More time out

An overcast start to the week to the shops to buy some cooking apples for Clare to use in making veggie mince, ready for Christmas pies. She gave me a couple of bulky unwanted items to donate to one of the local charity shops. I soon discovered these aren't taking in any new items, thanks to the impact of covid-19 on their workflow, whether it is due to shortage of volunteers or sanitary precautions, I have no idea. 

It's clear however that all charity shops are suffering. Some are open, others closed pro tem or closed down altogether. There's no aspect of everyday life that isn't subject to the colossal impact of this pandemic. With both hands full, I couldn't then complete my veg shopping mission, so I had to take the donations back home and return to get the apples Clare wanted. I intended to shop in Tesco Metro, but for the first time noticed there was a queue of more than a dozen people waiting for admission. Unusually busy. Are people stocking up prior to lock-down I wonder? I bought cooking apples in the greengrocer's shop opposite, where there was no queue and no customers at that moment.

At midday First Minister Mark Drakeford announced promised new restrictions. These are due to come into force this Friday, lasting until November 9th, the day before my op - if it happens. For me it means an extra four days of being obliged to do what I'm already doing. Reading NHS Wales guidelines on-line was cheering, inasmuch as they are more clearly set out than stuff issued by central government. Outdoor exercise isn't something one may do, as long as you keep others at a distance and go directly to and from home, it's actively encouraged, for physical and mental well-being. National government has taken its lead from the bumbling vagueness and variability of Boris Johnston's pronouncements, and all of us are worse off for that. 

During my afternoon walk, I passed by the pharmacy to collect the revised Doxazosin prescription, agreed with the doctor, and got a few extra things from the nearby Co-op which I couldn't get in the morning.  I've got enough medication to see me through the coming weeks of quarantine now. The 4mg Doxazosin pills are the slow release version. It'll be interesting to see how well these work, given that the 8mg ones didn't sit well in my stomach throughout the day. It's good if medication can leave you feeling less worse

In the evening I intended to do some work on my novel but was captivated by this week's edition of BBC Four's 'Fake or Fortune' programme, about the investigation of a portrait reputed to have been done by Lucien Freud as a teenager. The history of its origins led back to him, but there was evidence that he had denied authorship on the grounds that it was a work he hadn't completed, even though most of it was by his own hand. It seems he was very fussy about which of his works he allowed to go on sale. This was followed by another interesting programme about a billion dollar art theft from a Boston art collection thirty years ago, in which more than a dozen paintings were taken and have never been recovered. It's an story about the art haul being shifted from the USA by the criminal entrepreneurs in Dublin, which still continues without resolution today.

I then went to bed with my laptop and worked for rather too long, re-reading the first couple of chapters of my novel, correcting and revising them. In other words, avoiding drafting the concluding chapters yet again. I still can't figure out exactly how the story will end.

State of Alarm - day Eighty Eight

Another blue sky sunny day. BBC Radio Four Sunday Worship was from Westminster Cathedral this morning, Mass offered by Cardinal Vincent Nicholls with two socially distanced assistants. It's such a huge church building, that with a priest at the altar and assistants at lecterns on either side, there could be ten metres between each of them! Previous recordings of the Ordinary of the Latin Mass sung in situ by the Cathedral choir made it special, and the Cardinal preached well, remembering the victims of the Grenfell tower tragedy on this the third anniversary and reflecting on the shared experience of doing without the Eucharist and Communion over the past three months, just as the churches are allowed once more to be open for private prayer.

Rosi came around for a farewell chat at midday, reminding me that hereafter I will be known as the 'Lockdown Locum Chaplain', whether anyone remembers my name or not. I cooked curried chicken and potatoes for lunch, and made a starter using mussles, olives and chopped apples. Interesting!

After siesta I walked down to Cala de Bou again and along the shoreline to Cala des Torrents. After some days of absence the little colony of cormorants was back on their rocky outcrop in  the sea. I photographed them just before lock-down three months ago, and now again on my farewell visit. Clare sent me a photo showing a cormorant on a stony shoal in the river Taff, plus the Goosander family which lives there, near the cricket ground, if my memory serves me right.

I completed and printed off the UK government form required for entry at Heathrow so I can be traced in quarantine. The instruction says you can keep it on your 'phone, supposedly if you can't get a print out. Three sheets of A4! It's illegible on anything but a tablet to anyone checking at Border control. Why on earth the can't reduce the essential details it to a QR code that can be scanned from your phone or a piece of paper, like with an airline ticket, heaven knows. A nicely laid out Web 2 style form, leading to a finish that's more trouble than it's worth. All I need now is my boarding pass for the UK bound flight, available tomorrow morning I think, then I am fully ready.

I've made up two thirds of a loaf of rye bread into jamon and hummous sandwiches to sustain me during my sojourn, then I don't have to go out and look for food, effectively quarantining myself in Barcelona to be on the safe side. Then there was the food cupboard to sort out, so unopened packets can be kept in store and opened ones given away. The house is going to be shut down until the next locum can arrive safely, probably in the autumn. Such a strange turn of events.