Like a Longfin Eel

  “What a lovely day” “It is a lovely day” “I think I’ll sit in the sun forever” “I won’t” “I will” “If I sit in the sun all day I get grumpy” “I don’t, I just feel lovely” =============================== NZ being in lockdown now hasn’t made me feel as far away as one might think. Practically, I’m as close to my mum, dad and step mum as my sisters are now, at least for the next few weeks. I’m getting updates on baking from Auckland and Australia as my sisters share recipes. And meanwhile, I am able to work (yes more Covid mums 😔) and visit friends (sticking to outdoor activities and small groups).  I have a friend who lives in Cornwall; her husband grows Himalayan SeaBerries and when I went to visit her I was slightly brain dead and happily tagged along with her whānau activities, which included a short stint of harvesting of these bright, tart capsules that clutch to spiny branches. We swam a couple of times in the river, slightly downstream from where Prince Charles has a h...

  A week of annual leave and I was able to do a tour from the source of the wye to the heart of Hereford. The Wye is a river that serves as a border of sorts between wales and England. Wales has stuck to more stringent social distancing rules; and England is now pretty loose; so a good way of telling whether we we in wales or not was whether the masks were on or off. Either side of the river; It was very green.  At one point, we did a tour of a small cider farm; a couple from London had settled near the Whitney bridge and started an orchard of rare apple varieties. It was almost like the opposite of gentrification - eccentric young hipsters potentially, yeah, but a palpable desire to understand the earth, the stories, the dialect, the language, the words. They were drawing history into the bones of their business model; but also the future. There was a freshly mown paddock that they envision; if climate change continues at the rate it is; will be good for grapes soon.  Th...

A year ago today; Auckland went into its second lockdown.  Today, in Exeter I’m heading home to sleep and do night shifts tonight; as one of our staff members’ spouses has got Covid post double vaccination. The reality is that Covid post double vaccine is much less troublesome.  But Covid amoung the unvaccinated is as bad as ever.  Pregnant women, for a wide range of reasons, including recent hesitancy from medical staff to recommend vaccination, are much less likely to have been vaccinated. There have only been a handful of mums sick with Covid; but they have been sick. We are poised. Devon fared well in the first and second waves; thankfully. But this; the third wave; feels like our turn. It’s going okay, but there is a balance: at the moment we are trying to continue normal clinics and surgeries while still appropriately isolating staff to protect our patients.  Ever Onwards. Kiwis, get vaccinated. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/09/worrying-numbers-of-...