaper reporting this to send to her when she does not keep her promise.

Otherwise we plod on as we have for the last 10 months, but have seen no-one since before Christmas. David potters on with his research and my latest task is transcribing a long Indenture from 1674 which was given to the Preservation Trust but has no St Andrews connections so will not be kept. Two of those mentioned are in ODNB and I suspect others may be but I cannot discover how to search in 'Full Text'. Anyone have any hints?

Hope everyone feels more positive than me.

Love, Jane

Anne, 21 January 2021

Hello everyone,

I am VERY grumpy! So much for "Why the Germans do it better"!! I heard that my sister in Cumbria, 18 months younger than me, had had her jab over 2 weeks ago. It would appear that Brits are at least good organizers. Here in Bavaria they are still trying to vaccinate the 85 +, I say "trying" because actually they can't vaccinate ANYONE at the moment as they have no more doses! Maybe next week they might get some more and then they can start on the 85+ who should have had their appointments this week. I have registered at the local centre but that doesn't really mean anything. Meanwhile I stay at home except for shopping ca 1x a week and daily walks. It is all getting very boring.

Has anyone got any suggestions for a good read, suitable for our Reading Group (all English native speakers)? We just discussed, via Zoom, Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, but most of us weren't too impressed. Maybe if I'd read it 20 years ago when it was first published I'd have enjoyed it more.

The snow which fell at the beginning of the week has just about gone and now more is forecast!

Like I said, I'm grumpy! But keep the emails coming in, I love to hear from you all, Anne

Val, 21 January 2021

Happy New Year…….sort of! Very Grumpy here too!

The North East & Yorkshire ( which includes your sister, I think, Anne?) are way top of the regions for vaccinating.. Barnard Castle GPs & 3 other local practices have been giving them since mid December & the second jabs have also been given in many cases. We have ours on Saturday at the very precise times of 1024 & 1027!! So well into the 70s age groups

London languishes at the bottom of the table.. So the answer today is to HALVE the North East’s allocation of vaccine from next Monday meaning many many cancellations of appointments & re-jigging of timetables with the accompanying admin, phone calls etc up here in order to send doses elsewhere to allow other regions to catch up!!

Why not help the bottom regions organise themselves better?, get quicker etc?? Had the tables been the other way round with London at the top, I doubt it would have happened .

Sorry, rant over, but someone who had an appointment cancelled may now get the virus & die because of the delay.

In general, though, we do seem to be doing well.

Otherwise, we plod on.. disturbing report today that lockdown might continue till May!!! It can’t, there will be a revolt!

We’ve had snow too this week & more forecast, but we’ve escaped the rain that others are experiencing.

Missing everyone of course. Look after yourselves all of you. Love, Grumpy Val

Pat, 21 January 2021

Happy new year everyone and I wish everyone good health and an end to this ghastliness.

This is going to be a very short message as we have had a horrid 2 weeks as my son Howard who lives with me has been very unwell with breathlessness and fatigue for all that time without getting better. He was anxious about not being able to go back to work and his sickness note running out.

So I contacted the surgery and luckily the receptionist heard him wretching in the background and asked him to come straight down. Anyway, he’s been diagnosed at last with a partial collapsed lung and he’s been prescribed antibiotics after a week of being told it was a virus and therefore not treatable with antibiotics.

I am crossing everything that he will get better as it’s been a tense time, exacerbated by the isolation. He was tested negative for Covid but still wonders if he’s got it or maybe long Covid .

Our only good news is that I get the vaccine tomorrow. Fed up of wearing the mask indoors, avoiding my son and having to do all the cooking and cleaning.

I’ll just say to Anne that my favourite book read last year has a strange title: Where the crawdads sing by Delia Owens. It’s a murder mystery and a coming of age first novel set in the marshlands of North Carolina. There - I’ve not sold it to you, have I? But trust me, it’s a brilliant read.

Keep safe everyone. Love to all, Trish

Val,  21 January 2021

So sorry to hear that, Pat,  fingers crossed the antibiotics knock it on the head & he will be on the road to recovery quickly.  Very worrying indeed for you.

Love Val

Anne, 21 January 2021

Dear Trish

So sorry to hear about your son and I do hope he will make a speedy recovery.

Thanks for the tip about Where the crawdads sing. We actually read this book early last year. I enjoyed it very much, a really good thrilling read.

Fingers crossed for both you and Howard,

Love, Anne

Sylvia, 21 January 2021

Really sorry to hear about your son’s illness, Pat. Let’s hope the antibiotics kick in soon and that he then starts to pick up.

Here in sleepy Herefordshire, with one of the highest rates of over 65s in the country, they are still struggling to vaccinate all the over 80s. I have heard of a handful of under 80s being vaccinated, but it tends to be where there has been vaccine left over at the end of the day. Needless to say, I’m not holding my breath to get my first vaccine dose before the end of the month. My daughter, as a key worker, much to my relief, was vaccinated on Tuesday, but that’s Shropshire.

On top of all that, there are still 14 flood warnings in the county and the Wye burst its banks in Hereford last night.

At least the US have got rid of the madman at last and Joe Biden can get on with trying to restore the country to some form of normality.

My daughter gave me Where the crawdads sing for Christmas, but I haven’t had time to read it yet. I’m struggling with Tinker, Tailor ... for our book club, and am finding it far too convoluted.

Normally, I would just sign off with “stay well “ which I’m still saying, but I would add, stay cheerful and optimistic. It helps!

Love to all, Sylvia

Jane, 22 January 2021

Dear Pat,

So sorry to hear about your difficult time, and apologies for my grumpiness. I hope all goes well for your 'jag' (as the Scots are calling it presumably to be different from England!).

I heard this morning that an 80+ year-old neighbour had hers last Saturday so they are perhaps creeping nearer here.

Best wishes, Jane

Angela, 22 January 2021

Dear All

Good to hear from people, I think we are all feeling somewhat grumpy and anxious at present, especially with the latest briefing, but hopefully today's sunshine has helped cheer us up a little.

I was so sorry to hear about your son Trish. I really do hope that the antibiotics will do their stuff and that he will start to feel much better soon. It must be a worrying time though. I was relieved to hear that you were safe from the floods Sylvia and good news that Margaret is now fully vaccinated.

Anne, your request for potential book titles has certainly hit the jackpot! I found it quite timely as we had our first Book Group zoom meeting last Wednesday and discussed a number of potential reads. We have just finished The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. A couple who having lost everything embark on a 600+ mile walk along the Cornish Coastal Path (as you would!!??). It made for a good discussion

Our next read is Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud. About Charles Rennie Mackintosh's time in Suffolk during WW1. I have also got the Crawdads book but haven't tackled it yet.

Other titles we have already read:

The Dig by John Preston - fiction but based around the Sutton Hoo excavation. Not too long either!

Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier (not now fashionable but still a good read)

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes. About a group of women in 1930's Kentucky starting up a mobile library on horseback. (or is this too near home?!!)

Fludd by Hilary Mantel. The appearance of a mysterious visitor in a 1950's northern mill village and the repercussions on the religious life and people there. (a short book - unlike other Mantel ones!)

I am sure you will find some good reads from everyone's suggestions.

Keep well. Love to everyone, Angela

Jane, 22 January 2021

Dear Anne,

Have you tried novels by Elly Griffiths, particularly the detective ones set in Norfolk, 12 titles so far starting with The Crossing Places.  I have not read anything serious for over a year, but have enjoyed McCall Smith's Scotland Street series and various novels by Kate Atkinson.

Less grumpy here today as the sun is shining! Love, Jane

Pat, 22 January 2021

Coincidentally I have signed up for a talk by Elly Griffiths arranged by Bristol Libraries on Feb 10th when she will be discussing her new book The night hawks. Can’t say anything about her as I’ve not read any of her books! Trish

Janet, 22 January 2021

One book that has kept me glued recently is probably old hat to the rest of you but is unnervingly relevant to the pandemic situation yet gripping at the same time. It is Inferno by Dan Brown. It has been on my "grown-up books that need to be read" shelf for ages (as distinct from text books, dictionaries and story books for children) but I have only now been finding time to sit and read properly - usually there are jobs to be done or people to be visited or prepared for. I've not actually been to some of the places referenced but my daughter and grand children quite often take their main holiday in Italy so I feel quite well acquainted all the same and have enjoyed finding out more.

Let me know if you have already read it, or if you like it when you do. I haven't read his other books yet but I think I will look out for some second hand on the internet - one can sometimes find things quite cheaply that have been remaindered.

Best wishes, Janet.

Val, 22 January 2021

Apropos of books, Chris was given one at Christmas which he says I’ll love.  It’s called A Place for Everything  The Curious History of Alphabetical Order by Judith Flanders. It features Archives, indexing, manuscripts, catalogues, reference works etc etc  I shall look forward to it.

Another suggestion is Robert Galbraith aka J K Rowling & her Cormoran Strike series.  Real page turners.

Love, Val

Margaret, 22 January 2021

Dear Everyone,

Just when I had become aware that correspondence between us Supsliskans had dried up, there was a sudden surge of emails. The common topic seems to be the vaccine and if and when we have had a jab. I think I am one of the lucky ones because I had my first on January 9th followed 3 weeks later by the second one. So I am feeling pretty safe.

Actually, I felt a bit embarrassed because my Wolvercote friends only got their first about the same time as I got my second. They all go to a GP in Summertown and mine is in the city centre. The latter joined up with other city GPS and quickly got their act together, one of them providing a suitable venue in a purpose-built surgery.

My goddaughter succumbed to COVID and at first thought it was like a mild attack of flue. Several weeks later she realises she was quite ill and still suffers from fatigue. Pat, I was sorry to hear about your son and do hope he is improving.

Life continues to feel a bit unreal because we have never experienced anything like this before so we have nothing to compare it with and cannot say “well, last time …”.

I was glad to hear, Janet, that you are safe up the hill! In today’s Times there is a photo of Hereford showing the flooded river - I trust you are alright, Sylvia. Port Meadow is flooded but we are OK. I know Wolvercote used to flood because we are on a flood plane but they sorted that out.

My Cameroon carer has left me to have a much- needed break as she works a 7 day week. In her place I have Spanish Veronica, very nice but not such a good cook.

I can’t think of any news to pass on as nothing very interesting happens these days in lockdown. I am accessing some very good online concerts which does help as does the time to read much more than I do normally.

So here’s wishing you a happy, hopeful New Year. Love from Margaret

Sylvia, 23  January 2021

Hi Anne and everyone,

I have another book suggestion.  We read it for Book Club and I really loved it.  I was confident that everyone else would feel the same as I did, but it turned out to be somewhat "Marmite", so it might not suit.  It's Golden Hill by Francis Spufford and has been described as a picaresque novel which can be compared with those of Henry Fielding or Tobias Smollett.  However, it was published in 2016.  It's funny and shocking in equal measure and is set in 18th century New York.  As far as I can ascertain, it's historically accurate.  If your group does read it, I recommend that you tell them to persevere beyond the first chapter as everyone found it a bit of a challenge to start with.  I'll be very interested to hear if anyone else has read it and if so, what they think.

Regarding the floods, given the problems further north, I'm surprised that our situation made national headlines, although there are numerous closed roads in the county and the usual poor people had to be evacuated from their homes yesterday.  However, it isn't as bad as last February, when the flood waters were much closer to where I live.  There's never any danger of me being flooded, though.

Very pleased to hear you had your vaccine, Margaret.

Love to all, Sylvia

Howard,  23 January 2021

Well into Jan. 2021 now and who would have thought the virus situation was so  bad.

Here in Sark we still have no virus and still only very few in Guernsey - all people coming into the Bailiwick and self isolating. However, we are more or less in prison as we have to get permission to leave the Bailiwick. Only exceptional cases are allowed. If you  leave without permission and come back it is a £10,000 fine.

We are hoping to get vaccinated in the next few weeks. They have done the over 80s, the care workers and emergency staff. It is good that some of us Supsliskans have had it. The UK seems to be organising that well.

Thanks for the various book recommendations. I enjoy the Donna Leon books about an Italian detective. They are set in Venice. They are a light read but enjoyable to me particularly as there is a lot about the Italian way of life.

We have not left our small Island, apart from odd trips to Guernsey, for a year. Fortunately life on the Island itself here is not limited by lockdowns. The highlights of our existence are going out for a meal occasionally and a weekly visit to the pub.

What a relief that Trump has gone.

Good to get all your emails and your news. I look forward to meeting up when we are through this. Best wishes, Howard

Jane, 23 January 2021

Dear  all

Again from Grumpy Jane. England may be organising jabs well but I cannot say that about Scotland. A friend the same age as David who goes to the same GP practice as us got his this week. Apparently they are using alphabetical order for appointments. The friend's name begins A. Of course supply is the problem and there is a call here to cut out the middle men. Fife Health Board made a mess of the flu jab roll out so we should have expected trouble with this one.

On a different note - if you enjoy Donna Leon may I recommend Philip Gwynne Jones who lives in Venice and all his crime novels have Venice as the first word of the title.

Time for a glass of sherry since the pubs are closed! Jane

Howard, 23 January 2021

Dear All

Don't speak too soon! Guernsey has just announced a total lockdown in the Bailiwick with immediate effect after four new cases were detected the origins of which are unexplained.

Thanks for the tip, Jane. Will be interesting to contrast their approaches  to Venice.

Hope you enjoyed your glass of sherry. Howard

Sylvia, 23 January 2021

I didn't realise that Sark was lumped in with Guernsey when it came to lockdown.  I assumed that you had put up the barriers in order to protect yourselves, even from Guernsey, so that you could carry on life as normal.  Will it affect what you do on Sark?

Love, Sylvia

Ian, 24 January 2021 

I have finally got round to catching up with the emails and editing them into order for Peter Miles. He will have a lot of reading to do, and I had a lot of disentangling to do. Messages that I thought had gone missing, strands that overlapped, problems when I tried to invert the chronological order, so I hope I haven't got too much wrong. 

We got our jabs yesterday at a local surgery, booked in for 4.36 and 4.37. We decided to combine it with our constitutional but grossly mistimed it and arrived at the surgery half an hour early. As there was no queue, we confessed our poor timing and were let in immediately. There were many more staff than patients. Today though we are warned that we remain unclean, so we will still have to ring a bell as we advance hooded along the street, carry a sprig of rosemary and keep drinking the disinfectant. 

Otherwise not much to report. Son Neil sent us a 1,000-piece jigsaw of an aerial view of Exeter (one of the excellent Cityscape maps) which occupied us many frustrating hours. When we finally put the last piece in, it fitted but was clearly wrong. It took us a surprising amount of time to swap it over with the other errant piece. I have contacted the museum to see whether they would like the completed puzzle as an exhibit, a record of what Exonians were getting up to during lockdown and an unusual view of the city from almost the same angle as one in 1587. Haven't heard back yet, they must be pondering how to let this old bibliofool down gently. 

The attached photograph is of a dog that a delivery man found cowering in a neighbour's front garden. It was very nervous but succumbed to our offer of frankfurters, the only vaguely suitable food for dogs we could find. It was clearly very hungry, but we were afraid of it bonding too closely as we are not doggy people. Our neighbour did some phoning around and a local vet agreed to take it and check its microchip and it jumped obediently into the back of her car and was seen no more. Such excitement in the middle of lockdown. 

Recently it was exactly a century since the act of sawing a woman in half was first performed. We had to go out to celebrate, and coincidentally it was also Jill's birthday, so our constitutional for that day took us along by the river to the canal basin where a mean cup of coffee is served. We sat outside, watching a canoeist take his socially distanced paddle, otherwise completely on our own. Very tranquil. 

Not much reading by me, though Jill gets through a large number of books including, recently, Trollope's (the original one's) He knew he was right. It is partly set in Exeter, so I suppose I ought to tackle it although it is dauntingly long. I have just started a much shorter work, Flaubert's parrot by Julian Barnes, but too early to say much about it. I tend to do meta-reading, reading about reading and books, and have put up Powerpoints with recorded narration onto Slideshare. They are massive files and people have had difficulty in downloading them but not Crediton Library for whom I am giving a talk in March on the 100 illuminated manuscripts that the Exonian Thomas Bodley nicked from Exeter Cathedral Library in 1602 to create a new library somewhere over to the east. I wonder whatever became of that venture. 

We hope that the year continues better for us all than it started, that Howard recovers from his illness, that the rest of us get their vaccines (both lots with a short space of time between them), that Biden is not derailed by God's Annointed and that Brexit is not as dire as it seems to be turning out. We learn that the new wine allowance is:

42 litres of beer

18 litres (24 standard bottles) of still wine 

4 litres of spirits OR 9 litres (12 bottles) of sparkling wine, fortified wine or any alcoholic beverage less than 22% ABV 

My understanding is that the boolean operator between the bullet points is AND, so if there are two of us, that makes 48 bottles of wine per visit. So the fishermen may be upset but we can live with those changes as we sail across the proudly British part of the high seas  - once we are able to travel, that is. At the moment Modestine stands on the driveway with a flat battery and we are wondering how to get her to her MOT test next month. 

So, stay safe everyone, Ian and Jill