Corona Diary Chapter 18 - New Year to January 19th, 2021

 

2021

 

January 2^nd

 

Several days of icy cold have continued more or less since Christmas Day.  At least we are not being deluged with rain any more.  There is worry though that the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ may be back soon.  This is due apparently to ‘stratospheric warming’, causing a polar vortex.  The last one in February and March 2018 brought us very difficult conditions, even in Dorset.  I remember walking round in deep snow to two of my patients to offer food and support.

 

New Year’s Eve was a muted celebration, though remarkably, many firework displays took place, including one dramatic one somewhere towards the harbour from us at 0130hrs.  An excellent view from our bedroom picture windows, which as yet do not have any blinds (long story).  Somebody obviously had ‘money to burn’.

 

One of the highlights for me over the holiday period was the Vienna New Year’s Day concert from the Vienna Musikverein.  This year the conductor (all the conductors are always personal invitees from the orchestra) was Riccardo Muti.  A lovely concert as always, with the intermission a celebration of 1921-2021 as the centenary of the addition of ‘Burgenland’ to the Austrian empire.  This area to the southeast of Vienna looks idyllic, and the sense of yearning to travel again was acute.  It’s very much on the Hungarian border, and is reputed to have the best food in Austria!  A fusion of Austrian and Hungarian cuisines – expect goulash and strudel – can’t wait to go.  The concert was further enhanced as always by the beautiful ballet dancers from the Wiener Staatsballett performing in the Liechtenstein Garden Palace, another exquisite Viennese venue.  I now rarely look at the travel sections of the newspapers, despite their enticing pleas to visit far flung paradises.  ‘Travel Supplement’ seems to me to be an oxymoron at the moment.  I was struck by one photo however, an advertisement for the Maldives.  A drone photo showed somebody doing lengths in a private pool adjacent to their obligatory stilted hut over what looked like a transparent turquoise sea of great beauty.  Presumably the pool is provided for tourists too scared to venture into the big bad sea?  Strange.  To return to Vienna; Riccardo Muti is now 78 and a ‘Grand Old Man’ of conducting.  After the concert he delivered an impassioned speech stating that culture (and music) is one of the essentials of life, and important to preserve in these difficult times.  It was a fine speech.  One is reminded that in 2011, during a performance of Nabucco in Rome, the audience applauded so much at ‘Va pensiero’ that Muti delivered an impromptu speech criticising the Berlusconi government for cutting arts funding, and then conducted the audience in an encore.  A large majority of Italians know the piece by heart – it has become a second national anthem.

 

I have finished Lolita.  A remarkable book.  I don’t think I can improve on my previous comments.

 

Tomorrow is the first real working day of 2021.

 

Monday 4^th January, 2021

 

A rather cold, gloomy, but dry day, at least here in Dorset.  The temperature struggles up to 3 deg C.  The builder and his team arrive as usual at around 0730 and commence work outside on the drive.  In the evening, the Prime Minister announces a total lockdown.  Cases of Covid are hurtling upwards, and some hospitals are very overstretched.  Big fuss made over the first vaccinations with the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine which take place, naturally, in Oxford.  Southampton beat Liverpool this evening in the football, 1-0.  Quite an achievement.  Now we have a race between vaccinations and an upward spiral of coronavirus cases.

 

Some progress - chandelier, our wall hanging, and LED light strips on the stairs

An article in the Times this weekend stated: Let’s not rush to celebrate 2021 being the end of misfortunes, warns Jonathan Healey, a history fellow at Oxford, who makes his point about the twists of fate with what he claims is a little-known diary entry by Samuel Pepys 355 years ago.  “The Year of Our Lorde 1665 hath been such a terrible one for ye plague,” he wrote.  “I cannot wait for 1666, for which I have especial excitement to trye the newe bakery that hath opened on Pudding Lane.”

 

Friday 8^th January

 

An icy cold but fortunately, on the South coast of England, dry week.  The builders working outside on the driveway, car port, and patio have had a brazier going most of the week.  No golf or gym, and just some local walks to try and keep fit.  Yesterday though we had an atmospheric walk in the freezing fog of the so-called ‘Wareham Forest’.  So called because much of it is open heathland, and some of it, beside the causeways, very boggy as it drains very slowly down towards Wareham north channel, drained by the River Piddle (also called the Trent).  It is almost possible to imagine this as one of Thomas Hardy’s heaths, especially when there is no-one around as today.

 

Atmospheric Wareham Forest in the freezing fog

On the world front, the demagogue Donald Trump has incited his followers to meet and protest, though perhaps he didn’t envisage that they would storm the Capitol building.  As one U.S. commentator put it; ‘We spend $7 billion on defense, and the heart of our government is overrun in two hours led by a guy in a Chewbacca bikini.’  Five deaths resulted.  There is no doubt that Trump has blood on his hands.  His first declaration, when asked to make a public announcement was still ‘This election was fraudulent,’ hardly guaranteed to make the mob go home.  I caught some of the world leaders’ condemnations, but the Iranians must be laughing themselves silly – a loose translation of what some bearded Ayatollah was announcing was ‘See where a non-Islamic western democracy gets you.’

 

Wednesday January 13^th, 2021

 

T S Eliot wrote that ‘April is the cruellest month’ but this year January has a reasonable claim on this title.  It’s dark, it’s cold, and life is restricted to a simple round of ‘stay home, save lives’ and go out only for essentials or exercise.  Slight concerns about the invasion of our house by our contractors, but we try to keep our distance and most of the building work continues outside.  The last few days I have had a cold, a headache, and a bit of a cough, so early Monday morning I drove to the Creekmoor site for a Covid test.  Result last night – negative.  Hope to get out for a decent walk today, though somewhat concerned that two women in Derbyshire were issued with fines by overzealous police after driving to a beauty spot to walk.  We plan to go back to Wareham forest because it is so quiet.  The beach and seafront is impossible – frequented by very large numbers of people doing their daily walks, even in bad weather.

 

Time for a change of topic.  A very old friend of my parents, a widowed lady of 87, lives in a residential complex near Charleston, South Carolina, and wrote a beautifully legible Christmas card to us.  Eventually, after fruitless phone calls to the Presbyterian retirement home organisation, I have managed to be in touch by e mail, and it is such a pleasure to re-establish contact.  Please indulge me by reading the back story…

 

In December 1962, Harold Macmillan met President John F Kennedy in Nassau, Bahamas.  As part of this agreement, Britain agreed to buy Polaris nuclear missiles and to be equipped by the USA with a nuclear deterrent.  A by-product of this was the rage expressed by De Gaulle, who wanted Europe to be independent of America for its defence.  Parenthetically, it seems surprising that France, so singularly ill-equipped to resist invasion on two occasions already in the 20^th Century, could realistically take this view.  Its contemporary relevance is of course that De Gaulle famously said ‘Non’ to British hopes to join the European Economic Community.  One muses that De Gaulle was a real troublemaker: for example, he visited Canada, to attend Expo 67 in Montreal, and uttered the famous ‘Vive le Québec libre’ speech.  Churchill was not a fan of De Gaulle.  One day in Westminster, he was walking with a colleague near Carlton House Terrace when a taxi drew up and an extremely tall figure got out.  ‘Who is that?’ asked his companion.  ‘General De Gaulle’, replied Churchill.  ‘What, the General De Gaulle?’  ‘No’, said Churchill.  ‘A General De Gaulle’. 

 

My father was an armaments expert in the Admiralty – later the Ministry of Defence.  Recently appointed to Bath after our three-year sojourn in the wilderness of Pembrokeshire (the armaments base for Milford Haven), he was rapidly seconded to the group tasked with locating and running an Admiralty storage base for the missiles.  Although he was modest about this, his early life in Glasgow, and his love of hill walking was possibly instrumental in the location of the Coulport base on Loch Long.  Ideal for many reasons (deep water; proximity to Faslane submarine base; difficulty to get to for anti-nuclear protesters).  It is hard for people in the third decade of the 21^st century to think back to that time and to realise how real the Cold War was, and how unpredictable and intransigent was the post-Stalin regime in Moscow.  ‘Plus ça change’, I hear you say.  As a part of the Polaris project, some of our friends in the Admiralty were posted to Washington, and similarly, experts in the U.S. Navy and their subcontractors in defence were posted to Bath, and subsequently Scotland.  Some of these experts, such as the Lockheed missile control systems liaison officer, Lyn Jones, were given honorary commands in the U.S. Navy, and sent to Bath.

 

At the age of 15, with O levels, two TV channels in black and white, Radio Luxembourg, and much else on my mind, we were thrust into a world where my parents were expected to entertain the visiting firemen.  This was the era of Americans in Sinatra-style pork pie hats, smart suits, and cocktail parties with exotic drinks suddenly the norm.  Lyn, and his attractive young wife Betty, made a huge impression on an adolescent boy.  Lyn was a no-nonsense archetypal crewcut Texan, with a delightful drawl straight out of a cowboy film.  Betty represented the ultimate in American sophistication; an elegant Southern belle with impeccable manners and a lively interest in us all.  Blonde hair piled in an elegant (of its time) coiffure.  I was dazzled.  She must have been about 30 at that time.  Later, Lyn too was posted to Scotland, and Betty was unusual by American standards in that she cheerfully immersed herself in things Scottish, showing herself to be a true cosmopolitan, and genuinely loved her time in the UK.  They became very close friends of my parents.

 

In 1970, when I left university, with the summer stretching forth for many months, I worked in upstate New York helping a Canadian paediatric haematologist with his research.  At the end of my time there, after a short visit to Hamilton, Ontario, I embarked on the usual 99-dollar one month unlimited Greyhound bus ticket ride across Canada and through the USA.  By this time, Lyn and Betty were back in California, in what subsequently became Silicon Valley.  I had a warm invitation to visit and stay.  Much to my regret, when I reached Cupertino, to the south of San Francisco, Betty was not in town, having gone back to South Carolina to visit friends and relatives.  The upside of this was that Lyn immediately offered me Betty’s car to do my touring in.  The car was a bright yellow Chevvy Camaro, mid 60s style, and nowadays a very desirable classic.  Encouraged by Lyn I drove it all over, visiting the city (San Francisco), Sausalito, Monterey, and the redwoods.  I stopped to watch bronzed bikini clad girls playing Frisbee on Carmel beach, toured Cannery Row, and did the 17-mile drive.  I went to the Golden Gate park, scene of the 1967 ‘Love In.’  Lyn handed me his Exxon card ‘for the gas.’  ‘Just sign ma name; Lyn Dubya Jones.’  At the weekend, he insisted on taking me to the jazz clubs and bars of his youth.  I remember Earthquake McGoon’s for its live jazz, though I don’t remember much else.  Research reveals it was San Francisco’s premier jazz venue, located at 630 Clay Street.  We attended a wedding in a vineyard, and dined with other colleagues of my father’s in Palo Alto, sitting outside in the evening by the pool, drinking mint juleps in the classic iced metal cups.  Having been used to feeding meters with one shilling coins in bedsits in Cambridge, the occasional Mackeson and pint of Cambridge bitter, my San Francisco idyll was a wonderful introduction to the good life, American style.

 

I subsequently kept in close touch with Lyn and Betty.  Years later I enjoyed visiting their lovely home on an old tea plantation outside Charleston, and it was a delight to be back in correspondence with her.

 

Friday January 15^th, 2021

 

Our six mile walk with a friend in Wareham forest was somewhat marred by her car getting a puncture.  She tried to drive it down the road but had to pull off into a holiday park.  Some unpleasant confrontation with the resident park warden who threatened to report her ‘she’s not local, she’s from Poole’, to which I responded that this was a matter for debate.  Ultimately we left the car, despite his grudging reluctance and arranged pickup later.  Our nervousness resulted from the news item about the women in Derbyshire.  The debate centred around whether their 7 mile trip to the walking site was ‘local’.  But they were also clutching cups of coffee and the plods therefore interpreted this as a social meeting rather than an exercise meeting.  The fines were later rescinded.  Boris Johnson was subsequently seen cycling at the Olympic park, quite a long way from Downing Street, and this also occasioned comment.  A nice Matt cartoon showed two Yorkshire farmers standing beside their stone walled fields as a lone cyclist goes by.  ‘That’s Boris on one of his local Land’s End to John O’Groats bike rides’, says one.

 

After a good night’s sleep on Wednesday (post walk), awake at 0430, and unable to sleep.  Listen to a review of recordings of Mahler’s 3^rd Symphony.  Sadly they didn’t mention my Georg Solti/Chicago Symphony recording from the 1970s.  I suspect that you fall in love with the recording you buy and listen to first, so I’m unswayed by their opinion.  Fortunately there is cricket from Sri Lanka to watch, since they are 5½ hours ahead of us.

 

Having focussed on numbers and virology earlier in 2020, I should reluctantly return to the situation in early 2021.  Perhaps prompted by the more transmissible new variant of the virus, there has been a huge surge in cases, with many more in hospital than even at the peak of the first wave in April 2020.  London is severely affected, but even here in Dorset, numbers have gone from a handful of Covid patients in hospital to 250 or so.  Some hospitals have run out of oxygen.  With the latest lockdown there is just the glimmer of a fall in cases, but the peak in deaths is still to come.

 

There is much talk of doctor and nurse burnout.  Staff are obviously stressed and tired.  Around 30% of local hospital staff have now been vaccinated.  My feelings are torn between a sense of guilt at not being there to help, and relief in that I am not exposed to infection.

 

This feeling of guilt at not being involved is not uncommon.  To my knowledge, perhaps the most famous example of this was the Japanese author, Yukio Mishima.  Mishima’s allegorical novel ‘The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with The Sea’ was trendy reading in the 1960s when I was a student.  Mishima was born in 1925 and missed out on the second World War.  When he tried to enlist in 1944, he had a cold and the doctor mistakenly diagnosed it as TB.  He was rejected.  His life subsequently was a permanent attempt to prove himself, a result of his guilt at not being able to serve Japan in the war.  He embarked on relentless weight training; had a mission to restore imperial Japanese values; a wish to live by the codes of Bushido and Shinto; and ultimately formed his own militia.  In 1970 he attempted a military coup, but failing in this committed seppuku.

 

Meanwhile, Joe Root has cruised along to his 18^th Test century, and daylight is here at 0800.  A few weeks ago it was still dark at this time.

 

Saturday 16^th January

 

Rain during the night but a fitful sun with a strong north westerly wind.  Kite surfers are out in force in Whitley Bay in the Harbour.  Walking to the shop for milk and the newspaper I come across the daughter of a friend getting ready for action.  I learned to windsurf on Loch Morlich in the Cairngorms in 1979 and bought my first windsurfer (a Dupont Wing) while living in North Carolina 40 years ago.  Would love to be out with a kite now.

 

Joe Root batted on for a great double hundred.  (I realise my North American friends won’t know what that means).  The match is being played in Gaulle, Sri Lanka, which we visited some years ago.  A lovely place on the edge of the Indian Ocean.  Pondering this and while walking back from the harbour a line from a 60s pop song comes into my head – very apposite for now: “Memories are all I have to cling to”.  The amazing Google tells me that Bobby Darin, writer and singer of this song died of complications of infective endocarditis at the early age of 37.

 

Returning to the concept of guilt for not mucking in and helping during the pandemic, there isn’t really a clearly defined syndrome for this.  I will term it ‘Mishima Syndrome’.  The nearest one can find is the concept of ‘Civilian Guilt’ – not serving in the military during time of war.  This was exploited in the famous ‘What did you do in the war, Daddy’ poster of the first World War (1915).  Civilian Guilt is subtly different to FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.  According to Keir Hardie (Trade Unionist and leader of the Labour Party 1906-1908), the correct answer to the poster was ‘I tried to stop the bloody thing, my child’.

 

I spent a week at a water ski training camp in Florida in 1993.  This was run by Mike Hazelwood, British former world water ski champion.  There was little to do in rural Lakeland Florida.  The bar next to my motel hosted a Karaoke night.  After a beer or two I was encouraged to solo.  I chose Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue’.  Having run a folk club and sung in Scottish pubs, I regarded this as fairly straightforward.  As my number finished, a long haired Hell’s Angel walked aggressively up the aisle towards me.  He was covered in tattoos and ‘U.S. Veteran’ badges.  On his black denim suit the first thing I noticed was a motto which stated: ‘If you weren’t in ‘Nam you ain’t worth shit’.  In his left hand he carried a bottle of Budweiser.  He pulled his right arm back and I got ready to duck.  His arm came towards me in a flash of lightning, but at the last moment his fist launched toward the ceiling and his palm opened in a ‘high five’ gesture.  ‘Put it there, buddy’ were his immortal words.

 

Tuesday January 19^th

 

Sunday was bright, cold, and clear.  I suggested a bike ride.  Beautiful cold and sunny riding, but ultimately Lindsay got very cold hands and we pedalled back by a direct route from the Stour Valley.  Felt quite tired after 21 miles, but could have gone for longer.  On the same day my daughter cycled 60 miles and her partner 90.  Anno Domini.

 

This week will be drizzly and rainy.  Storm Christoph is expected.  Most of the rain will be in the North.

 

A book which has recently found its way back to me after a near 30 year disappearance is my copy of ‘Catcher in the Rye’.  The neat entry in ink on the flyleaf says ‘Andrew McLeod, January 1973’.  The surprise is that this was the start of the year leading up to final medical school exams – how did I find time to read this in addition to medical textbooks?  Probably as a relief.  It is amazing to think how one’s brain was able to hoover up so much at that age.

 

I mentioned Mishima.  I remember a very urbane friend at Medical School; I think he was from Singapore, reading Hesse’s ‘The Glass Bead Game’.  Again, ultra-trendy.  I never read it.  But this friend, I was totally unaware, was gay.  Gaydar was not even on my radar, and perhaps isn’t even now.  When a House Physician, I naively accepted an invitation from the Hospital Chaplain who took me out to dinner.  No significant advance was made.  Perhaps the ‘hetero’ vibes were too strong?  The hospital actually provided a ‘grace and favour’ apartment for the Chaplain.  Hard to believe nowadays…

 

A dip into the papers reveals so many bad stories: the arrest and imprisonment of the Russian critic Alexei Navalny on his return to Moscow, after almost being murdered with Novichok; the continuing infringement of human rights in Hong Kong and the arrest of protesters; an arson attack on a barn which killed six horses; a man and his dog swept out to sea in a storm; China’s treatment of the Uighurs, Chinese Muslims; child obesity; ‘woke’ restrictions on free speech; attempts to rewrite history and remove a magnificent equestrian statue of General Sir Redvers Buller, V.C. located in Exeter because of his involvement in the Zulu wars; deaths in Sudan’s West Darfur province due to tribal violence; female judges shot in Afghanistan by the Taliban; earthquakes and deaths in Sulawesi; the grim state of Yemen; the same in Somalia – and this is just yesterday’s news.  So amongst this all we must carry on, and be grateful for what we have.  Like so many of you, I seek humour everywhere.  So, my final entry: amusement at the tennis players who have travelled to Australia for the January Australian Open.  If one person on any flight into Australia had a positive test for coronavirus, then all passengers have been forced to quarantine in their hotel rooms without emerging, even for exercise.  Movie footage of tennis stars hitting balls against the walls of their rooms ‘Game, Set, and Mattress’ as one wag termed it.

CORONA DIARY CHAPTER 17: December 3rd to end of 2020

Thursday December 3rd We are now nearly a week the other side of moving. There have been panics and incidents ‘incidents and accidents, there were hints and allegations’, but until today we have been blessed by cold clear dry weather, and waking up before dawn in our bedroom perched on Evening Hill looking at Whitley Bay and beyond it Sandbanks and Poole Bay has been wonderful. The redundant cruise ships, including the enormous Allure of the Seas, which dwarfs Sandbanks, add to the maritime interest. Plenty of rather miserable rain today, rather reminiscent of the early days of the construction of the house. In much of Scotland they have snow so I am sure we should be grateful. The one-month lockdown ended yesterday, and the golf course has been inundated with members getting a first round in, so it has been impossible to book. On our first night in the house, we came down in the morning to find a flood in the plant room, due to a leaking soldered joint. A surprise to the plumbers because they had completed this a long time ago and the heating has been on for a long time to warm up the screed before tiling. Otherwise, the sophisticated system that allows one to control lights, TV, radio, blinds, etc, has had some glitches but we are assured they will be sorted. The main problem has been the extraordinary amount of dust, this time mainly from rubbing down paintwork, but also from tiling. Our furniture is stacked from floor to ceiling in the garage, and is also gathering dust. Lights are hanging out of ceilings and off the walls. Hopefully they will be put back in sometime. A phone call from my consultant in the myeloma clinic this morning. I have an IgM MGUS, with a slight reduction in the levels of other immunoglobulins, which fortunately remains stable. She is concerned about the risk of infection for me and I should probably therefore be more careful about isolating. She was particularly concerned that I have been to supermarkets, though being a non-Woke household, it is true that Lindsay does most of our supermarket visits. A thought occurs. Is it safer to shop at Waitrose than more down-market supermarket chains? I reassure her that I usually go late to the Alder Hills Sainsbury’s because it is much more spacious than others and is rarely crowded at that time, but it does give me pause for thought. There remains huge controversy and anger about the latest lockdown and the emergence into tiers as of yesterday. But the figures for cases and deaths are incontrovertibly in decline since the lockdown, and surely vaccination must come in the next month or two. Advice from my haematologist is not to have the Oxford vaccine because it is a live adenovirus vector, so maybe I will get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines (advice subsequently rescinded – apparently the Oxford vaccine is okay). Another Tory MP has made a stupid jingoistic statement about our country being better than others. This relates to the MHRA regulatory approval for the vaccine; the first approved in the world. He implied that red tape and bureaucracy in the EU and the USA have prevented them from getting on with the approval process. Understandably there has been a strong reaction. Trump (yes, still him) has reportedly been incandescent that the U.S. has not been the world’s first country to approve the vaccine. I think he has sacked somebody but I’m not sure.

A poignant conversation this afternoon with my younger daughter who has been staying with her mother for the last week to keep her company during cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment. Katie managed her admission to hospital in midweek with fever and sepsis, and I feel rather helpless that I cannot support her. I am surprised to find, for the first time in many years, that I feel really sorry, sympathetic and tender towards her mother, but since she is now two husbands on from me there is really very little I can do other than to support my daughters and send my best wishes for her recovery. As you may imagine I debated long and hard with myself as to whether to write the above, but if a diary is to mean anything, it is also about feelings as well as facts.

Friday December 4th A cold day with a moderate wind. A few patches of sunshine. The north of England and a substantial amount of Scotland has snow. The front page of the Telegraph today has a drone picture of a train crossing the Ribblesdale viaduct, with snow all around. More memories. Happy ones of walking the Dales Way and climbing Yorkshire’s Three Peaks, Ingleborough, Whernside, and Pen-y-Ghent. Our self-isolation amid the pandemic makes such memories seem so much more out of reach and unattainable. The same pang of remembrance came on Tuesday when we watched England play cricket against South Africa in Cape Town. There is frenzied activity in the house so eventually I get out and do a short walk. The fleece hat and gloves are needed as I walk around the harbour and back. The hippy characters who operate paddleboard and kite surfing lessons from vans beside the harbour do not have any customers. The lack of kitchen facilities here in our house has curtailed Lindsay’s creation of lemon drizzle and carrot cakes for our builders, so some shop bought items have appeared from time to time. Yesterday I returned from some essential trip to find iced buns in the kitchen. Like Swann and his madeleines, this immediately conjured up memories of break time at school, when the retired Army C.S.M. who supervised these things produced tray upon tray of them, for I think, about thruppence each. We did not dip them in weak herb tea however, but guzzled them together with our school issue one-third of a pint of milk. Here I could tell a story of the sad fate of the C.S.M., but while true, it might risk libel, so I must refrain. Poor Swann in the Proust novel however took ages and many paragraphs to recover his memory about the madeleines at Combray, but his prose is far superior to mine. While musing on this (of course I had only read the English translation), the topic of mediocrity returned once more. The mere taste of the tea and madeleine gave Swann the following sensation of joy: ‘I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal.’ I wondered, ‘Do the French feel mediocre too?’ Well yes: ‘J’avais cessé de me sentir mediocre, contingent, mortel.’ Time to get back down to earth and go and watch Bournemouth play Barnsley, in a frozen South Yorkshire. Tomorrow morning for the first time for over a month we have a gym class. Are madeleines the cure for mediocrity? To me they are just odd-shaped little sponges.

Monday December 4th Friday night brought some childhood recollections. In the many houses and flats that we lived in as a child, none had any double glazing. The wind and the rain beat against them, the draughts whistled through the cracks and rattled the sash windows, and many a night I was lulled to sleep by a storm, occasionally to wake as the flash of some lightning and following crack of thunder percolated the somewhat threadbare curtains. So it was with some surprise that at 4a.m. on Saturday I was awakened by a southerly storm beating against our bedroom windows. They did not rattle, but the force of the wind was extreme. Dark silhouettes of trees waved violently in the distance. Another Proustian memory perhaps? Deep puddles of undrained flood waters covered the roads, but as Sunday dawned, the temperature dipped and the weather paradoxically improved. We spent much of the day cleaning within the house, pausing to watch some football. The promised cricket from South Africa was called off because of positive Covid tests. An interesting interview with the head of the MHRA, Dr June Raine, with Andrew Marr, was noticeable for her very strong emphasis on the complete safety of the new coronavirus vaccines. I think she must have decided to put herself on the line for this one. Of course no one can state that a vaccine is ‘absolutely safe’, but she has clearly decided to go all out and commit on this. It’s strange how pervasive some old terms are – I was surprised to hear her say when asked about pregnancy and the vaccine – ‘If you do fall pregnant…’. Such an archaic term, and a throwback to an era of blame for women, the phrase ‘fall pregnant.’ Perhaps she decided that the vernacular was required. Prof Jason Leitch, the Scottish clinical director, on this morning’s news (he is refreshingly candid), said it was ‘absolutely a dialogue that people should have’ but the safety data was good and it was ‘a lot safer than having Covid.’

Dense fog covered the golf course and it was closed this morning, so still no golf. Our four members (we were due to play together) dispersed, including one who went to tend turnips on his allotment. How do you tend to turnips at this time of year? Maybe they are ready for lifting. Maybe turnips are his word for ‘Bunburying.’ It is very cold – around 2 degrees C. Quite the antithesis of friendly distanced golf chatter, it was heart-rending to speak to my daughter this morning and to see her in tears as she waited outside the hospital while her mum was having assessment and treatment for cancer inside. Both daughters are in residence. She is very lucky to have them.

Some nighttime listening, a very pleasing selection of restful classical music from Radio 3. It began with an Andante Soave (soft or pleasant andante) on the piano, written by Fanny Mendelssohn. A beautiful piece, as mellifluous as modern pieces by Einaudi, but with so much more purpose to it. I can’t find the review, but a Telegraph musician reviewing Einaudi last year used the word ‘meretricious’ – superficial and false. Another review highlighted his technique as ‘seems to circle around basic left-hand minor chords (in sequences of three or four) decorated with delicate but repetitive right-hand motifs. And repeat.’ ‘When Einaudi finally raised his hands to signal the concert had drifted gently to a conclusion, he was greeted by the kind of rapturous standing ovation that could wake the dead. Handy for those of us who forgot to set our alarms.’ ‘Einaudi has more followers on Spotify than Mozart (not that the late Austrian genius is counting).’

A sad parenthesis. Peter Allis, the voice of golf commentary has died at the age of 89. His presence at a microphone on a golf course brought the same feeling of satisfaction that one experienced on hearing John Arlott, Brian Johnston, or Christopher Martin-Jenkins at a cricket match. And back to classical music. My parents had two records that I can remember before the age of seven when we went to Malta and all items ‘got put into store.’ One was a 10 inch 78 rpm record, on the MGM label (bright yellow), with a recording of ‘Vilja’ on one side and ‘Night’, both from the Merry Widow, on the other. The other was a red label 12 inch disc (HMV – the dog gazing into the sound horn) of Yehudi Menuhin playing the Mendelssohn violin concerto. Despite everything he did for English music and English musicians, I have always had something against the late maestro. When I was at school in Bath, we were asked to go to act as an audience at the Bath Assembly rooms one Saturday morning. The Assembly Rooms had recently being rebuilt in the 1960s after being bombed in the war. We were asked to be a trial audience for Yehudi Menuhin, who was very much involved with the Bath Festival at the time. Dutifully we went; dutifully we sat there – for about two hours. During that time the great master wandered in once or twice, looked around a bit, and then exited. We were puzzled. He didn’t seem to have brought his Strad along. At about midday he wandered in again, spoke to the organizer and then disappeared. And that was the only time I ever saw him. I suppose I can boast that I have ‘seen’ Yehudi Menuhin… Oh, and we also had a recording of ‘Tubby the Tuba’ by Danny Kaye.

Sunday December 13th A gloomy day with high winds and light but severely wind-tossed rain. The distant sea is obscured by a hazy, misty cloud of moisture. Puddles gazing out of the window to where, perhaps next year, we might have a patio. Our frustrations are minor compared to so many others, but why, in the chaos of our move, can I find books entitled ‘Keeping Chickens’ and ‘The Optician of Lampedusa’ but not our address book? Readers may scoff at not keeping it all online, but it was precisely because I was trying to find an address which I know is only in the address book to add it to contacts online so that we can send a Christmas message. A lovely concert this week: beginning with Fanny Mendelssohn Overture in C, then Benjamin Grosvenor playing Chopin Concerto Number 1, then Haydn Symphony No. 88. Grosvenor played a modern Argentinian composer encore too. Concert all done by about 9 o’clock, and no faffing about with an interval, drinking wine which is all but undrinkable at exorbitant prices, and trying to avoid the gaze and conversation of various patrons. The dialogue in the news has shifted subtly, or not so subtly, from coronavirus to Brexit. We are now approaching a possible no deal scenario. About ten, or maybe even 15 years ago, I had a very able SHO who was a no-nonsense, get down to it, stay as long as it took, sort of person. She was distinguished, among other attributes, by a purposeful stride and a permanent ski bumbag accoutrement. She worked primarily for my co-colleague, a lady consultant in cardiology. I knew that the SHO had been going through a hard time in that her mother, who was estranged from her father, had advanced cancer. After her mother’s death, she announced that she was taking a break from medicine for a bit. I asked my colleague what she was planning to do. ‘Oh, she’s going to wander round the alps and do some climbing with her Dad, I think.’ ‘But it’s February, Diane.’ I interjected. ‘I sort of don’t believe it. What is she really going to do?’ ‘Oh, I think she’s quite keen on climbing,’ Said my colleague. ‘And she’s going with her Dad. I think he is quite a well-known climber.’ The penny dropped. Our SHOs’ name was Scott. Her Dad was Doug Scott. I thought of all of them when I read the obituary for Doug Scott this week. He was the first Briton to summit Everest. He was only 79.

Tuesday December 15th More torrential rain storms this morning, and now sunshine. The weather will be unsettled for some time to come. Much activity in the house, mastic, carpentry, glass fitting to the stairs, carpet underlays. We try to keep clear. A new variant of coronavirus has been detected, thought to be underlying the current very rapid escalation of infections. Another possibility is the complete disregard for social distancing, particularly among the stupid and the young, e.g. London’s Westfield Shopping Centre. As a consequence London will be locked down in Tier 3 again in the near future. In trying to keep away, I find time to read a little bit of my Literature Review magazine. A leader from that excellent writer William Boyd describes his one evening with Billy Wilder, in 1983, the director of ‘Some Like It Hot’, that superb movie in which the talents of Marilyn Monroe are allied to Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Wilder became taciturn and bitter when asked about Monroe. He mentioned that her husband, Arthur Miller, rang him during the shooting and asked if it was alright for Marilyn only to attend the studio after midday. ‘Yes, that would be fine,’ Said Wilder. ‘Except that she never shows up before 4pm anyway.’ From Boyd’s account it is a miracle that Wilder coaxed such genius from his players in the film. I discover today that I have been elected a governor of the new University Hospitals, Dorset, Trust. A mixed blessing I feel. Meetings will of course be in Microsoft Teams as before. One hopes that we can be together in real meetings before too long… When asked to choose the latest book for our book club, for some whimsical reason I chose the novel ‘Lolita’. I remember it as a cause célèbre from childhood. I am sure I was unaware of its initial publication in 1955, but I do remember its film release with those provocative pictures of Sue Lyon, in the heart shaped dark glasses, sucking a lollipop. I was around 14 at the time. The book may have been passed around at school, but it is such a complex and subtle novel, quite different from the explicit ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, also a much thumbed ‘pass the parcel’ schoolboy book. But Lolita is an extremely uncomfortable read by modern mores, and I am finding it quite difficult. The style and densely allusive nature of the book is quite remarkable, particularly the subtle allusions to Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabelle Lee. Annabelle Lee was also a preoccupation, as I recall, of the virago in Clint Eastwood’s ‘Play Misty for Me’. It is interesting that the best writers of the English language are often foreign born, and therefore better educated. Joseph Conrad is always cited as an example. Little wonder that Lolita was rejected by adolescent schoolboys… There is much trumpeting of the initial rollout of the Pfizer vaccine. Pictures of happy 90 plus year olds receiving the jab. The first male to be immunized was called William Shakespeare. There is some realism though – perish the thought. Quite reasonably, in my view, there is some questioning of whether it is worth giving it to frail individuals in their late 90s who might die of something else within the next year or so. I do hope that there will be enough of the Pfizer product left to vaccinate those undergoing cancer treatment or who are immunosuppressed, who cannot receive the Oxford live virus vaccine, or whether the powers that be at the Department of Health are desperate to protect the caring professions because of the positive publicity. If the vaccine does prevent virus shedding then there will be obvious secondary benefits to the immunization of healthcare staff. Apologies for my solipsistic view of things.

Monday December 21st, the shortest day ‘All changed, changed utterly,’ as Yeats wrote about an entirely different subject, around 100 years ago. Until last night we were planning on how our bubble would work, with the allotted number visiting during a period of five days over Christmas. But now we are virtually locked down, irrespective of tiers, with no-one allowed to stay over any more. The reason – a huge hike (only 20 years ago that word only existed in U.S. English. The correct use of course is to imply a pleasant walk) in cases of coronavirus, and the reluctant admittance that there is a new variant of Covid-19 which is particularly prevalent in Kent which seems to have more transmissibility than plain old coronavirus. As if the continent didn’t hate us enough already, the French (of course) among other nations have blocked the border with the UK to avoid our virus polluting theirs. Five hundred years ago, when syphilis was first brought back from the New World, countries vied with one another to name it after the country they thought was to blame. Hence the ‘French pox’, the ‘Spanish pox’, the ‘English pox’. Nobody thought to blame China in those days… So Christmas is off. Some have filled the shops to buy food, which they thought they wouldn’t need, and some have a surplus which they now cannot share. Added to that it seems dark almost all day; the weather is foul and rainy – the golf course has been closed five days in a row, an unprecedented (that word again) occurrence. A Matt cartoon captures a prevalent meme: Joseph is opening the door of the inn to three men, bearing – toilet rolls; cans of baked beans; hand sanitizer. ‘Ah, three Wise men’, he is saying… Another shows the silhouette of the three wise men on their camels, breasting the dunes and following the star. A bubble comes from the one at the back: ‘Bollocks, I’ve forgotten my facemask.’

I’ve looked at my pictures from the year in order to find some sort of sequence to send in a Christmas card to friends. It has been a fascinating experience, to see us sitting in the sunshine in ski clothes in Lenzerheide in January, mixing with friends, enjoying the most extraordinary early Spring and Summer, and gradually withdrawing into ourselves as more and more things have been cancelled, and a post lockdown period of enjoyment now again so far away. I wish all who may read this a very happy Christmas and a much better New Year. ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas If the fates allow But ‘til then we’ll have to muddle through somehow … So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.’ Not the original lyrics, but as sung by Max Bygraves on his bygone years Christmas album ‘Sing along a Max’ – somehow appropriate.’ December 31st, 2020 Quite a hiatus. Christmas has come and gone. I have not been able to hug my daughters, or indeed been able to offer them hospitality in our new home. We are proud of it – despite the numerous unfinished rooms, boxes piled high with books and our other treasures, and wires hanging from ceilings and walls. There is a hole in the wall where a washbasin should be due to incompetent bathroom design, and a mountain of instruction books on everything from water softeners to steam ovens. It is pleasant just to be in our own home again, and not to have to fritter away thousands of pounds on house rental. We had hoped to have family to visit, but the lockdown rules were a visit by day and not an overnight, so we got up early on Christmas morning and drove to West Sussex, spending the day with children and grandchildren, and then returning home. Now with more stringent rules we are facing a New Year’s Eve on our own. A friend posts a picture of the wines he is opening for the evening, a Meursault and a Chateau Gloria (envy, envy), and the evening’s TV viewing makes me feel out of touch and old. Lindsay suggests it is deliberately aimed at young people with the aim of keeping them indoors, and there is probably some truth in that theory. Our most enjoyable interlude was a Boxing Day visit to Kingston Lacy, where there was a Christmas light extravaganza, but that was really our only (distanced) social event.

Some views of 'Ignite' at Kingston Lacy

I started this diary with some hesitation – it was clear that it was going to be an unusual year – and with little else to do during the first novel lockdown, maintained a daily entry for some months. Now it will be more fragmented, but I hope to continue. I have not mentioned cases or the science for some time, but there is a huge upsurge in cases here and in many other places. The new variant is said to be much more transmissible. Some hospitals are seriously concerned that they will be overwhelmed. It seems to be a race against the clock to get as many people vaccinated as possible to try to obviate a major prolongation of the lockdown. Two tiny spots of good news – the so-called English variant is possibly only so because of the detailed virology that we do on cases as compared with other countries; and Brexit is done. The signed deal (which will not please everybody) was passed by parliament by an overwhelming majority. Roll on 2021, mass vaccination, and a brighter future. Love to all. Andrew McLeod, BA, MA, MB, BChir, MD, MRCP (Lond), ex FRCP, ex FESC (some of these appellations were earned, i.e. by exams; others were gifted, and the exes I gave away!)