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COVID-19

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Break a leg…

October 19, 2022 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

…no – not actually!

So – a couple (or more) of posts back I mentioned that we had finally plucked up the courage to return to the theatre here in Victoria for the first time since the start of the pandemic. On the very day of The Girl’s birthday we had tickets booked once again for a matinee at The Belfry.

I further mentioned in that post that we had had a phone call from the theatre – on the morning of the performance – informing us regretfully that as a result of an unspecified illness (not Covid – or so they said) that day’s performance would be cancelled.

After a little too-ing and fro-ing we managed to get our tickets rebooked for the following weekend and on the anointed day duly trundled our way into town to see the show.

We eschewed the refreshments in the foyer cafe – eager to keep our masks firmly on – and took our seats for the performance. A short while after the stated start time the Front of House manager appeared to make an announcement. There would be a short delay – she declared – because of a technical issue. We were welcome to retreat back to the foyer for ten to fifteen minutes whilst things were sorted out.

Ten to fifteen minutes later we were back in our seats and hoping to see the house lights go down.

Instead we were again treated to the presence of the Front of House manager. This time she admitted that there was yet again an unspecified illness (again – not Covid related, supposedly) and the show would not be able to go ahead. Ticket refunds through the box office etc, etc…

Well! This was – frankly – bizarre. I have never before – in all my years of theatre-going – been bumped out of a theatre after the advertised curtain-up time. It would have been nice to have received a proper explanation.

Sadly, we really wanted to see that show but were unable to get tickets for any of the subsequent performances since they were all already sold out.

Hmmm!

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A mixed bag

October 7, 2022 in Life in BC | Permalink

…random ramblings on a recent rag-bag of topics from the Pacific northwest…

First things first… ‘Tis once again the time of year to wish The Girl a very happy – if slightly belated (in real world, if not in blog-world terms) birthday! Yay! Happy B-day!

Life here on the west coast of Canada trundles along in its usual way. We are both busy and things are returning to some semblance of order now that the western world has decided that COVID is over and done with (even if it isn’t!). Secure in the knowledge that our multiple vaccine boosters and immunity from having had a dose of the lurgy make us a little more protected than we were before, we have on occasion stepped out to eat and to attend other public social events.

We even decided that it was safe enough to go back to the theatre – a least for a few months until the ‘immunity’ wears off. We had tickets for a play at The Belfry for The Girl’s birthday but the performance was cancelled at the last minute due to ‘illness’ (now, what could that be?). Our tickets have been rescheduled for this coming weekend, so let’s see how that goes.

Following the grim (as in cold and wet) spring and early summer, concerning which I posted at length earlier this year, the weather finally got its act together and we are enjoying a most pleasant Indian Summer. Temperatures remain in the 20s C and we have had no rain to speak of for several months. The garden could really do with some to be honest, but I guess it will come soon enough.

Apropos of very little, I feel that I should extend my commiserations to those who yet reside in the UK. Though I try not to comment on politics in these dark days it would not be – I believe – controversial to describe the UK political establishment since 2016 a a complete sh*tshow. However, even by such measures the new incumbents of 10 Downing Street might just prove be the worst and most dangerous yet.

Why do I care? Well – last week’s shenanigans wiped a considerable chunk off my monthly pension income as the chancellor carelessly crashed sterling and sent exchange rates plummeting (or soaring! – depends which end of the chain one is at). The subsequent recovery has been encouraging, but the knowledge that this ruling cabal’s dangerous ideology might well cause permanent damage is chilling to those of us who have no say in the matter.

In a strange Hitchcock-ian coda: yesterday I was out in the garden, underneath our deck (the which forms a sort of veranda across the whole width of the back of the house). It was impossible to miss the fact that – out in the stand of trees that border our property to the east – a huge and raucous convocation of birds had gathered. I could not actually see most of them, as the trees are tall and there is plenty of foliage. They were making sufficient noise, however, that it was impossible to ignore them. Quite startlingly so, in fact.

I took one step out from the cover of the deck and immediately the whole gathering took off. There must have been thousands of them (clearly of more than one species). Their parting darkened the skies for a moment or two and then they were gone – and a sudden and total silence descended.

Now – I wonder what this portends?

 

 

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Welcome back my friends…

August 20, 2022 in Life as we know it, Life in BC | Permalink

“…to the show that never ends”

Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Though it did look for a while there as though the show might end after all…

Welcome back indeed to the Brentwood Bay summer season of Music in the Park. This year – for the first time since the COVID pandemic struck in 2020 – we have again been able to indulge ourselves with the weekly free concerts that have for such a long time been such a splendid feature of life on the Saanich peninsula. I have no doubt at all that similar stories can be told for other al fresco summer music seasons on the island – but the Brentwood Bay events are local to us and much beloved by all of the communities in these parts.

Now, you might – with good reason – cavil that there is little point in my writing about this splendid seasonal entertainment… when the concert series has just finished!

Good point – well made!

The thing is, of course, that we were out of the country for the first part of the season and sufficiently badly stricken with the hideous lurgy that we were unable to attend the first couple of events subsequent to our return. We did, however, get to enjoy the final two weeks of the program and I did not want to miss the opportunity to raise a cheer to mark the occasion.

We are particularly grateful for the return of this relatively safe form of entertainment. The Victoria Fringe – in a somewhat truncated and localised form – is also upon us, but frankly we are very unlikely to partake of any of the offerings. One weighs in the balance the risks of sitting in a small, crowded venue with others who may have contracted the virus against the desirability of the fare on offer. Frankly, nothing in this year’s festival moves us sufficiently that we are prepared to take that sort of risk.

The same is true of the local music scene (when not in the parks!). Local venues such as the Mary Winspear in Sidney have started booking acts again, but one really has to want to see something to overcome the reluctance to expose oneself to another dose…

I guess such things will improve slowly over time and, though we do somewhat resent the way that a huge chunk of experience has been denied us, we also acknowledge that these are our choices.

I guess that life was ever just such an ongoing battle of risk versus reward.

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Hoorah!

August 7, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

‘Nuff said…!

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The uninvited guest

July 29, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Pain: An uninvited guest that comes into our lives that demands our fullest attention before it can even think about leaving us.”

Unknown

Bah!!!

Well – I guess it was inevitable…

When The Girl and I returned the other day from our travels abroad we brought with us an uninvited guest.

That’s right – we got COVID!… and that after all the worrying earlier in the year as to whether or not we should be traveling at all.

To be fair – the world is a very different place to that which it was a year ago. Back then we went to great lengths to keep ourselves healthy. Now, in many countries, the assumption is that – vaccinated or not – one will eventually succumb to the virus. Here in Canada we may still be wearing masks to go grocery shopping – and certainly if we go to the theatre or to a concert. For goodness sake – even our national carrier still insists on masks being worn at all times – which is certainly not the case with all airlines.

In the UK and in France the great majority of folk do not wear masks at all and many other precautions seem to be exercised in a desultory fashion if at all. I read a piece the other day by a Brit who had recently been infected, the which meant that he was no longer one of the 15% of the population that had not had the virus – and thus joining the 85% that have! The gist of his piece was that the majority of those recently infected belong to the group that had never had COVID, rather than being re-infections of those that have.

Now, The Girl and I are both inoculated to the eyeballs – four shots apiece (the which clearly did not stop us catching the wretched thing!) – and we are now isolating and relying on dearest friends to do our shopping for us. My symptoms are mercifully mild – little more than a scratchy throat and a predilection for sneezing. The Girl – as is sadly the way with such things – is having a tougher time, as a sinus infection seems to have taken advantage of her weakened state to set up shop alongside the spiky thing. Not fair! Not fair at all!!

The only bright side (and certainly not one that I will bring to The Girl’s attention just yet awhile) is that our four shots will shortly be joined by the additional immunity that comes with a having a dose of the blasted thing…

Hey ho!

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Coming and going

May 12, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Like everyone else’s our lives changed dramatically and unexpectedly a little more than two years ago when the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic required us to re-evaluate how we lived – what might yet be possible and what no longer was.

How we saw the outside world changed almost overnight and our relationship with it became suddenly completely different. Where once we would have thought little of hopping our way around the globe with the insouciance of seasoned travellers the outside world had abruptly become a dangerous place from which – once one had sallied forth – one might not return unscathed.

Entirely logical fears about exposure to infection meant that the bounds of our existence became dramatically narrowed – like the walls closing in on one. For a while we found it hard to countenance the thought of venturing outside our own neighbourhood – let alone of leaving the island. It was more than a year before we plucked up the courage to cross the Georgia Strait to the mainland for the first time. We mostly found ourselves only too happy to remain safely in our own little cocoon.

Further the thought of sitting for hours cooped up with other people in a metal tube over the Atlantic filled us with horror – not helped by the lurid reports of increased incidences of ‘air-rage’ over such trivialities as mask-wearing etiquette. We were clearly nowhere near ready to venture forth again into the great unknown…

…and yet – this year something has shifted.

In part this change came about because we had visitors from abroad – not once, but twice! In the first instance (as trailed in this post) dear friends from England called us with the news that they were coming to Victoria in February for a job interview. We were excited at the prospect of seeing them again but also of the possibility that they might eventually once again become neighbours. As it turned out that didn’t happen – the job opportunity proving not to be all that it was cracked up to be – but we did spend a very happy few days entertaining our friends and being briefed by them as to the essential aspects of international travel in a post-COVID world.

We then had another most pleasant communication from an old theatre friend of mine. I had not seen this particular thespist since he moved to the US way back in the last century, though we do still trade yearly Christmas newsletters between Victoria and New York. He and his partner (and his partner’s mother) were planning a trip to visit friends in Seattle and – having ventured so close – would have considered it a shame not to come that little bit further to visit us. We were – naturally – completely delighted and once again enjoyed a wonderful few days of sightseeing, dining, making (or re-making) acquaintance and – of course – of much reminiscing.

These two visitations did wonders at bringing us out of our shells a little bit and enabling us to contemplate actually heading back out into the wide blue yonder. An invitation to an event on the other side of the pond simply added to a growing conviction that it is – perhaps – once again time to think about travelling.

As they say – watch this space…

 

 

 

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Unmasked

March 20, 2022 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidIt is almost exactly two years since the first lockdown in British Columbia in response the then emerging COVID-19 pandemic. The post-secondary Computer Science class that I was teaching at the time had about three weeks to run before the end of term and that last burst of educational activity was abruptly moved online with but the slightest of warnings.

That all seems an age ago now – which is, frankly, somewhat dismaying.

The College rather reluctantly stuck with online-only teaching for just over a year, during which time I taught two further courses from my studio at home. I must admit to have rather enjoyed the experience. Then – last autumn – we were summoned back to campus for a somewhat nervous term teaching face to face again – but this time wearing masks.

This side of Christmas I started another new course – on the College’s other campus – in rooms with which I was not familiar… and this in the face of the rapidly-spreading Omicron surge!

Finally – this week just passed – British Columbia followed the example of other Canadian provinces (and the slightly earlier one of the UK) in revoking its mask mandates in many areas… including in classrooms.

Thus it was last Tuesday that I faced for the first time a class of which about half were wearing masks and half were not. Safe to say that I was – and will continue to be – counted amongst the number of those taking sensible precautions.

So – what does this all look like now? The guidance that we have received from reputable official sources is that – after ensuring that one has taken up whatever level of vaccination is currently available (in the case of BC two shots plus a booster) – the next most useful precaution that one can take is to wear a suitable mask for whatever activity one is currently engaged upon.

The hierarchy of mask suitability is thus (from lowest level to highest) – cloth mask (not good!) – non-medical mask – surgical mask (level 2 or 3) – a surgical mask covered with a cloth mask (to keep the mask tight on the face) – or finally an N95 (or better) respirator. I wear a surgical mask covered with a cloth mask for things such as grocery shopping, but I wear a respirator in the classroom.

In the image at the top of this post one can see (from top down) – a cloth mask – a level 3 surgical mask – 3 different types of N95 respirators. As you can see – from struggling to find appropriate equipment back in January we now have a sufficiency…

…at least for now!

 

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Ask your doctor – 1

February 22, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

”Take charge of hidden, sneaky sources of chronic inflammation that can trigger illness and disease by wearing comfortable shoes daily, getting an annual flu vaccine, and asking your doctor why you’re not on a statin and baby aspirin if you’re over the age of forty”.

David Agus

Yes indeed – ask your doctor… but you had better be prepared for what he or she might say – and indeed what that might lead to. Still, it is good to feel well looked after.

Gentle readers may recall that around this time last year my ever-zealous doctor drew my attention (as part of my annual check-up) to signs that my liver might be developing a certain fattiness and that a change of lifestyle was probably overdue – a diagnosis confirmed by means of an ultrasound of the organ concerned.

Actually – regular readers would not have been able to read about this last February as I didn’t post the pieces concerned until May. Well – one wants to see how these things pan out before committing word of them to an enduring forum such as this.

Anyway – as reported back then, a fair bit of weight was lost by yours truly (and remains so) and a variety of acceptable comestibles were sourced that were apparently both palatable and yet reasonably healthy. At this year’s edition of the examination my doctor nodded approvingly at my liver stats and suggested that – with the passing of another year – we might revisit the ultrasound process with a view to determining if the fattiness were gone… which is, apparently, a quite feasible outcome.

Now – all of these health related shenanigans seem to me quite enough to be getting on with, particularly with Covid lurking constantly in the background waiting for the slightest slip-up. The fact, however,  that my doctor complains (unsurprisingly!) of being swamped with work doesn’t seem to stop him jumping onto the slightest casual remark and turning it into a further investigation…

Actually – that is unfair. He is simply admirably conscientious – and I did raise another matter with him during the year the which set in motion a further unexpected chain of events.

The tale thereof will, however, have to wait for the second part of this missive – which will follow forthwith.

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Steady as she goes!

January 12, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

No sooner has the cold snap moderated itself and the snows begun to melt than we are subjected to yet another ‘atmospheric river’. We are in for another five days of solid rainfall. Who knows if there will be anything left to wash away!

I find myself – slightly to my surprise – teaching once again… though this time a different course (albeit covering similar ground) at the College’s other campus in teaching rooms that I have not previously experienced.

I had seriously hoped that the burgeoning increase in Omicron infections – for which Canada and BC are doing their best to match what is happening in other parts of the world – would result in the College being forced to go back to online only teaching in the short term. Who knows – that might yet happen – but, sadly, we are currently face to face in the classroom.

Like most teachers I much prefer to teach face to face, but these are not ordinary times and I fear that the provincial government has reached the point at which it throws its hands in the air, stands well back and lets the pandemic rip. The hope seems to be that Omicron will cause less destruction than previous variants and will pass through more quickly – leaving us (if all goes ‘well’) with our disease status downgraded from ‘pandemic’ to ‘endemic’.

I sense a great deal of finger-crossing and wood-touching here and not a lot of truly informed scientific opinion involved, but it is what it is. After all – I don’t have to do this!

I am, of course, taking all the precautions that I can. I am double-vaccinated and boosted and I am now wearing only N95 respirators in the classroom. These I have had to source myself (not easily done!) as the powers that be have decreed them not strictly necessary. I am taking no chances! It doesn’t help that all my teaching is now on a single day a week, meaning that I have to keep the respirator on for a straight five hours and more. I can already tell that my poor nose is going to take a pounding – to say nothing of my voice!

To make matters even more complex we are having to accommodate students who can’t – or won’t – come into College. I am thus streaming and recording the classes as I teach them. This adds yet another layer of complexity to something that is already quite a stretch for me.

Oh well! I like a challenge – but there may be limits…

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Busy, busy, busy…

December 16, 2021 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

It is, arguably, a little bit sad that if I look back over the years that I have been churning out entries for this journal, a regular subject of the December offerings has been just how busy everything has been, how tired we are and how much we are looking forward to some quiet downtime over the Christmas break.

I didn’t actually look back to the archive of any previous December’s postings before making that statement. I didn’t have to. I just know that it is true!

The reason that it is a little bit sad is because The Girl and I are notionally retired and should thus probably have time on our hands rather than finding things a bit of a grind. Let’s face it – we are clearly not tuckered out because of our wild round of pre-Christmas socialising. The pandemic has seen to that!

Oh well!

For me the term at College has just finished, the final exam has been sat and marked, term projects have been submitted and assessed and I am just in the process of wrapping things up and recording grades and suchlike. At the point at which in days of yore I might have been enjoying a little post-term social relaxation I am instead contemplating the next term (what here in Canada is pessimistically – if realistically – called the Winter term). The course that I was scheduled to teach has – for the second year running – been heavily under-subscribed (wonderful to be so popular… not!). My Chair has offered me a different course; one which I have not taught before and which would – once again – require that I mug up afresh on another curriculum and set of practices.

Am I getting too old for this sort of thing? Feels as though I might be.

The Girl (who is of course but a youngster) is also finding work something of a grind and – though she has been able these past two years to work almost exclusively from home – there are threats from her volunteer  service that everyone might be dragged back into the office for the New Year.

The Omicron variant may, of course, have a considerable say in how things actually pan out for either or for both of us. How will it all end up? In truth – nobody knows!

So my message to good and gentle readers out there is this: Take good care of yourselves, stay safe and don’t take any foolish risks (in particular not for misguided ideological reasons)…

As Bette Davis didn’t quite say in ‘All About Eve’ – “Buckle up – it’s going to be a bumpy ride“…

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