Corona Diaries

Violet

“Physically I am a mess… I spend an awful lot of time, phoning, speaking to and e-mailing friends with

health problems and I do not wish to burden anyone else with this. It can be very wearing listening to

everyone else’s problems but as I’m not much use for anything else I feel I must carry on!”

Background Information

Female, aged 75-84, Retired School Teacher/Lecturer, South Wales, White, Married to Peter, 2 adult

children.

March 2020

I was diagnosed with grade 3 rapid growing breast cancer on February 26, 2019 and had a pretty rough

time for a year. At the beginning of March 2020, I had a mammogram on both sides and was pronounced in

remission, so I was able to start driving and properly socialising again. I’m married I have been for 53 years

and live with my husband, a retired academic in a large house overlooking Queenton Bay with a terraced

garden, full of fruit bushes and raised beds for vegetables. I’m 76 nearly 77 and physically handicapped

with artificial hips and severe osteoarthritis. I normally have four hours of cleaning help in the house and

four hours of gardeners/handyman each week.

Two weeks after my check-up mammograms on March 3 coronavirus had arrived and it was recommended

that people like me should self-isolate immediately and that is exactly what I did. My first problem was

sourcing a regular supply of groceries, we normally eat a large amount of fresh fruit and veg. I contacted

my regular supplier, they have shops in Mosman and on the market and two days later they delivered

everything I’d asked for except the fresh raspberries. Meanwhile I kept checking with Tesco, I used to order

a lot of stuff online from Tesco and with Sainsbury’s I used to shop there when I had been scuba-diving on

the marina. I managed to find a ‘click and collect’ slot for three weeks down the line for Tesco and a week

later for Sainsbury’s. Friends and family were constantly emailing on the phone every time a slot appeared.

Luckily our son Dean took over ordering from Sainsbury’s for me and when a slot did appear for click and

collect immediately ordered two bottles of single malt whiskey for me to keep the slot open till I could get

my order in.

Our local pharmacy will collect prescriptions from the doctors and deliver direct to us. My husband and I

both need regular monthly prescriptions.

At first it did not feel very different from the whole year I had spent having extensive treatment for breast

cancer which had included a spell in hospital being barrier nursed with Neutropenic sepsis following

chemotherapy with steroids. I had three weeks of radiotherapy which landed me as an inpatient in the

Burns Department in Alexandria. I have nothing but admiration for the wonderful care I received in

Alexandria Hospital. Unfortunately, the removal of all my armpit lymph glands and the radiotherapy caused

quite severe reactions, so I had been suffering off and on for most of the year. The huge difference was

friends visited bringing flowers and cheer me up presents and we would enjoy coffee and cakes together,

these days we have to do it virtually. I’ll get the hang of doing it by Skype soon!

Every week I telephone three friends one whose wife is suffering from Alzheimer’s in a nursing home, the

second one who is losing her memory and the third a former colleague in her 80s with severe rheumatoid

arthritis and heart problems. I’ve carried on doing this, but I also telephone a dozen other friends every

week or they telephone me. However, I email friends and family all over the world and this has helped keep

me sane.

My last degree which I did aged 60 was a master’s in creative writing and media studies and since then I

have done enormous amounts of reading and a lot of writing. We have thousands of books in our house

and we both spend hours every week rereading any of our vast collection e.g. Robert Harris, Peter James,

Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride. I used to be a member of two book groups one of which tracked all

the major literary prizes e.g. the Man Booker, Orange prize, Dylan Thomas et cetera and the second group

was more eclectic and the book was chosen by one of the nine members. My husband and I are both

members of a play reading group we meet monthly at a member’s house and read plays we obtain from a

performing arts library in Farcliff. Until I had breast cancer, I ran an adults creative writing group in

Queenton Central library once a month on a Sunday, I asked a colleague to run the group for me whilst I

was undergoing treatment. I am also on the committee of the local WI and Queenton University women’s

society. Normally I meet a crowd of friends for coffee every Tuesday morning in Mosman.

Suddenly I find myself bereft, no book groups, no play reading, no weekly coffee morning, no creative

writing group, no WI and no SUWS. I have turned everything into emailing and circulating original creative

writing and of course telephone calls. I send Jacquie Lawson E birthday cards to all our W I members and I

send Jacquie Lawson e-cards to lots of friends regularly.

Ironically one of the hardest things for me is the lack of help with the housework although my husband is

brilliant. I’m used to having the house cleaned top to bottom every week both toilets and the bathroom and

kitchen scrubbed out, all the rooms vacuumed, and the beds changed. Now we must do this ourselves and

we must do a certain amount of gardening every week too which does give us some fresh air. My husband

is in remission from prostate cancer but also has an artificial mitral valve which means he must take 10 to

11 doses of warfarin every day and has weekly blood tests. He goes for a walk up the street and around

the block in the early evening every day it passes the post box so he can post any birthday cards et cetera.

Since the lockdown I have only been out briefly into the front garden but every day I walk around all our big

back garden which is terraced so we have two sets of steps this keeps me fairly fit. My husband and I

spend a lot of time doing crosswords both quick crosswords and cryptic we read the Guardian every day

and add the I on Saturdays. Recent crosswords have needed a knowledge of French, German, ancient

Greek, Latin and Italian in fact we do have all these between us, we are both of us linguists and spent our

career teaching languages. Do they expect all the readers to be Renaissance men?

Our adult son and daughter both live about a mile away and they have delivered ‘click and collect’ groceries

for us and on occasion home-cooked meals which they deliver plated to the front porch. I’m a keen Internet

user and I do quite a lot of shopping online and I organise deliveries into the glazed front porch always

instructing the deliverer to ring the bell and slide the door open and leave the parcel inside. So far this

seems to work well.

Problems I have encountered: we have very nosy neighbours who seems to be spying on us and if we

emerge from the house at the front for any reason one or the other of them pops out like a jack in the box.

This was very difficult when I was visiting the hospital every week last year I couldn’t cope with their

persistent intrusive questions.

My neighbours on either side are brilliant. My neighbours going up the road have two married daughters

both of whom have offered to fetch shopping for us and keep in touch every week checking that we have

everything we need. The neighbours on the other side are equally helpful.

We received a leaflet through the door offering help locally if anyone needed it. I telephoned them to offer

my service as a volunteer ’telephoner’ if people were feeling lonely.

I think loneliness is going to be the biggest problem. I am doing my best to try and help my friends locally,

in Britain and all over the world. I have recently discovered the joys of Skype and we Skype daily with our

son. I have a brother lives in Australia and we email regularly, phoning and Skyping might be a little difficult

because of the huge time gap. I really enjoy getting emails from Australia Canada, France and Germany

and comparing notes on how they are coping in their countries with ours.

Recently I have talked to 3 friends living on their own self isolating and they tell me their biggest problem is

loneliness. One of them was so desperate the other day that despite self-isolating she took herself off to

Tesco and did a bit of shopping just to escape her one bedroomed flat. This self-isolation seems to be

hurting people living alone far more than couples or families. My family have been to see us and stayed 6

m away I talked to the grandchildren too who played in the front garden a few metres away but obviously I

would like to see a lot more of them but so far the month of March has not been too bad. Trying to get slots

even for ‘click and collect’ has been difficult our son who is 51 and suffers from Crohn’s has done the ‘click

and collect’ for us but we are hoping to get on the delivery rota.

April 2020

started April 15

Well so far, I’ve managed to get a delivery from my fruit and vegetable shop and from the gardening shop

who delivered us 13 bags of compost so that we could get on with sorting out the garden and getting the

potatoes planted. We really miss our two energetic part-time gardeners who also double up as handymen

and have been invaluable building fences, emptying the garages and sorting out our loft.

I finally got a slot for delivery from Tesco for Saturday April 24 I think I booked the slot at the end of March

nearly a month ago and I keep changing what will be in the delivery. I have now heard from the government

that I or my partner are at risk and two days ago I received a letter from the local council telling me I’m

officially disabled and entitled to priority deliveries, they also offered me food from the food bank but

obviously I don’t need that. Today is April 17 and I have finally secured a delivery slot from Sainsbury’s for

Sunday evening April 19, so I have been hurriedly changing over all the things I need urgently from the

Tesco order. Sainsbury only issue their slots at the last minute.

My husband must still attend our doctor’s surgery for blood tests virtually every week to ascertain his INR

because he has an artificial mitral valve for which he takes large quantities of warfarin. His appointment

with his oncologist has been changed from a face-to-face one to a telephone call but he still needs to

attend the pathology department in the Hospital for a blood test although there are notices saying it should

only be life-and-death if you attend blood tests. He got advice from the consultant’s secretary who told him

he needs the blood test prior to the phone consultation in May perhaps nearer the date things might look a

bit better.

I am having recurring problems with my left breast after the two rounds of surgery including removing all my

lymph glands and then the three weeks of radiotherapy which left me with severe burns. Now I am again

suffering from swelling and redness and a temperature. I left it until Easter Tuesday to contact my GP

surgery and was very impressed to receive a phone call half an hour later from a very helpful female Dr

who told me to take my high-strength antibiotics for a week and urged me to telephone again or make an

appointment to see them if I am at all worried.

We heard today that the lockdown may continue for the whole of June. It’s not surprising as the infection

rate and death toll both continue to climb. The situation with personal protective gear is covered in an awful

lot of official speak but it looks as though there are quite severe shortages which is causing increasing

numbers of infections and death amongst the NHS staff which is completely unacceptable. It’s all very well

clapping every Thursday in their support; we need to do more to make sure that all these wonderful people

are acceptably covered and protected. I received an appeal today by e-mail asking me to make ‘scrubs

bags’ for the NHS from old sheets or pillowcases, there’s even a special Facebook appeal for this too. My

next-door neighbour is busy sewing scrubs bags and has a sheet banner supporting the NHS on display.

I was talking to a friend yesterday afternoon she told me about having coffee with another close friend, both

these ladies are widows living alone. What about social distancing I asked?

No problem we each made a flask of coffee then sat at opposite ends of the patio and called to each other

across the table at least 6 feet apart. We had our own flasks and our own cups. Our daughters didn’t

approve, but we obeyed all the rules.

Do you still go for walks? I asked, ‘no, the path is along the seafront and has been invaded by cyclists, it’s

extremely dangerous we’re more likely to die from cycle injuries than coronavirus. None of them seem to

have bells either.’

‘How is the gardening going?’ I asked. ‘Well my irascible neighbour rushes out into the garden every time I

appear and harangues me over the hedge about brambles growing from my garden to hers. I asked her

‘why on earth don’t you cut them off? She replied, ‘That’s your job.’ ‘I can’t win, I love gardening, but it is a

big garden to cope with on my own now my husband is dead.’

I asked other friends how they were coping and virtually everyone told me they’ve been gardening, we have

too. There is so much to do before I plant out my geraniums and get my vegetables in. I love going out into

our back garden, it’s virtually my only exercise. Today is Saturday and it has rained for the first time in three

weeks the ground was getting very parched. Occasionally we talk to our neighbours over the fences both

sides and occasionally we see them at the front. It is very strange having a virtually empty street I’m not

even sure our one bus an hour is still operating.

I speak to 2 or three friends by phone every day and receive about a dozen emails, it makes me feel

connected to the outside world. Most of my friends are locked in and devoting themselves to either

experimental cookery or gardening. Like me they are working their way through their thousands of books.

We do realise how lucky we are that we have enough money, from our pensions, a decent sized house and

garden and access to delivery services at last. I pity people who are cooped up in high-rise town centre

flats often with young children with no garden or play areas.

What is very impressive are the delivery vans which operate seven days a week and the staff are very

efficient about keeping 2 m away and leaving the goods in the porch.

Another friend who lives down Gower told me about delightful mile walk she took with her husband down to

a nearby lake full of ducks and a heron. They did not see another soul or hear any traffic, all they could

hear were dogs barking from a house nearby.

Lots of us are worried that our hair needs cutting but haven’t solved how to do it without contacting a mobile

hairdresser. Even if we did find one the problem of keeping 2 metres apart would scupper that. We will just

have to wait for the end of the lockdown and tie our hair back. At least I don’t have to wear a wig anymore

as I did last year after losing most of my hair with chemotherapy.

Today is Monday the final of University Challenge tonight we’re so pleased that many of our favourite

programmes are still being broadcast. We watched episode one of Wolf Hall earlier. We’ve never read the

books but are thrilled at getting a second chance to see the TV version especially as Hilary Mantel has

written part 3. Sadly, both Belgravia and The Good Karma Hospital finished last night, two of my favourites.

Imperial College won to our delight they had a hyperactive American on their team but all four of them were

very sharp.

We’re still working in the garden although my back makes my role more telling than doing! We’re organising

tubs for early carrots. I’ve not grown them before.

Thursday April 23

The unseasonal lovely weather is continuing and like all our neighbours and friends we’re getting our

gardens into shape and planting early vegetables I’m trying carrots and shallots this year. Our three small

apple trees in the front garden are covered in blossom, only one produced a decent crop last year. We’ve

noticed a welcome return of masses of small garden birds, blackbirds, sparrows, and tits. Magpies are

nesting in our hawthorn tree again. Flights of gulls regularly screech over the garden too.

My sister in England tells me they walk alongside the river every morning about 6a.m and return to sit in

front of their house with most of their cul de sac who drink tea and call out greetings keeping a suitable

distance apart, the new coffee morning!

Our daughter is keen for us to set up Zoom and What’s App so we can play Absolute Balderdash remotely

with them. We are missing our contact with our grandchildren although we do talk on the phone. Our son

skypes several times a day.

Today is April 27 my second brother Mervyn’s birthday. Very sadly he died twelve years ago from

oesophageal cancer, he lived almost a year with it. Our father died of it too but was only ill four months. A

good friend locally has survived almost seven years with it now. He used to sit next to my husband having

his 3-weekly dose of chemotherapy. Peter is ‘in remission’ but his PSA has risen so he may need further

chemo.

We had an impromptu ‘coffee morning’ with our next-door neighbours going up the hill. They leaned on

their fence about 10 feet above our garden and we reclined on comfy chairs on our patio. It was much nicer

actually seeing them both face to face after months of just talking on the phone. Rosalie is now busy

making scrubs for NHS workers. She used to work for NHS in mental health.

We have set up to do play reading on Thursday with our almost 16-year-old grandson, Romeo, our son, his

wife and 2 stepsons. We are going to use Zoom to read Peter’s humorous play about a funeral which went

horribly wrong. Since leaving academia Peter has worked as a Humanist Officiant for many years. He did

naming ceremonies, weddings and funerals mainly funerals. All those years interviewing, and lecturing

gave him suitable empathy and gravitas to do an excellent job.

Tesco delivered on Saturday afternoon April 25 at 4p.m they had told us that it would be sometime after 10

a.m. but before 6p.m. We had got out of the habit of shopping in Tesco (far too big for me to walk around.)

Anyway, faced with their massive website I am revelling in finding stuff I have missed but alas still no SR

flour I shall try Sainsburys again on Friday. Danielle brought us a splendid homemade lasagne on Saturday

it took us 2 days to eat it all.

Mentally I am fine, not depressed, not worried but perhaps I ought to be. I follow the news avidly; online, in

the press (The Guardian) and on TV. It is not good and the ongoing scandal about our Tory government’s

feeble attempts to deny responsibility for the poor PPA for our NHS is appalling. So many of our doctors,

nurses, care givers are dying for lack of protection. A friend’s son is a doctor in a Hospital in Farcliff, and he

is isolated at home with Covid 19, they were not issued with enough or adequate PPA. It is also an ongoing

disaster that so many BAME personnel are dying.

Physically I am a mess. My left hand is in a splint, I broke the thumb about a dozen years ago and it

triggers virtually non-stop now, feels like a small electric shock. I have constructed my own splint using two

plastic gardening tags, a layer of ‘lidocaine’ from dressings I was given for my unoperated knee a few years

ago. On top of that I have a small crepe bandage to keep it in place and on top one of my many NHS hand

splints. I’ve had a lot of minor hand surgery trapazectomies etc I’ve also got a fungal infection under my

belly, bright red and very itchy I’m trying a mild steroid cream and lidocaine patches. I may be driven to

phoning a GP for advice. I bought a ‘between legs pillow with Velcro straps’ to go around one knee when in

bed and my ‘bad’ knee has been a lot less painful today. My back is still painful. It is so unlike me to

complain about physical aches and pains. I spend an awful lot of time, phoning, speaking to and e -mailing

friends with health problems and I do not wish to burden anyone else with this. It can be very wearing

listening to everyone else’s problems but as I’m not much use for anything else I feel I must carry on!

I’m about to sign off April today 30th. One of my WI friends told me about her birthday party where her son

and daughter-in-law and two grandchildren collected at her garden gate sang happy birthday to her but

kept a good 2 m away. I think we are all looking forward to giving our families a good cuddle when this is

over.

May 2020

May 1

Our Sainsbury’s order arrived at 7.45 last night and to my horror it seems to be the order I had put through

three days before so the changes I made the day before were not included it could easily be my own fault

so I am being ultra-cautious and have already booked an order with Tesco for May 9 in which I will include

my daughter’s requirements. Yesterday I was bitterly disappointed to receive an email from Eric; I thought

you only had emails from Eric when you had won £1 million sadly, I was wrong it was a bit of admin. The

early days of the month are always exciting because I usually win £25 or multiples of £25. It was an

excellent idea they had splitting the prices up into smaller bits, so we often win but just not a lot. However,

bank rates are so low now we are far better off keeping our money in premium bonds.

Yesterday I had a phone call from my schizophrenic friend she copes well with the medication but bitterly

regrets her inadvertent lifestyle where she overstretched herself intellectually which led to a dramatic

nervous breakdown. I have noticed during the lockdown the big increase in friends who have started

telephoning me from all over Great Britain. I welcome the phone calls I’m lucky that I have this Dragon

NaturallySpeaking fitted to my two computers so I can dictate my written work as my hands get stiffer and

less use with my increasing osteoarthritis. I’m not much use at anything physical so I’m glad people don’t

mind chatting with me. Lots of my old schoolfriends from England from 60 years ago are in regular contact.

Today is Saturday, May 2.

Saturday has long been our favourite day of the week although we are both retired, we usually have a lot of

commitments on our time, but Saturday is normally a free day. We have a long, leisurely breakfast during

which we peruse Guardian Weekend with all its multiple pieces and Saturday’s ‘I’ then we do the general

knowledge quiz from the ‘I’, followed by the word puzzles at the back of the Guardian. I never cease to be

amazed at the brilliance of the setters finding those three very obscure words each week and then creating

four definitions of them. There is a section also where you must insert the word between two other words,

so it makes sense both ways there are six of these. We read the papers at our leisure, reading out bits to

each other and then at 11 o’clock it is coffee time when my husband has his first coffee of the day I should

say Nescafé because he has to limit his caffeine intake because of the warfarin. I can’t tolerate the smell or

taste of coffee these days, so I always have very weak black tea. We then do the general knowledge quiz

from the back of the magazine supplement in the Guardian and the crossword. We are extremely generous

markers, but it is always a struggle to get more than half marks, but we enjoy the challenge.

Today we are trying to get a bit of the washing done and hanging it out in the sun. I’m planning on planting

out some early carrots and shallots and salad leaves in the sunny glazed front porch which we use as a

mini greenhouse.

Saturday May 2nd

Big drama tonight when we paused out TV programme to make a cup of tea at about 9 p.m. and were

shocked to discover no cold water anywhere in the house. A quick phone call around the neighbours

proved the same, no water anywhere. We’re OK, I said, we have a huge butt full of rainwater in the

garden, I saw myself filling kettles all night long. A quick check of the Water Board online showed a water

main had burst and most of the town was without water, but they promised all would be well around 5 a.m.

It was all back to normal at 7.30 a.m. Sunday when we checked. I didn’t fancy flushing the loo with buckets

of water and bleach. A friend phoned this morning, (she has breast cancer like me), she had fallen out of

bed a couple of days previously and landed on her bedside table getting badly shaken up and bruised; very

tricky trying decide whether to go to A&E risking contact with sick people, or call an ambulance, or try 111,

or talk to a GP. She opted to speak to a GP. She’s now doing well. It brought home to me how very

vulnerable we are, the danger of tripping and falling is always there. I’m using a stick more and more even

in the garden.

We were extremely disappointed that we had to postpone our Skype play reading last night as our daughter

in law was snowed under with work.

Tonight, we plan on watching ‘Normal People’ as everyone raves about it. Tomorrow I’ve been invited to a

Zoom conference with my WI committee. The creative writing group I used to teach (before breast cancer)

held a successful meeting with 4 of them by Zoom on Sunday.

Today is our Northern grandson’s 21st birthday but celebrations are postponed until after Lockdown, so we

just sent cash and a card.

Wednesday May 6

We had our WI committee meeting last night there are 9 of us and at one point we had 8 people showing

up. Admittedly one sounded like a Dalek, one of them was permanently frozen and unable to speak and

one couldn’t get Zoom on her mobile. We must sort out a way to say when we want to speak otherwise, we

all speak at once. We’ll probably do it again next week; 40 minutes is just about right.

Today my gardeners are back. There is so much to do after an absence of about eight weeks. They are

clearing the leek patch of weeds in the front garden, fertilising and planting well chitted seed potatoes and

sorting out the top vegetable garden where I used to grow blackcurrants and raspberries. All cleared and

last batch of spuds in. I’m using the top sunny patch for early veg shallots, carrots, and spinach.

Thursday May 7

My battle to acquire more waste bags continues. The dustbin men ignored my request tied to the bag this

morning. I phoned County Hall twice and sent 2 e-mail requests they e-mailed they will send me one within

10 days.

Friday May 8

Today the water saga continues. We had another water escape yesterday, the waterboard came ‘fixed it’

but alas it was back again today on the opposite side of the road from us a steady trickle but apparently as

it is Bank Holiday no hope of repair until Monday!

We have signed up to Zoom. Peter and I had a mini conference as a practice but not wildly successful. I’ve

emailed my Tuesday morning coffee group and offered them Zoom or Skype. There are four of us so far. I

think I am going to have to curate, still practice must make perfect!

Saturday, May 9

Sainsbury’s are due to deliver between two and three sadly there are only sending us a small loaf and we

have run out of bread I think I will make some plain scones instead.

Monday May 11

Much colder today but a lovely sunny day. All the deep pink azaleas in the back garden are absolutely

stunning. They are all in large pots so we can move them around to jazz up boring parts of the garden. We

had a phone call from our financial adviser today basically telling us although our stock market-based

stocks and shares took a huge tumble in March, but they perked up again a lot in April. We’ve also heard

again from our solicitor we decided it was a matter of urgency to make sure our wills were completely

revised and up to date. Hopefully, we have now ironed out any glitches. If my husband dies first, I inherit

everything and vice versa but if we were both to die say a fortnight apart all our assets would be divided

between our two children. They would not necessarily have to cash in all our savings if it were a better idea

to keep them invested. Most of our mail these days concerns our different assets the rates of interest are

exceptionally low. The world news is not very cheerful although England are planning on reducing the

lockdown but not here in Wales. We are not planning on going shopping or anything much in the near

future if we receive home deliveries. I spent a lot of time trying to set up a zoom coffee morning at 2p.m.

tomorrow it should have been 10.30 but one of our group has a hospital appointment which suggests they

are now allowing us to visit the local hospital. There seems to be quite a lot of confusion about whether

Wales will have the same freedom of movement as the rest of the UK.

Tuesday May 12 it’s our son’s 52nd birthday tomorrow and 52 years ago I had already started the lengthy,

painful, pointless induction by drip… with contractions every two minutes, 16 hours before they finally

discovered his shoulder was being forced down the birth canal. Every time I asked them to check they just

said, ‘you first time mums always fussing….’ It took a general anaesthetic, a surgeon and anaesthetist to

deliver him at 3.20 a.m. meanwhile they had insisted that my husband wear a white surgical coat like the

doctors. He had a copy of ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ stuffed in his pocket but nurses kept rushing up to him

saying: ‘We need a doctor …’. He had to say ’I’m an academic not a medic!’ My next-door neighbour’s

daughter delivered us a large loaf from Lidl today.

Wednesday, May 13

Despite several phone calls to the water board there is still a leak coming out of the verge on the opposite

side of the road. Today is our son’s birthday and our daughter has made a collage of their childhood photos

interspersed with video greetings from all the family it’s a beautiful document although not a substitute for

meeting up. The council delivered green and food bags to us today. We have two compost bins and recycle

everything we can but it has been frustrating running out of waste bags.

Thursday May 14

Dustbin day pink and black. The water leak opposite has had men to and fro for days apparently, it’s now

fixed, a terrible waste of water it would be much better on our gardens. My baby carrots, radishes and

spinach are all growing.

Our financial advisor has sent up a Zoom meeting with him in early June. Our solicitor has finally produced

a suitable pair of mirror wills which will need signing and witnessing.

Every post brings cancellations of hospital appointments sometimes substituting phone calls. My husband

had a rash on both legs, so he photographed them for his GP and she was able prescribe a suitable

ointment.

All my friends seem to have attended VE Day parties. A friend in Loughor explained their cul de sac was

ideal, so they all gathered on their front drives and raised glasses to each other. They have coffee

mornings and tea parties too! In fact, I’ve had emails from friends all over England who managed to

celebrate VE day quite cooperatively. I think they are less sheltered in England, then we are here in Wales.

Today’s Sunday, May 17

Yesterday we received a large delivery from Tesco including 3 kg of strong white bread flour for our

daughter and dustbin bags. They decided to come and see us all four of them and we handed over the

groceries and bags and they have brought us £200 in cash from the cashpoint. It is exceedingly difficult not

having access to ready cash. It was lovely seeing the children as we seen them on what’s app but not in

person for a couple of weeks. It was very chilly talking to them in the garden, but it was lovely seeing them

although I couldn’t hug them. They were telling us they have quiz nights by Skype with friends from all over

England.

Our son Skypes us most days, so we see him, just not in the flesh.

Tuesday, May 19

I missed the zoom conference with my coffee group friends this morning as I have developed a streaming

cold and did not want to cough and splutter at the television set. I have got a temperature but nothing overly

dramatic and the good news is I have maintained my sense of smell and my sense of taste. It seems a bit

rotten getting a cold and not actually in touch with anyone except my husband, he has to visit the local

surgery for a blood test because he has an artificial heart valve and needs to take large quantities of

warfarin.

Wed May 20

We just had a ‘distanced’ visit from our solicitor plus a partner with our upgraded wills we signed them

inside on the dining table and they signed them on the patio table outside through the French windows. On

the next visit will be signing power of attorney once it has all been sorted out online with them. Today is

supposed to be a heatwave in England it’s sunny here in Wales but no heatwave. However, all my azaleas

and rhododendrons are in full bloom and absolutely packed with loud bees. We also hear small birds we

haven’t heard for a long time.

The British Museum put out a film made 7 years ago at the Pompeii Herculaneum Exhibition. I’ve been to

both Pompeii and Herculaneum three times each, the first time was 43 years ago, and we were our own

guides it was an incredible experience I never forgot. We visited the exhibition in February and then again

when I did a week-long summer course in Oxford with an open University lecturer when we explored every

aspect of Pompeii in great depth. It was tremendous listening to all the experts and visiting the exhibition

again and learning enormous amount new. I was so excited by it all I emailed dozens of friends to watch it

because it is still available on YouTube.

Thursday, May 21

Last night there was a violent thunderstorm with both thunder and lightning and heavy rainfall which the

garden needed. It’s looking much brighter today.

I sat out on the patio and potted on my baby carrots and baby radishes I have been growing on the kitchen

windowsill. My early carrots I put in a tub on the top patio have all started sprouting and look extremely

healthy. I have potted on the Marks & Spencer’s carrots and radishes and put them on a tray in our glazed

front porch.

Saturday, May 23

To my huge relief my cold has cleared up and my temperature has gone down. We acquired a large pack

of basic face masks via the Internet. A parcel arrived and I was able to wrap a beautiful silk scarf for my

next-door neighbours’ oldest daughter’s 40th birthday on Monday. Thank goodness for the Internet.

Tesco came up trumps on Thursday and delivered virtually everything we had ordered only the lamb steaks

are missing the best part was I brought the order forward a whole week.

Monday May 25

Bank Holiday Monday but apart from no post just the same as always but another lovely sunny day. Both

my gardeners appeared at 11a.m. They have transformed the back garden finally uprooting the Rambling

Rector rose which had been there over forty years in sunny years it would bloom twice a year.

Unfortunately, the large wooden arch over which it grew blew down for the last time in a gale several

months ago. We had replaced the wooden arch twice and reinforced it with hefty wooden supports. The

arch also supported some beautiful Irish Gaiety green and white climbing eucalyptus, we have managed to

save these. The gardeners moved my 4 red acers to provide more colour in the beds opposite the dining

room. They generally worked tidying up the back garden where I have lots of blackcurrant bushes,

decorative flowering and foliage plants and an extensive herb garden but virtually no lawn at all. I used

some of my herbs in a Spanish omelette for lunch. I just managed to get a priority Tesco delivery spot for

May 31.

We sat outside at the glass table on the patio for a couple of hours listening to the birds and reading today’s

Guardian. Of course, everything is full of the incredibly stupid Dominic Cummings blatantly ignoring

lockdown and pretending he’s done nothing wrong; it’s dominated online and TV.

Tuesday May 26

Zoom coffee morning due at 10.30 a.m. this was a great success much better than last time mainly

because I wrote a list of topics and got everyone to speak in turn on each one e.g. how we coping with no

hairdressers? Was anyone growing anything interesting in the garden? Had anyone found any items

unobtainable? What books were we reading and what TV were we watching? We are planning on holding

another coffee morning zoom session next Tuesday at 1030.

Wednesday, May 27

Lovely sunny weather all day. We had a splendid salad lunch sitting outside on the patio watching the bees

and listening to the birds it was very peaceful. I’ve been catching up on old TV programmes they are

showing again e.g. the early series of Silent Witness and Peak Practice. My husband and I are both

watching the original Morse series which is quite ironic as we enjoyed Lewis very much and Endeavour!

This evening my husband is attending zoom conference with the Labour Party he is still involved in polit ics.

Friday, May 28

Another lovely sunny day and we spent quite a lot of time outside on the patio. Today we spend hours

going through both our power of attorney documents you need to sign in front of our solicitor.

June 2020

Tuesday June 1st

A friend just phoned me and told me how painful it was for her husband who is in his mid-80s to have the

dressings changed on the ulcers on his foot in the local surgery. I told her about attending the Burns Unit in

Alexandria Hospital and at my request they gave me a dose of Oromorph each time before changing my

dressings last year. This made a very painful procedure a lot better, so I suggested she discuss it with their

GP.

I had a huge panic on Friday when my five-page corona diaries for May suddenly disappeared off my

screen. This is a new computer using Windows 10 and I was completely unable to rescue the theoretically

‘saved’ diary but luckily I had sent a copy to a close friend and my husband was able to retrieve the email to

my friend.

Britain is said to break records with the magnificent spring sunny weather for the last weekend in May. Now

theoretically schools are due to return on June 1 in certain parts of the UK but from everything I have read

online and, in the press, and by talking to teacher friends no one wants the schools reopening yet. It is far

too dangerous.

Thursday June 4

Regrettably I’ve been unable to write my diary for a few days as I have been suffering from excruciating

backache in fact the pain is partly in my hip and partly in my back on the left hand side where I had a hip

replacement 24 years ago. I saw my GP on Tuesday morning who said after a thorough examination that I

should really be going into hospital for injections, but I am reluctant to go to Alexandria Hospital whilst

coronavirus rages on. He said something about trochanteric bursitis, and I should return to taking

Oramorph and slow release morphine regularly. I had to phone the surgery again on Wednesday morning

and spoke to our expert on sports injuries Dr who is very knowledgeable indeed about injections and has in

fact injected my knee in the past. Regrettably, all he can do at this stage is renew my scripts for morphine

and prescribe vast quantities of anti-constipation medication.

On Tuesday June 2

We had our Zoom coffee morning again which was a welcome relief from the grinding backache. We were

talking about our favourite dishes to make during lockdown and all of us found we are doing a lot more

cooking than usual although in my case it’s my husband doing the cooking! He roasted a beautiful pork fillet

which we ate hot the first day with a delicate mushroom cream sauce and we’ve eaten it in salad on

Wednesday and Thursday. My friends have rallied round telephoning me to cheer me up, my next door

neighbour was telling me about a friend’s five year old daughter who asked her mother ‘Will my brains fall

out if I don’t go to school?’ As far as I can see there are no signs of our local schools returning. There is a

school on the road behind us and usually we hear the children playing out at lunchtime and break times.

Our gardeners were here again on Monday (June 1st) and I asked them to trim two of my overgrown small

trees in the back garden my Hawthorn and an Eleagnus Pungens Maculata. ‘Come and have a look,’ they

said as they pushed the leaves back, in there were at least three nests. We knew the magpies were there

in the Hawthorn, they come every year and sound just like machine guns, but I think we have a sparrow

and possibly a finch or a blackbird nesting in the tree next to them! The weather has been glorious, and we

have eaten many meals outside and listened to the delightful birdsong. We’ve seen a lot of bees dashing in

and out of the campanula and ubiquitous Welsh poppies, but we don’t hear them buzzing. I grow a lot of

flowers to encourage the bees and I have a big bank of lavender and another of heather in my front rockery

in full sunshine which are always awash with bees.

On Tuesday evening we had another WI committee meeting we are thinking of setting up a book group

and I proposed that I start compiling our own WI cake recipe book, many of our members make wonderful

cakes! I have already received four requests to join the book group it will be a maximum of eight because I

can only fit eight chairs into my dining room.

I was chatting to our president who lives in Llywydd. My former social worker friend was telling me how she

was helping a client apply for a passport over the phone in England and when she mentioned Llywydd the

passport officer asked if that was in India! I have to confess that I examined A-level French twice a year for

over 20 years in a private school in Brecon. I was fascinated by the signpost which said Aberhonddu and

determined to visit this mysterious town one day! I mentioned this to a Welsh speaker recently who

explained to me very kindly that that was the Welsh name for Brecon!

Our financial adviser phoned this morning and held a Skype conference with my husband regrettably my

back was too bad to permit me sitting in a chair to take part. It was very encouraging although our finances

took quite a dip at first, they are now recovering enough to fund us in our old people’s homes!

I heard today that I have won 4 £25 prizes on my Premium Bonds.

I have to write up my article for the women’s publishers Honno on what life was like in the 70s for women

like myself looking back our two children were very young and I spent the first half of the 70s teaching them

to swim in the University pool and taking them down to all the beaches where you could park for nothing.

We would go with three different female friends who had children of the same age and all had their own

cars to drive us there! When our daughter started primary school I was lured back to teaching A-level

French and like all the secondary school teachers in my county at that time I was offered the chance to

train as a sailing instructor. It had been a lifelong dream of mine and I learnt very quickly and started

teaching the less academic boys in my school I also went out and bought my own boat, a home-made

Mirror dinghy, over the years I taught hundreds of children and adults to sail in my Mirror dinghy!

Saturday June 6

Unfortunately the trochanteric bursitis has returned and is making life miserable for me. Today we took

delivery of four more ready planted hanging baskets, these were full of fuchsias. They look pretty battered I

doubt whether they will survive but I’ve contacted the supplier for advice. It has rained at last the garden

really needed it and it was getting to be a chore soaking the fruit bushes every night. Today Sainsbury’s

delivered us a large order which we will enjoy eating over the next few weeks. I hate to say this, but we

have never eaten so well before with weekly deliveries from Tesco or Sainsbury’s and we are discovering

some interesting substitutions I’m not quite sure why they sent linguine instead of spaghetti! The papers are

full of the increased rioting in America as result of the black man George Floyd being murdered by a white

police officer in Minneapolis. Persistent bad treatment of people of colour in the United States continues.

There were fears that the rioting would spread to Britain.

It has now spread to Britain and the news is full of it including pulling down a statue of slave trader Edward

Colston in Bristol. That is a very shameful period of British history and what is going on in America now just

reminds us of it. I’m not sure how demonstrating and rioting in town centres will improve the situation and

make black lives matter.

Sunday, June 7

It’s much colder now back to our normal spring weather, I think. I’m going out into the garden to check on

the progress of my carrots I think the recent heavy showers have helped. I have now received four more

hanging baskets from the supplier, lovely apricot begonias. There was an excellent article in the magazine

supplement of the Guardian written by Guardian journalist Simon Hattenstone about his experience with

what was almost certainly coronavirus in February. It’s a terrible indictment in a way of how badly prepared

Great Britain was and probably still is to deal with coronavirus. We are the second worst hit country in the

world with proportionately more deaths. Boris Johnson and his government have a lot to answer for. All

Boris’s posturing talking about ‘herd immunity ‘has led directly to the loss of thousands of lives. Also recent

Tory government treatment of our GPs and doctors has been shameful and how they had the gall to refuse

a rise to our hard-working NHS nurses I do not know especially as they voted a hefty pay rise in for

members of Parliament at the same time.

Sunday, June 14

It’s been a very busy week with riots all over the world particularly in the USA and here in Britain. Some

terrible things have been going on nominally in shouting about black lives matter but a lot of it sounds like

frustrated people letting off steam and not being bothered about who they hurt whilst they do it.

According to the press people are not observing the isolation as recommended by the government. Many

people are going down to beaches and holding parties and barbecues. Here in South Wales where I live

everyone seems to be obeying the rules.

I had a letter a few days ago from the chief medical officer telling me to stay self-isolated until mid-August

as I am ‘vulnerable’. I am vulnerable I have not recovered from my horrendous breast-cancer experiences

as I am still suffering the side-effects of the radiotherapy. The medication I am on to prevent the cancer

returning seems to have exacerbated my degenerative disc disorder and severe osteoarthritis and I’m in a

lot of pain. My GPs and MCAS (pain management) have put me back on slow-release morphine with

Oramorph for severe outbreaks. MCAS recommend I take paracetamol three times a day as well which I

am doing.

All at once our fruit has started to ripen and I discovered a large patch of wild strawberries in a sunny part

of the back garden. We have several raspberries in tubs and they are all ripening like mad. The blueberries

are not fully ripe yet, but the blackcurrants are ripening much earlier than usual.

Our gardeners came yesterday and trimmed one of the trees they said they could not see the birds’ nests,

but they certainly did not disturb anything. The magpies are still nesting there I heard their machine gun

rattle a few minutes ago. I keep seeing both male and female blackbirds and some sparrows.

Sainsbury’s are delivering to us tomorrow and we are looking forward to some more delicious meals. I

bought some beautiful long length brightly coloured summer Kaftans online. They arrived very quickly and

are proving invaluable. Motability (they provide and insure my disabled car) sent me a £50 insurance refund

as most of the drivers are not using their cars so no insurance claims. I spent the entire cheque on three

beautiful pairs of brightly coloured summer trousers from somewhere like Nepal, I also bought these online

from a British firm.

My almost 16-year-old grandson has introduced me to DuoLingo using free online teach yourself language

courses available in many languages. Received wisdom is that learning a new language is an ideal way to

delay the onset of dementia. So far, I have run through five levels in basic Spanish. I swapped to modern

Greek but unfortunately, I am too deaf to hear it properly, so I am having a wonderful time revising my basic

Latin but decided to revise my basic German. The methodology is identical for all the languages which is a

kind of show and tell guessing game. I used to be a linguist I taught modern languages for about 30 years

this is a brand-new way of approaching it and I am enjoying it very much.

Tuesday, June 16

The papers and online are full of all the rioting following on the second murder of a black person in

America. There are riots going on in Britain as well as America. Today came the unwelcome news that two

British women had flown to New Zealand to visit their dying mother and reintroduced coronavirus to the

country.

Shops reopened yesterday in England and apparently there were queues. Here in Wales little has

changed. This morning I spent 40 minutes on a zoom coffee group meeting with five friends. We were

discussing which newly re-opened shop we would like to visit. Surprisingly, the consensus was for visiting

garden centres properly, although a minority want to go to Marks & Spencer to be remeasured for bras. We

all of us would like to see a proper hairdresser and have our haircut, the odd husband is trying to cut his

wife’s hair but I’m not allowing mine to do mine! We also discussed going on holiday when we can: main

choice here was to meet up with children and grandchildren who live in England, Scotland or abroad. One

of my friends was extremely disappointed at having to cancel a planned visit to Croatia for the third time.

When it is the birthday of one of the group we try and go out for a meal together and were discussing

possible venues. It’s my birthday next June 30 and we are looking at the possibility of having a coffee group

(spaced out with our own flasks of coffee) in my back garden which has several tables, chairs, and a large

patio.

Wednesday June 17

There is a banner headline on the front page of the Guardian today ‘Rashford forces P.M. Into U-turn on

free meals. That is Marcus Rashford the famous Manchester and England striker. I am tremendously proud

that we have someone who is prepared to stand up to our greedy, lazy self-indulgent government and

particularly our disaster of a Prime Minister.

Scotland and Wales, both very poor countries, had already agreed to feed children who received free

school meals during the summer holidays and thank goodness the richest nation in the United Kingdom

has agreed after a lot of pressure to feed the starving children.

Meanwhile is very saddening to continue reading how people are breaking lockdown and being selfish and

self-indulgent and continuing to spread coronavirus.

On a more personal front our 50-year-old daughter has been ill for over a week but the 111 service

arranged for her to be tested for coronavirus which proved negative. Her GP has given her medication to

stop the constant vomiting, but she still has severe headaches. It’s very frustrating they only live a mile from

us, but we telephone and text her and wish there was more we could do.

I send my Wales in the 70s article off to Honno yesterday. I suspect that they are really looking for

something a bit more political looking at the three day week and the falling economy of that decade but my

article is all about being a young English woman living in Wales because my husband got a job in the

University here. I did really enjoy revisiting the 70s in my mind we loved everything about Queenton the

trees and flowers that line every street and the abundance of parks. We loved all the little beaches along

the south coast of the Gower Peninsula. The one huge difference we noticed from living in large towns like

Leeds, Manchester and London was the cost of travelling by bus, the big cities were all subsidising it on the

rates. We got used to walking everywhere and taking the expensive, infrequent buses when we could but

both of us learnt to drive in the early 70s a second hand Black Morris thousand which you had to double

declutch between first and second gear.

Friday June 19

We heard about the death of a good friend this morning from cancer of the oesophagus, both my father and

brother died of this. My friend is hoping my husband will be to conduct the funeral in early July. Apparently,

we are now allowed to hold funerals for a maximum of 20 people in attendance.

This afternoon our daughter who works part-time as a primary school teacher came to visit our garden with

a bag of Father’s Day presents a fantastic collection of Spanish themed goodies. Queenton’s phased return

to teaching from June 29. Our grandson in year 11 almost 16 has been told not to return to school yet. He

had a great time eating the wild strawberries and ripe blueberries and masses of ripe raspberries and had a

look at my carrots. I’ve never succeeded in growing carrots before these are coming along splendidly!

There is a huge fuss going on at the moment about the biography that has just come out about Trump

although there is widespread condemnation of the author for not providing info to help impeach Trump he

was saving it to sell the book! I’m afraid like most of my friends I have lost all faith in our present

government who are handling the coronavirus very badly indeed.

Our daughter displayed symptoms and was sent to a drive-in testing centre luckily her test was completely

clear and she has now recovered. She is still working half a day every three weeks ‘childminding’.

Meanwhile we are putting all our affairs in order and our solicitor is visiting us on Wednesday so that we

can sign all the power of attorney documents. Let’s hope it’s a fine day because she usually comes to the

back patio and witnesses us signing through the French windows.

Sunday June 21 Fathers’ Day

The press is full of the murder of three men stabbed in a Reading park by the terrorist Khairi Saadallah,

apparently, he came here from Libya and was already known to police in 2019. There is also extended

coverage of the riots in Stuttgart. More than a dozen policemen were hurt after they had been called to a

drugs’ incident. The gangs smashed up shops and raided them.

There is also a massive coverage of the excess deaths that have not been reported due to the coronavirus.

There is also fears there will be a second round which like with the Spanish flu may prove to be far worse

than the first round.

Not very cheerful news for Father’s Day. My husband has been enjoying the presents from both our

married children, lots of interesting Spanish Food & Drink and a wide variety of cheeses plus subscription

to a computer magazine so despite the appalling world news not a bad day.

I had grade 3 breast cancer 16 months ago and had a couple of operations and extensive adjuvant

treatment which sent me back to hospital twice. My surviving sister telephoned me yesterday and she had

just returned from being thoroughly checked out in the breast cancer centre where she lives and luckily all

her results came back clear. I was extremely happy for her as a close friend had a similar message from

her sister when she had breast cancer and when they checked her out, they discovered she was suffering

from it too. My sister said she admired how I coped with it. I don’t think I did anything special I was just very

pragmatic. I know when I was in hospital for the first two operations the young women were crying their

eyes out with their relatives trying to calm them. I do not think I would have coped as well if I were only in

my 20s with a young family I did my best to calm all the young women and to get them analgesia from the

nurses to help them cope. When anyone asks me how I am my response is always ’still here’. My husband

has prostate cancer, but we are both of those relentlessly optimistic about the outcome of both cancers. We

are careful to keep shielding and in fact I have only left the house on one occasion since early March when

I went to visit the doctors’ surgery with trochanteric bursitis. My husband must attend the surgery for

practically weekly blood tests because of the warfarin he takes for his artificial mitral valve.

I understand from reading the news that many people have been caught speeding in Wales during the

lockdown. Also, I read about various violations of the rules here in Wales I wish people weren’t so selfish.

My WI have been a tremendous support to all our members by organising various events online by zoom

and by distributing various quizzes, anagrams, and jokes. I organise sending e birthday cards to all our

members whose birthdate I know there are 60 of us and I think my list is 50. I’m always thrilled to bits when

I receive an e-card, or an email or a joke from friends online. I feel deeply sorry for older people who are

not computer literate and are finding it a lot harder to cope.

On Tuesday I’m taking part in a further zoom coffee morning with a group of friends and I am thinking up

some good questions to ask them to keep the conversation flowing my favourite at the moment is which

book or books do you regret not reading. Personally, I have shelves full of them bought with the intention of

reading them e.g. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is only a short book and I visited Dresden in 1990.

We just spent a pleasant afternoon after eating duck legs in a plum sauce. We watched the original film of

The Magnificent Seven with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen with the iconic theme tune. It hasn’t dated at

all and kept us gripped for hours. We followed it with an old episode of the Vicar of Dibley which is feel

good stuff par excellence. I think television companies are doing a great job keeping us entertained during

these grim times.

Wednesday June 24

The news online and in print are full of the possibility of a second surge of Corona virus. Good news was

the discovery that a steroid known for 60 years dexamethasone can be effective in the later stages of

infection. Research is also ongoing about whether the virus had mutated from bats. England are softening

up, but Wales are keeping the same restrictions on movement. I just heard some breaking news that they

are trialling a preventative vaccine and hope to have over 40 million doses ready by next year.

Sunday June 28

there has been an easing of restrictions in Great Britain more so in England than in Wales and Northern

Ireland and Scotland. Last Wednesday was the hottest day of the year and many beaches in England and

Wales were crammed full of visitors. There were tons of rubbish left all over everywhere and people

behaved very thoughtlessly. That appalling young man Jonty Bravery was in court and sentenced to a

minimum of 15 years in prison for his attempted murder of the six-year-old French boy whom he pushed

10th floor of the Tate Modern Gallery. There is a recording of Bravery telling the social worker how he

planned on murdering someone by pushing them off a high building so that he would become famous and

get his name in the papers and on television. Apparently he is suffering from some form of autism and

personality disorder and he was being allowed out on his own for four hours a day during which time he

pushed the poor little French boy off the 10th floor with the intention of killing him. The little boy landed on

the fifth floor where he sustained massive injuries, he is still alive and, in a wheelchair, and he’ll need

round-the-clock care to at least 2022. Bravery is being sent to a criminal hospital. The whole incident begs

the question what social services were thinking of allowing Bravery to go out unsupervised after he had

been recorded explaining his criminal intentions. I know Maggie Thatcher and her government brought in

the despicable ‘care in the community’ but surely this should have been repealed a long time ago.

Meanwhile Boris Johnson has had his personal aeroplane repainted red, white, and blue which cost the

public purse £900,000. Along with several thousand other people I signed a petition against this, but he still

went ahead. I heard today that the Rolling Stones will prosecute Trump for stealing some of their top album

songs to boost his campaign I do hope they are successful. I saw a cartoon recently with a photo of a TWA

plane with a caption saying’ Trump’s plane label is almost complete!

Apparently, a Sudanese asylum seeker severely injured six men by stabbing in Glasgow he was shot by a

police marksman meanwhile several of his victims are in a critical condition.

I have always been in favour of allowing refugees into our country, but I think I would strongly support

measures to keep them quarantined until their mental health has been thoroughly checked out. There are

far too many instances here and abroad of so-called asylum seekers turning out to be terrorists.

I had a lovely surprise this evening when a friend came round carrying a large Canna lily and wrapped

present and card for my birthday tomorrow. I am saving the card and present to open tomorrow. I was able

to give her the beautiful Runaway Bride hydrangea I have been cultivating for her for six months. It’s a new

variety which won a prize at the Chelsea flower show and once it’s established it produces masses of small

white flowers with pink tinge. My friend’s birthday was June the fourth, but I don’t travel.

Monday June 29

It’s a rather miserable day today cold and windy. The Welsh government will be allowing us to mix with a

second group from next Monday preferably outside and observing social distances. Weddings are going to

be allowed in July in England although having read the conditions with no food no mingling and bring your

own glass for drink you would think they would prefer to wait. In the case of funerals, you can’t wait

although, so these are strictly limited to 20 people attending only.

I think the mood of the country in general is thoroughly fed up and annoyed at all the restrictions on

movement. It strikes me the biggest problems are unemployment lack of income and inability to feed each

other. Apparently, there is massive child starvation some of it through sheer inefficiency. For example many

families entitled to free school meal vouchers during the summer holiday have discovered that there are no

shops able to take them locally and one school has been driven to giving the parents cash so that they can

feed their children. This is totally unacceptable in the world’s seventh richest nation. I have decided to make

all my charity donations to feed the hungry here in Great Britain up until now I have been making my

donations 50-50 e.g. to conflict zones via Médecins sans frontiere and the Red Cross but in future that

money will go to the Trussell food bank trust and a local charity which feeds the homeless and starving.

It’s my 77th birthday tomorrow June 30 it’s going to be an odd kind of birthday. I’m hoping that our daughter,

husband and two children will join us for a slice of birthday cake on the back patio and let’s hope it doesn’t

rain!

Tuesday June 30

My 77th birthday, so far, I have received seven bouquets of flowers +3 beautiful potted plants and a birthday

picnic tea all beautifully prepared on trays from my next-door neighbour and family. Our daughter husband

and children came around and they sang happy birthday to me ate birthday cake outside on the patio well-

spaced out and having to use umbrellas from time to time. Our daughter posted photos of this on Facebook

and then forwarded the responses to me which she had received virtually all of them from ex-pupils of mine

who claimed I looked exactly the same!

Later on, a splendid basket of fresh fruit arrived from our suppliers in Mosman sent by my friend down the

road. Our son and his wife arrived at six bringing an enormous picnic from Asda and two huge bouquets of

flowers full of sunflowers and roses the house is starting to look like Chelsea flower show, and I am thrilled

to bits. Last year I was being barrier nursed in Alexandria Hospital with neutropenic sepsis as a result of the

chemotherapy I had received for the breast cancer so it was a wonderful relief to be home with my family all

around me this year. We had a second picnic out on the patio for a couple of hours well wrapped up and

spaced out but it is the first time I have seen our son and daughter-in-law in the flesh for months although

we do Skype.

I received dozens of cards and emails and e-cards and it made me very grateful for our many friends

despite the horrible crisis we are all living through. We had a zoom conference at 1030 today with six of our

coffee group; this week we were discussing what presents we remembered best from our young

grandchildren and what would our ideal presents be today as we all have most of the material things we

need but then we moved on to the really good political questions. I asked them whether they thought Keir

Starmer was right to sack Rebecca Long Bailey after she retweeted an anti-Semitic tweet from the actor

Maxine Peake. To my surprise everyone supported Keir Starmer which I do obviously but I expected some

of my more Tory minded friends might have supported Rebecca Long Bailey. She behaved in a very silly

way after all she was the closest contender to take over after Keir Starmer and by refusing to apologise and

withdraw the tweet she must have lost a huge amount of support. Maxine Peake withdrew the tweet and

apologised. Then we discussed Boris Johnson using £900,000 from the public purse despite a petition

signed by hundreds of thousands of objectors. Finally we had a look at Trump and the fact the Rolling

Stones are suing him because he has stolen some of their lyrics to support his presidential campaign.

Lastly we discussed old television series that we would like to see rebroadcast among others were The

Caesars, The Six Wives of Henry VIII and I Claudius.

It was good to have a day where we didn’t have to think too much about the present crisis and about the

worsening situation in the United States. The news from Leicester is not good and they are going into

lockdown again. I read earlier today that there is a possibility of a second pandemic flu possibly swine fever

from China. They are battling Corona virus in Beijing. The Chinese are being very repressive in Hong Kong.

The world news in general is pretty bad. Let us hope that the summer improves things.

July 2020

July 4 Saturday

It’s been a very busy week since my birthday on Tuesday, June 30. I was 77 and I was thrilled to receive

dozens of cards, emails and flowers and presents. Last year I was being barrier nursed in a sideward in

Alexadria Hospital with neutropenic sepsis after chemotherapy and steroids to try and cure my grade three

invasive breast cancer. I feel I am very lucky to be alive today and I was very grateful to all my friends and

family who sent the cards, flowers and presents. To my surprise my next-door neighbour and good friend

and her daughters bought me two large trays of tea parties, savoury and sweet. We enjoyed these with our

daughter and family and then our son and his wife. We ate everything outside on the patio well-spaced out

we had to use umbrellas a couple of times as it kept drizzling with rain. Our house is now full of seven

bouquets of flowers mainly roses and sunflowers and there are three beautiful potted plants outside on the

patio too. Usually I would have birthday party for my girlfriends in the garden but because of Corona virus

everything is on hold, they usually bring food too.

Part of our savings are in premium bonds, so we are always excited for the first of the month when we hope

to win £1 million! It has not happened yet but this month I did win five prizes of £25 each which I

automatically reinvest.

One of my friends has three foreign holidays booked for this year but she is busily transferring them to 2021

as the Azores holiday was cancelled, the tour down to the Falklands was cancelled but her tour to Puerto

Rico for September is apparently still valid but she would prefer to postpone for another year. Isn’t it

marvellous having three foreign holidays! I was just saying to my husband do you think we will ever go

abroad again. Now it looks quite unlikely.

We always read the papers very carefully on Saturdays. I was appalled to read that Stanley Johnson

Boris’s father had flown off to Greece to sort out his holiday villa before such flights were allowed was an

appalling example from the Prime Minister’s family. By and large the news in the papers and online are

very negative about our Conservative government and their weak leadership. It has been suggested that

England is rushing forward too fast and there is almost inevitably going to be a second outbreak. I saw this

morning that our government is planning on selling off surplus ventilators which sounds extremely short -

sighted as almost inevitably they will be needed if there is a second outbreak.

There is horrendous news about what is happening with the Chinese government in Hong Kong. Our

government has offered to accept up to 3 million Hong Kong Chinese in Britain so that they can settle here

away from the Chinese regime. This is causing diplomatic ructions with the Chinese.

After a spurt of lovely fine weather, it is miserable and rainy every day. Our 14-year-old granddaughter

returned to school for half a day on Friday they were allowing them back in one house at a time. I do not

know how many days of the week she will be attending as term ends in a fortnight.

Our 21 year old grandson telephoned he still has not got his degree results from Manchester he is

desperately hoping that he will get a first in modern history and politics as he has been offered a

scholarship to do a Master’s degree there but it is contingent on getting a first. We were booked to go there

for his graduation ceremony on July 15 I did my 1st degree at Manchester and my husband went to school

there, he lived in Stockport at the time.

Over the last week I have had a number of long phone calls from friends in England three of them from girls

I was at school with, they seem to be easing off lockdown much faster there than we are here in Wales.

However, I think if all goes to plan, we will be forming friendship bubbles from Monday.

I asked my English friends how they were coping. The answer varied a lot depending on how computer

literate they were. The people with computers did Skype, zoom, Google etc and other conference methods

the non-computerised were much more isolated.

I think that we have been very lucky personally because I was on a list to get priority treatment from the

supermarkets, so I have been able to place a weekly grocery order with Sainsbury’s or Tesco. Our

daughter-in-law paid her first visit to Asda since lockdown and brought us some wonderful things to eat

from there and two huge bouquets of flowers. Our son who has Crohn’s disease is still shielding and is not

mixing with anyone outside the immediate family nor is he visiting shops yet.

My husband has a CT scan in the hospital in 10 days’ time and I have two visits booked to the hospital, the

first for a blood test in the second two days later for what they call an infusion which is done in the

chemotherapy department to boost my bones and prevent osteoporosis. All the cancer treatment has made

my bones even more fragile I take a daily dose of vitamin D and used out weekly doses of Allendronic acid

but I have been informed this infusion which is pretty unpleasant and takes about half an hour to run

through is much more efficacious.

I am due to go to the lymphoedema clinic in August unless that is cancelled again. I did hear that gradually

if there isn’t a second wave the hospitals will start treating all patients again.

Sunday, July 5

We have had a pretty quiet day today at least the weather has got better. Wales is due to start allowing us

to form family bubbles from tomorrow not sure whether this means inside or outside. Quite frankly I’m

getting fed up with being confined to the house and it has only been less than four months. I’m amazed at

how well the family of Anne Frank did all that time locked up in the loft keeping quiet we don’t have

anything to complain about. I spent quite a lot of time today working on my spoken Latin and I finally

discovered where the vocabulary and grammar bits are, I was actually making educated guesses who

would have thought that studeo takes the dative. Apparently, I’m in some kind of league table some top 10

somewhere but I’m afraid I’m not desperately interested in how people in Russia and Japan et cetera

getting on with learning their foreign languages. I noticed that Duolingo are advertising for staff so I looked

up the adverts but they were things like Japanese into French in other words using a language I do know

with one I only have a few words of. I used to love learning languages and I visited about 40 different

countries in the world and each time I went somewhere new I had a go learning the language although it

was easy come easy go and have forgotten all my Chinese except counting on my fingers. I found walking

about China on my own absolutely terrifying as I could not read the signs nor ask anyone where to go so I

scuttled back to my hotel I had been trying to find a bank to change my traveller’s cheques. Each Chinese

hotel we had stayed in had had its own masseur and I really appreciated the massages after trekking

around China in a heatwave.

Wednesday, July 8

We had an interesting day yesterday I needed to renew my scripts with the doctor as I discovered I could

only receive a limited amount of slow-release morphine. With lockdown it is very easy to speak to doctors

these days you phone the receptionist and say why you need to speak to someone and a GP phones back,

straightaway.

Immediately after that we had a zoom coffee morning meeting six of us. We discussed a long article in the

Guardian by Emine Saner about why women wear bras. Apparently, we have only worn bras for about a

hundred years women or incredibly uncomfortable corsets that pushed the breasts up on display. Then we

moved on to the question do we bother getting dressed these days or do we slob around in our pyjamas as

we virtually don’t see anyone although because we have to answer the door to receive deliveries. My

husband needed to receive some specific anti-cancer drugs, so we have a lot of phone calls to and from

the surgery and the pharmacy. At seven in the evening we had a zoom conference with 12 members of our

WI one of our members had a son who had gone up to Berkshire and graduated from there I think in

December she showed as a magnificent presentation on Berkshire and her son looking very smart. She

had been privileged to be put on the top table with her son at the formal dinner.

It reminded me of the time when my husband was on the governors of Bishop Gore and the Duke of

Edinburgh came to award the gold certificates to pupils and all the governors and partners were invited to

lunch with the Prince. We duly watched him chatting to the children as he awarded their certificates when

we were all due to join him for lunch the headmaster and chairman of governors went one way and all the

other governors and partners were shepherded another way. I had borrowed a beautiful dress from a friend

to wear for the occasion and had been granted two hours out of school just about 20 minutes’ drive away.

When I got back to school I discovered my classroom had been decorated with streamers and balloons and

a big cartoon which showed a rather busty lady surrounded by people talking non-stop with a big caption no

sign of the Duke! My pupils were very anxious to know what I had discussed with the Duke, so I told them

he had been most gracious, and we had had a delicious lunch. Well he did seem to be quite gracious to the

pupils. Lunch had been a ham salad apparently the Duke had requested a simple meal.

One friend wanted to know all how we are going to organise our permitted bubble with up to 6 extra people.

We are all missing hugging our grandchildren.

Making it worse the weather is not very good either and I am bored of reading the same thing in the press

all the time. The situation in Brazil is dire and the president Bolsonero has apparently contracted Covid 19.

There are fears that here in Britain we are heading for a massive depression with 15% unemployment if not

more especially in the 18 to 25-year group.

I graduated from three universities and this morning I received a begging letter from my first university

asking me to support poor students there; as it happens I am already providing substantial financial support

to my grandson in my first university and to my son in my third university. I am concerned how my first

university got hold of my current details.

Meanwhile the press has been full of the difficult situation for the holiday situation in Cornwall where they

will only have eight weeks to cover the takings of the whole summer.

Children are returning to schools on a part-time basis for two weeks.

Thursday, July 9

They announced today that all children will be returning to full-time school in September, but parents will

not be prosecuted if they keep their children at home. I’m not sure about this, does it suggest the parents

are worried about infection. Today’s dustbin day: pink and black day that means collection of all the

recyclable plastics and the black general rubbish bags and of course the green food boxes. We try and

recycle all the peelings and raw food we can in the compost bins. The weather is not very good not exam

weather which is what we usually get at this time of year glorious sunny weather with pupils doing exams. It

was confirmed today that people over 75 will now have to pay for their television licence unless they are on

pension credit. We are over 75 and not on pension credit. There are two of us so we can afford to pay but it

is extremely hard on widows, widowers and single people. There are a lot of scammers about who keep

sending phishing emails to try and persuade old people to pay their television licences into fake bank

accounts.

Sunday July 12

The glorious sunny weather has returned, and we can sit outside and enjoy our salads on the patio. The

test good at 9:10 on Wednesday evening has brightened up our menu I rather think I ordered too much

pork previously, so I have frozen most of it. This time I ordered various cuts of lamb including lamb neck

fillet which is surprisingly tender.

I have kept busy every day doing my Duo lingo spoken Latin there is some kind of league table, but I am

not interested in competing with other people the only person I compete against is myself. It is 65 years

since I started studying Latin but amazingly all the declensions and conjugations are coming back. I finally

got around to creating my personal vocabulary book and revising and consolidating as I go. I have been

busy recommending Duolingo to all my friends (DuoLingo don’t know so I don’t get paid for it!) It has

certainly made me think and I enjoy challenging my memory!

Tuesday, July 14

It’s our granddaughter’s 14th birthday today we have already given her present she wanted a new

skateboard we will be going to see her on Thursday when we will have a joint birthday party with her 16 -

year-old brother. I ordered a birthday cake from Tesco and we have candles and some small presents to

take down. I had to make their birthday cards myself this year as I could not get to the shops to buy any.

The physiotherapist attached to our medical practice telephoned me today to send me some excellent back

exercises stop I also received a phone call from the lymphoedema clinic who are arranging to see me in a

fortnight’s time.

There is a lot of confusion in England about whether masks will be compulsory I think they will be on public

transport and in all close situations.

Wednesday, July 15

There is concern in the press again today about big Facebook campaigns anti-vaccinators who are seeking

to stop vaccination against coronavirus which is seriously worrying. The papers are full of appeals for the

DEC disasters emergency committee and UNHCR because of the devastating effects coronavirus has in

the war zones in the Yemen, Syria and Somalia. Unemployment is rising rapidly in the UK and we are

heading for the biggest depression ever. We are worried about our grandchildren’s future.

Sunday July 19

Glorious sunshine again today following big plus of the lockdown is how good gardens are looking.

Unfortunately, our gardeners were unable to come yesterday as it was raining heavily where they were.

This morning bright and early received a large delivery from Tesco I’m going to miss having priority

bookings for my groceries. Tomorrow morning I am driving myself to the hospital for a blood test prior to

having an anti-osteoporosis infusion on Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday I was lucky enough to be able to

book a hairdressing appointment with my regular hairdresser for Tuesday afternoon which will be a huge

relief after 13 or 14 weeks with no attention to my struggling hair.

Coronavirus deaths have now passed 600,000 in the world. Unfortunately, it is in the poorer parts of the

world where the damage is greatest. What we read about the United States is appalling they do not seem

to understand what shielding and keeping a reasonable distance means. There was more shocking news

that the Russians are hacking into virus cures research.

Friday, July 24

Well it’s been quite a week, I drove myself to the local hospital, where I parked Immediately outside the

Chemotherapy Unit. Everything had changed when I went inside, I had to sit on a special chair have my

temperature taken my hands cleansed with a cleansing wipe from the sealed packet and was given a mask

to wear. Apparently, I should have telephoned to have a specific time for my appointment I was issued with

a letter saying come between 8 and 10 AM I was in plenty of time, so they saw me anyway. It was a bit of a

shock to the system driving as I haven’t driven since the end of February, but I managed to get myself

home in one piece.

Tuesday a miracle occurred in that I got a hairdressing appointment at long last after 6 months struggling to

do anything with my hair. I lost all the hair on the top part of my scalp after chemotherapy in June 2019. I

only had one session including the steroids which always upset me. My scalp was covered with very sore

red bumps and it took months to heal. In the interim I was supplied with a splendid short grey wig which I

wore off and on for six months. It took an awfully long time for my hair to grow back I would find hands full

of it on my pillow every morning, so it was wonderful Tuesday afternoon to have my hair cut and blow dried.

The whole salon had been transformed and everything was sprayed down regularly, and everyone wore

masks as far as possible you can’t really have your hair washed with a mask in situ! Tuesday morning I had

my usual zoom conference with my coffee group when we were discussing the best ways to celebrate

upcoming birthdays one of our friends husband will be 80 on August 22 and we decided going out for a

meal with a small number of friends to their favourite restaurant would be much better than having a large

impersonal party. In the evening I played Zoom bingo with my WI. Our local Dublin right has been incredibly

supportive of everybody and we decided to handwrite cards with personal messages to all our 60

members. I was delighted to receive a personal card from Guernsey created by moon pig. I send

personalised e-cards to all our members on their birthdays which is much appreciated.

On Wednesday I went with much trepidation for my infusion in the chemotherapy department in the

Hospital. This is the third time I’ve had this six-monthly infusion of Alendronic acid which previously I took at

home every Saturday morning. The first two infusions were a nightmare and I ended up with a badly

bruised hand this time my NHS nurse Kelly did a superb job and put the needle on the junction between my

hand on my wrist and she even made me a superb cup of tea. I drove myself home again afterwards.

All week I have religiously signed on to my Duolingo Latin and I’m making excellent progress and I do find

having a fixed regime really helps me cope with the uncertainties of life at the moment.

The Duolingo program in Latin has a number of faults and it is very limited translations it will allow without

explanation for example the Latin words for in the forum are in foro but they also mean in the marketplace

with no context to help you work out which one it is. Similarly, there is a phrase salutationem facio as I visit

my patron but also means I make a formal greeting. As I do not pay for my Duolingo it does not bother me

terribly but as a linguist myself I feel it is a little bit sloppy.

Well today is Friday and I discover that Queenton city council have reverted to two-way traffic along the

Queensway. Luckily there is virtually no traffic in town, but I envisage constant nightmares. Last night I

managed to book a slot for a new Tesco delivery Monday afternoon. We are getting very lazy and getting

used to all our groceries and our meat and fish and fresh fruit and veg all arriving on our doorstep.

Yesterday my husband had a telephone consultation with his cancer consultant for his prostate cancer

recently he had a scan but the consultant is awaiting a further discussion with a colleague on this but my

husband’s PSA has gone down a bit which is always good news.

Monday July 27

The bad news today was that holidaymakers from Britain in Spain will face a fortnight’s quarantine on their

return perhaps not from the Balearic Isles.

Rishi Sunak suggested imposing a tax on all online shopping to encourage a return to visiting the High

Street. It’s been a busy month but things should improve soon I just hope there won’t be a second

resurgence of the virus.

August 2020

It’s August 5 today and unfortunately it has been raining yet again. I have some good news this morning I’d

won £50 on my premium bonds. I had a letter from my GP too so I had to phone for a consultation and he

has decided to put me on prophylactic antibiotics for a year because of the recurring cellulitis I suffer from

my left breast as a result of the cancer treatment. This is not good news.

More optimistically I have been fitted for a back brace by the Macmillan physio and it is supportive of my

bad back. My 14-year-old granddaughter wants to come round and spend some time with me and also use

my sewing machine. Unfortunately, I am still under lock down conditions having received my third letter

from the Dr telling me to stay locked down until August16.

Yesterday I discovered I had won £50 on my premium bonds.

The press TV and news are all full of the dreadful explosion in Beirut which killed hundreds of people and

maimed thousands destroying hundreds of homes and the whole port.

People are not obeying the rules and staying in and wearing masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus in

Great Britain. The situation in Australia is very bad especially in New South Wales where they have closed

the borders with the other states. My youngest brother lives in Australia and keeps me up-to-date with what

is going on they have had snow settled for the first time in 12 years and at the moment the coronavirus

seems to be under control there unlike the mainland.

Here in Queenton the weather is still very unsettled although we are promised another heatwave for the

weekend but it seems to keep missing us.

As for me I have given up taking morphine because it stops being effective unless you continuously

increase the dosage. I did not take any last night or this morning but I am taking things pretty easily.

Our Tesco order arrived promptly at 9:55 AM on Tuesday and we have lots of delicious fresh fruit veg fish

and meat to eat. Yesterday I made a large pan of vegetable soup with butternut squash and sweet potatoes

and one leek I tried serving it with bacon lardons but it was much better with grated cheese. We finished it

off for lunch today.

I lost my Citizen watch sometime last week, I’ve owned it for about five years and you do not have to

change a battery it works by light you do however have to change the leather strap regularly and

unfortunately because of lockdown the strap had broken and I can’t get down to Mosman to have a new

one fitted I ordered a new watch from Amazon yesterday and it arrived half an hour ago today. Usually

when I lose something and order a new one I find what I have lost but so far not this time!

I’m keeping up with my daily dose of Latin and my husband has daily doses of Arabic. I suspect he has the

more onerous task.

I was appalled to read what had happened in Scotland with the estimated results where someone just

decided to top swipe the top grades and there was the case highlighted online who’d been scoring five A’s

and estimated again in her A-levels or higher and the teachers predictably put five A’s down and she had

an offer for medical school. The Pen pushers decided quite arbitrarily that she should receive two A’s and

three B’s in a general lowering of rates, as she attends school in a disadvantaged area it strongly suggests

bias on the part of the pen pushers. I know she is appealing for her marks to be looked at again our country

is desperate for more home-grown doctors and just when we have someone with the potential to work

extremely hard and already have achieved nothing but A’s this is ridiculous.

Monday, August 10

Well we had a brief heatwave and my local women’s Institute group had a coffee morning in the local park

you have to take your own garden chair and a flask of coffee and distance yourself and probably wear a

mask as well but I’m not quite sure how you drink coffee with a mask on, anyway it was a huge success

and much appreciated by the members who made it there we have a splendid website where we display

photos of our group events.

My husband had a visit to Alexandria Hospital today where he was told he has an aortic aneurysm but as

yet it is not giving cause for concern but it was a huge shock. I have an appointment with the breast care

surgeon tomorrow in the local hospital. Unfortunately these cancers do linger on. If it is fine we are going to

a garden coffee morning at our daughter’s in their garden.

I just spent half an hour doing my Duolingo Latin and the word stercus kept coming up amongst the options

to fill in sentences this is a word I have never heard of before but I checked with an online dictionary an

American one and it said ‘the poop’ I think we would say shit. The whole unit seems to be about dirty

latrines in apartment blocks which made me think of what is going on in India at the moment where they

don’t have a chance to self isolate and they don’t have running water and it’s very unhygienic country and

thousands are dying. I read the reports online and in the press today and it is pretty gloomy around the

world but Brazil and the United States apparently have the worst dictators ever. Bolsonaro in Brazil did

absolutely nothing and dismissed it as a minor virus. We all know what Trump has been saying misleading

everyone not imposing lockdown not imposing mask wearing still trying to electioneer to get elected for a

second term he is also grooming his daughter Ivanka and her husband to follow him in the White House.

The world needs to sit up and take notice. I am optimistic that civilisation will survive here in Great Britain

and I am seriously worried that in countries where inadequate medical treatment has been ignored we will

have thousands upon thousands of people trying to get into Britain. We have seen recently on the news

that overloaded RIBS full of alleged refugees from France originally from Iraq et cetera have been pouring

into Britain. There is talk by Priti Patel of using the Royal Navy to turn them back to France which is a safe

country. I used to be a scuba diver and we used RIBS rigid hold inflatable boats for diving trips and we

found that 12 was the absolute maximum and when I see these grossly overloaded boats last one

containing several children and a heavily pregnant woman I was in despair. Our country is already suffering

an economic crisis with huge rises in unemployment and I don’t think we have the resources to support the

hundreds of thousands refugees.

We see appeals daily in the press on TV and online and I receive a lot of personal emails from charities

begging for funds following disasters. I have and still do actually donate to a number of charities but every

time you donate you are immediately put on a list and encouraged to keep donating more and more. An

elderly crippled cancer sufferer on a limited income there is only so much I can do but I feel very guilty

every time I make an online order to Tesco when I think about what is going on in the Lebanon, in Africa,

and in India.

Tuesday August 11

I had an appointment in the Hospital this morning in the breast care unit, very luckily I was able to have a

chat with the surgeon who had done my two operations. He was extremely helpful and very positive for the

future especially about survival rates. This is so ironical we don’t know whether any of us will survive Covid

19. Ironically too on my return home was a letter from the chief medical officer telling me from August 16

that I no longer needed to shield myself but obviously to take suitable precautions against infections. We

spent some time in a ‘bubble’ in our daughter’s back garden we haven’t seen them for several weeks my 16

year old grandson gets his GCSE results next week but he had already done a few prior to this year.

The whole family have been going to all the local beaches including Queenton only at high tide, but it is in

walking distance from their house.

I have spoken to friends who are shielding like me. Yesterday today and tomorrow are forecast for 24° hot

and humid with the weather set to break on Thursday and Friday with promised torrential rain. The

temperature climbed into the 80’s I’m better using Fahrenheit.

I’m glad that we live in an area overlooking the sea with a shady back garden. There are a number of

people a lot less well situated with no gardens to retreat into.

On my way back from hospital this morning I spotted a Waitrose delivery van I didn’t know they delivered in

this area so must find out.

Monday August 17

Well, I officially came out of lockdown yesterday. It doesn’t actually feel any different, but we are booked in

to a local French restaurant tomorrow night.

There’s been a lot in the press about the unfairness in Scotland and England and Wales with the A -level

results and it looks almost as though we may lose the education minister in England, good riddance.

Tuesday August 18

We booked a taxi to the French restaurant where we had a booking for 6 p.m. meeting up with our son and

his wife. All the staff wore masks and the tables were widely spaced out. The food was out of this world,

genuinely French and cooked from fresh whilst we were there. Amazingly they offered fish soup, snails,

frogs’ legs, mussels and many other starters. I opted for frogs’ legs as I’ve only eaten them once before in

France. My husband had snails served in puff pastry and our son opted for ‘moules marinieres’ which is

one of our favourite dishes. Service was slow except for the wine and water but we had plenty to talk about.

In theory we were celebrating our daughter in law’s two sons’ A and AS level exam results but both boys

were working. We received the improved A and S level results but both boys had done extremely well first

round and our 16 year old grandson did brilliantly in his GCSEs with 12 a stars and a distinction in further

maths all of which had been predicted.

Saturday August 29

We’ve been out of lockdown for just over a week but continue to have all our hospital appointments and GP

appointments over the telephone. I was lucky enough to see my breast cancer surgeon in Singleton

Hospital and he was incredibly positive about my chances of surviving for nine years as long as I continue

taking tamoxifen and having regular check-ups. He very kindly sent me a copy of the letter he had sent my

GP. When I had a chat with the pain management doctor week later he too organised to send me a copy of

my notes. I gather this is standard in England but not in Wales but I found it invaluable.

Meanwhile I have been studying Duolingo Latin for 83 days now and my husband has taken up studying

Arabic and does a daily dose too. He has signed on for an online course with the same Oxford college

when both studied seven years ago. I did Pompeii and he did a music course. I am still in touch with one of

the friends I made on the course who is a solicitor in New York. So I have regular bulletins about what is

going on in Trump’s America.

At the moment there are riots because of the unprovoked shooting in the back seven times of a black man

as he got into his car, he is still in hospital and unlikely ever to walk again but the rioting and deaths

continue.

I hear regularly from my kid brother in Australia he moved from mainland Australia to take up a post in a

university where he taught navigation for men wanting to get their captain certificates. He tells me that in

mainland Australia in certain parts there are curfews imposed by military for the nights and extremely strict

controls on making sure everyone wears masks. Unfortunately, as in Great Britain major errors were made

allowing people back into Australia from cruise ships without quarantining them or testing them.

Here in Wales the situation does not seem to be too bad and there have been no deaths recently. Speaking

for ourselves we are extremely cautious and continue ordering our food supplies from Tesco online. We’ve

had a great time experimenting with different dishes and I have returned to making my home-made soups

e.g. leek and potato(using our own potatoes) carrot and orange( I even used a few of our carrots) and an

adaptation of the French recipe using petits pois, lettuce and spring onions.

We continue to have a coffee morning by zoom every Tuesday morning over the weekend I search the

Saturday papers for interesting items of news for us to discuss then I email them around the group and

from 1030 until 1110 I take it in turn getting each person to contribute.

Sunday, August 30

a beautiful sunny day with a cloudless blue sky and we are off across Gower to visit friends for lunch. It will

be our first proper social engagement inside someone else’s house, but they do have a very large lounge in

an upside-down house with the lounge on the first floor with wonderful rural views. Our host today normally

hosts our monthly play reading group which we have had to suspend because of coronavirus.

I have been reading the news and the press today. There are still thousands of people trying to get into

Britain via France and the situation will only get worse once we finally leave the EU. I can’t see any decent

short-term or long-term solutions to this, but I do feel all the countries in Europe should be discussing this.

Now everyone appears to be saying not our problem. As the British economy is in freefall, I don’t

understand why all these hundreds of thousands of people want to come and live here. On the other hand,

if my own country had been bombed out of existence and I was starving I know I would want to escape too.

I try and support as many refugee homeless and aged charities as I can including Médecins sans Frontiers,

the Red Cross, DEC and the Trussell Trust for food banks and a local homeless charity which is also

supported by our WI.

We went to my usual hairdressers yesterday 50% of the clients were wearing face masks while awaiting

their hairdos and all the hairdressers (three of them) normally there is only one but her daughter and friend

were using the salon too. I kept my mask on whilst I was waiting but had to remove it for the shampoo and

blow dry. Outside I noticed that no one on the street was wearing a face mask.

It’s back to school next Tuesday and instructions have been vague about wearing masks here in South

Wales our daughter and four grandchildren all return to schools on Tuesday.

September 2020

Friday, September 4

I haven’t felt like writing my diary this month I have been so fed up with people all over the world taking

chances and the virus has resurged and in Caerphilly there is a total lockdown because the incidences over

72 per hundred thousand. There has been chaos with people trying to have the test done and being sent

200 miles away. There is also chaos about where it is safe to take a flight to go on holiday. There was an

incidence of a flight from the TUI airline which came from the Greek island Zante All 193 passengers and

crew on Flight 6215 from Zante to Cardiff on Tuesday August 25 have been told they must self-isolate after

it was identified as the source of at least 16 Covid-19 infections. Scotland have banned travel to and from

anywhere in Greece. Wales have banned six islands but may increase the number and England has added

seven islands, but the mainland remains exempt.

There was an illegal rave in Brecon where many people were arrested. The mood seems to be increasingly

careless about infection and the infection rates are going up all over Great Britain. I read this morning that

research on the Oxford vaccine has been suspended because one of the volunteers had fallen ill and been

taken to hospital which is quite a setback.

There is an awful lot of fake news coming out of the USA in fact everything to do with Trump and Trump’s

America is grossly over the top and the publication of the White House Memoir has made the situation

much worse.

Here in Queenton the schools are returning on a staggered system our daughter has returned to teaching

in her primary school three days a week and are two local grandchildren have had a staggered return to the

comprehensive.

How do I feel about what is going on in Great Britain? My normal boundless optimism has taken a bit of a

beating because all the news from all over the world is extremely negative. India has replaced Brazil as the

second highest infected country in the world. Several countries in the EU have suffered outbreaks and

travel is restricted to most of them.

Yesterday my husband received a letter from the chief medical officer saying that although we are not

locked up now, he is to be extremely careful and has been put on the very vulnerable list by our GP. I have

been on the very vulnerable list all along but my husband has active prostate cancer and should have been

on the same list but we got our priority slots with Sainsbury and Tesco because of my recent breast cancer

and my ongoing health problems.

We have continued to have zoom coffee mornings the group used to meet in Mosman every Tuesday

morning there are seven of us, the very deaf member can’t cope with zoom, one member is simply not

interested but is involved with her local church and one of our group is a technophobe and can’t really cope

doing the zoom by herself. Prior to our Tuesday meeting I go through two weekend papers very carefully

Saturday’s Guardian and the I and I make a list of suitable topics to discuss. One of our small group has a

history of physical health problems and has now developed mental health problems including severe

anxiety and lack of concentration so we must structure our discussions to make sure that she is always

included. One of our other members was having tests and due to have a brain scan for vascular dementia

before lockdown and her memory is poor too.

We always try to have some positive discussions which include boasting about our grandchildren and our

children if necessary. Our youngest member is 72 and our oldest member is 83. I think it is fair to say that

the widowed members have found it hard to cope being isolated.

My husband has to go to the local surgery every week for a blood test for his INR level for the warfarin he

has to take because of his artificial mitral valve. Once a month he has to go to the Hospital Path lab for a

further blood test for his PSA test which unfortunately has been rising in recent months. A few days later he

has a telephone consultation with his consultant.

We continue to order all our food from Tesco once a week we have got into a routine where we eat fresh

food very healthily which we have always done so we buy virtually no tins, cakes, biscuits or puddings but

have lots of oily fish, free range chicken and pork and lamb and lots of beautiful vegetables and a good

range of fruit. We both have a glass of orange juice with bits in it, not from concentrate, every morning

followed by a helping of muesli with a lot of fresh fruit chopped up in it. Recently we have been eating

nectarines, strawberries, grapes, and blueberries all of which are plentiful and reasonably cheap now. We

have dug up all our home-grown potatoes; the red skinned ones are excellent, and we eat some every day

and I make home-made soup at least twice a week. I have started growing green vegetables for the

autumn and have planted out spinach and Calabrese and I’m expecting a delivery of bright lights chard and

kale. Because of the warfarin my husband has to limit his intake of leafy greens but I encourage him to ea t

as much fresh fruit as possible although the healthcare assistant in the practice says he must avoid

blueberries although I can’t find any evidence online about why. We have been extremely impressed with

our GP practice and our local pharmacy who work very smoothly together to get our prescription drugs

dispensed and delivered to us.

I continue to shop online and have bought six beautiful full-length caftans very cheaply which are ideal to

wear around the house and I can fit the back brace (supplied by my Macmillan physio) underneath them. It

is elasticated with metal plates in the back and fastens with Velcro at the front. It is a struggle to get on, but

it does help with my constant back pain.

The news all over the world continues to be unbelievably bad. One thing which appalled me was the news

that Putin had organised the poisoning of the leader of the opposition Navalny with Novichok and he almost

died. He is in hospital in an induced coma in Berlin at the moment. The Russian propaganda is that he

overindulged in alcohol and had a hangover. The German specialist say he has been poisoned with a

nerve poison.

The news from the United States and the persecution of black people gets worse and worse. A black man

was shot seven times in the back by a white policeman; he is now paralysed from the waist down.

I had a phone call from a doctor employed by the pain management service, he was South African and a

keen scuba diver which was my favourite sport for 15 years until I was the victim of a road accident some

years ago. He completely reviewed my medications and very kindly sent me a copy of the notes he had

sent my GP and the GP practice organised the new drugs straightaway.

We continue to self-isolate, but our son and daughter-in-law did visit us at the weekend. We wear masks if

we go anywhere, we have a large packet of them.

We have arranged to have our flu jabs a week on Friday because my husband already has an appointment

to see the practice nurse for his three-monthly female hormone injection to combat his prostate cancer. The

Saturday morning flu jab sessions are fully booked for the next six weeks. We are very relieved to be

getting our jabs next week!

Friday September 11

Today it was announced that Birmingham will join Bolton in new restrictions as their R factor has gone up.

There will be new restrictions in Wales from Monday, Sept 14, gatherings are to be restricted to 6 from the

same family grouping, masks will have to be worn in shops and any public place inside. Further places

have been added where quarantine will be necessary when returning to Wales.

I phoned an ex-colleague today who told me her husband contracted coronavirus in March, had all the

details confirmed by the 111 number and ever since has been suffering from severe lethargy and has not

fully recovered his strength several months later.

My WI goes from strength to strength we had a committee meeting last Tuesday evening and have

organised a treasure hunt in the town centre next Wednesday and we have organised a speaker for the last

Tuesday in September, Sept 22nd, the date we normally hold a meeting, and we will do it by zoom for 40

minutes. Our previous zoom meetings have had up to 20 members so we look forward to seeing how

successful the next one will be. We have an excellent speaker coming, an actress called P. John who does

monologues, the next one will be Tales from Wales.

My husband has continued digging up my beautiful red potatoes and we have a healthy helping every day.

He has been working on clearing the five raised beds and removing all the nets. I have small green

vegetables due to arrive shortly.

I’m in regular contact by email with friends all over England and Wales, France, Canada, and Germany.

Tuesday September 15

It’s been an incredibly busy day so far. Our local Honda dealer sent a man with a van to collect my

Motability car for its annual service. He arrived about 9:30 AM. My husband then took delivery of my Greek

CDs and my new dictionary. We had our usual coffee morning zoom conference. Our main topic today was

discussing memories of our early childhood and surprisingly three of our members were brought up in

Methodist households. We were reminiscing about outside toilets and using cut up newspaper as toilet

paper. The topic was so good we did not get on to discussing what is going on in the outside world

especially Boris Johnson who has managed to railroad his decisions on the exiting EU agreements already

in place. No one mentioned Trump and his appalling self-promotion.

It’s my neighbour’s birthday on September 17 she is an extremely good friend and has been for over 23

years. They moved in the week after my first hip replacement. For my birthday earlier this year she sent her

two daughters out Tesco and other supermarkets to prepare me two trays one of savoury and one of sweet

foods so I could have a picnic in the back garden with my family. I have bought her a royal blue dashiki

caftan which fits size 12 to 24 and has an adjustable fitting to narrow the waist. I’ve also bought a bottle of

her favourite Malibu and a pretty scarf I bought from a shop in Mosman.

I continue studying my modern Greek using my Duolingo program still very frustrated that I am unable to

insert accents inside the programme. My husband does his daily dose of Arabic using Duolingo but is

looking forward to starting his course with an external branch of Oxford University online in October.

Our son is writing the very last part of his taught MA the 5000-word critical essay. He has been accepted to

do a full-time PhD in Queenton University in October. He has taken out a further student loan to do this, but

he is hopeful that it will give him qualifications to earn money once he has completed the doctorate.

Our daughter has asked my husband to collect our granddaughter from a very large hall in town on

Thursday where she will be having a ballet lesson, I suggested he wear a mask and put her in the back. In

the end he decided it was not safe for him to go at all.

Thursday, September 17

My husband’s consultant telephoned this morning and told him that the new female hormone drugs which

he started taking three weeks ago have made his PSA (cancer markers in his blood for prostate cancer)

have reduced his reading from 18 to 3. Obviously zero is ideal but this is a spectacular result. The drug

with a complicated name is couriered in once a month from Bath. We are both immensely relieved it has

been a very trying time waiting to see how this drug worked.

Friday, September 18

We went to our local surgery this morning my husband had his three-monthly injection of female hormones

and his flu jab, and I had my flu jab. The next six Saturdays were all fully booked so it was kind of them to

squeeze in me and my husband. As always, I have reacted to the jab the injection site is swollen, red and

itchy, but my husband is fine! Tomorrow our son and wife are taking their 18-year-old son to Bath Spa

University where he will be doing a degree in event management and business studies.

We heard today that our 16-year-old grandson who is at a local comprehensive will be allowed to do four A-

levels in school plus A-level Spanish, self-taught out-of-school. He already taught himself GCSE Spanish

and scored A* when he was 14. My husband and I are both linguists and we are delighted that although he

is studying two sciences, politics, and drama, he is also learning a modern language.

Sunday September 20

The weather has been glorious all week and we have had two visits from our gardeners. The two small

trees in our back garden close to the back boundary had doubled in size and needed urgent pruning. The

skyline looks totally different now. Most of my baby greens have arrived and I’ve planted them out.

World wise Trump was sent a letter containing RICIN at the White House. It was intercepted before getting

anywhere near him. He is an appalling man and a dreadful world leader, but no one should be sent poison.

This is behaving just like the Russians who tried to kill their leader of the opposition Navalny by feeding him

tea laced with Novichok. He is recovering in Berlin but apparently is planning on returning to Russia.

The newspapers are all full of fines up to £10,000 for people who break Covid 19 regulations. Now there

are three areas here in Wales under lockdown Caerphilly, Rhonda Cynon Taff, and Merthyr Tydfil.

However, the government are finally waking up to the fact that severe measures need to be taken to stop

the whole economy grinding to a halt. My impression from the news which I read and hear daily in the

press, online and on TV is that everyone is getting very fed up. I am disabled and retired and have infinite

resources here at home plus a medium size garden where we work, sit outside, and enjoy our meals and

drinks on the patio in the late autumn sunshine. We have an order booked with Tesco for Tuesday

afternoon it should have been Monday afternoon but my husband has an appointment to have his INR

tested at then surgery and I have an appointment with the hearing aid clinic to have my ears syringed or

more accurately suctioned clean. Our GP informed us that they now regard syringing as unsafe, so your

choice is either to pay and go and see private hearing specialist or use warm olive oil. Unfortunately,

despite using large amounts of warm olive oil I am still very deaf.

Monday, September 21

the newspapers are full of increasing Covid 19 infection in Great Britain. Wales does not appear to be as

severely affected as England but the need for consistent measures against it are paramount everyone

needs to avoid social interaction stick to their six-person bubble and wear masks. For the first time since

the infection began, I am starting to feel negative about the outcome; I was hopeful that things would be

getting back to normal in the autumn, but this is definitely not the case. The press warned against panic

buying and stocking up against future restrictions.

On a different topic completely Gareth Bale is on loan to Tottenham Hotspur. The Welsh international who

is paid a rumoured £600,000 per week has been effectively put on the bench by Zinedine Zidane in Real

Madrid for the last year. I cannot understand a country which is on the verge of bankruptcy paying

someone astronomical sums to sit on the bench. I hope that the Spurs can come to an agreement to keep

Gareth Bale.

This afternoon I am having my ears suctioned at 4.20 which will be a huge relief it is very difficult holding

conversations on the telephone, I have to use subtitles and put the volume up on television and I simply

can’t hear at all out of my left ear despite my hearing aid.

Wales has added 3 new areas into lockdown Newport, Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent from

18.00 tomorrow.

Wednesday September 23

The situation in Wales continues to worsen and much more restrictive measures have come in including

closing all pubs and clubs at 22:00 hours and stopping supermarkets selling alcohol after 22:00 hours. We

have been told not to stockpile or panic buy. We do not do either, but we are very grateful that we still get

priority slots with Tesco for home delivery. We received our Tesco delivery yesterday a couple of hours

earlier than usual. Apparently, we are right at the end of the line for their deliveries.

I have now tidied my desktop and spent a fruitful hour doing my Duolingo modern Greek. That I do much

better when I do the Greek in the mornings not the afternoons or evenings.

I cancelled our coffee morning yesterday because two of our members were not able to take part.

Yesterday evening our WI organised P. John to do Tales from Wales for 45 minutes. Members who

listened to her all the way through seem to have been 12. We have offered to get members online and

show them how to do zoom but no one has accepted as yet. I heard from my garden supplier that all

vegetables I just ordered will be delayed until October, but it will give me longer to get the beds ready.

Saturday September 26

We received news yesterday that Llanelli will be in lockdown from today Saturday and Swansea and Cardiff

will be in lockdown from 6p.m Sunday. A lot of people have been panic buying particularly toilet paper. I

read all the whingeing comments on the BBC website about the latest lockdowns. I posted a comment

saying why bother stockpiling toilet paper after the war we used squares of cutup newspaper in the outside

toilets if you have to stockpile anything why not stockpile something useful like masks or antiseptic hand

gel. When I checked 13 people agreed with me and three disagreed. I’m always careful what I put on public

websites some people do not suffer from the same inhibition.

Shocking news yesterday when we discovered a policeman on the verge of retirement had been shot dead

with the gun by a prisoner who then turned the gun on himself how he got into the police station with the

gun nobody knows.

Today in Saturday’s papers we discovered that Navalny’s flat in Moscow has been repossessed. Both our

papers had an extra flyer urging everyone to sign up for the contact app. My husband did so yesterday as I

do not have an iPhone only a throwaway one for emergencies, I don’t think it’s appropriate I don’t actually

go out anywhere anyway.

My next-door neighbour’s daughter very kindly bought us a dozen free range eggs. We are hoping she will

come and do some housework for me on Saturday mornings when we finally get out of lockdown. At the

moment we are doing the housework between us. I concentrate on making sure all the washbasins, shower

and toilets are always disinfected and clean at all times.

We did our usual Saturday morning quizzes from the I and the Guardian. We both hit a new low on the

linking words normally we get all six but today we hit our lowest score ever with four. I have just spent three

quarters of an hour doing Duolingo modern Greek apparently, I have done two more units than last week.

Since I had my ears suctioned I can hear the recordings much better. I am getting more confident at

spelling words without looking them up. I need to go through my two notebooks and rationalise how I have

laid out the vocabulary and the verbs I am also very slowly learning to use a Greek English dictionary.

Wednesday September 30

My last diary day. Very sadly most of Wales is now locked down although essential workers like our

schoolteacher daughter obviously have to go to work. It means we can’t entertain friends in the garden any

more and obviously we must wear masks at all times. A friend in Cambridgeshire phoned me up and told

me she had been to choir practice(I thought all choir practices were forbidden) apparently the choir practice

took place in the graveyard and they all wore masks. There were only seven members of the choir there

and everything ground to a halt when one of the ladies burst out, ’I know him, I didn’t know he was dead.’

After she had read the words on the tombstone in front of her. They tried holding the choir practice in the

church too still wearing their masks apparently not too successfully. The acoustics did not work, and all

their facemasks got soaked!

I will continue writing my diary for myself as I always planned on writing one anyway but I do hope

someone enjoys reading my musings on what is happening here in South Wales with coronavirus.