Nailed It

A hospital during a global pandemic would not be first on my list of places to go on a sunny weekend, so of course I have ended up going to two.  

Over the last few days I noticed that my left middle finger was swollen and painful.  By Saturday morning I could not bend the finger, or make a fist (for righteous anger, for which there are so many reasons).  The red swelling was creeping down the finger and going a bit purple.  So to Ealing Hospital Urgent Care, where marvellous people gave me antibiotics and codeine, and a referral to the hand trauma clinic at the Royal Free for this morning.

This seemed a bit over-zealous, but the marvellous people at the Royal Free stuck needles in me, swabbed me with iodine, and then removed my whole fingernail.  Somehow, I am managing to type with a bandaged sausage finger.

Things noted:  Hampstead might be the loveliest place in all of London.  Also pretty much nobody on public transport is wearing face-covering.  I, with my cut-off leg of legging, felt quite overdressed.  Even the doctor who did my hand was wearing no mask.  Clearly I didn't get the memo.  I will continue to wear something when I'm around people in an enclosed area.  Apart from anything else, it makes me feel mysterious.

Going to have a lay down now.  My manicure had exhausted me.

La Rentrée

I'm a vital player in putting together a plan for phased re-entry to our Laboratory.

What this actually means is, I am getting a lot of emails from people and I have no idea how to digest all the information and communicate it to our people for a possible re-entry starting next week. 

I say just open the doors.  Just let people come in. 

Those living far away will probably stay home.  Those with childcare issues will stay home.  Those who are a bit scared of the tube will stay home.  I can go in and do my job.  There is a lot for me to do but, ironically, there is as yet no plan for admin staff to return.  This plan was obviously drawn up by someone who doesn't understand who actually runs things.   Apparently I can prepare the Lab for everyone remotely.  I have skills but this is a stretch.

In the meantime I live on coffee, and snooze in the afternoon watching re-runs of "The Thick of It" because it seems like a fairy tale compared to our actual government.

Whose Line

The anxiety continues; gallops almost.  One of the horsemen of the apocalypse.  Good to know that something is moving.  I'm still breathing into it, as that seems to be the only weapon I have.  I push the breath down, through the worst of it.  This works for about thirty seconds.  Fortunately I breathe quite often.

Today I took a different walk for my shopping/foraging, which seemed bold.  Trees have bushy legs like a fluffy cat, and the grass is out of control, heavy-headed with seed.  I am taking Benadryl on the daily, as the youngsters say, just so that I can go outside without sounding like a broken accordion.

I spoke to a lady in the supermarket about succulents, and then had a brief chat at the checkout.  It's the most talking I've done in ages.

Yesterday, Tony Slattery liked a Tweet that I'd made on one of his Twitter posts.  I've always had a soft spot for him. Now we are both old and resembling burst sofas, I just wish for him to be well.

We of a certain age are somehow bound to Tony Slattery.  Dark and seal-like in his youth, with a dangerous edge, he has become slightly undone with age.  Those of us who are a little unhinged recognise a kindred spirit.  Many years ago I saw him the worse for wear on a train and my heart lurched.  And then I met him through mutual improv friends one night at the Phoenix in London. He said "I'm Tony" and I replied "I know".  Because it was a fucking Richard Curtis film.  And then we moved to Notting Hill and I had his floppy-haired babies.

Actually I moved to Brussels.

Sweet and Low

I doubt that many of us will come out of this as heroes.  There are those who every day put their well-being at risk in order to do their jobs and while this is nothing but heroic, I suspect that they don't feel like heroes either.

Most days I feel like anxious fudge.  And, appropriately enough, I'm fudging most things.  Not quite as badly as some heads of state, but fairly badly.  Earlier this week I gave myself a talking to in the hope that breathing through the fudge would calm the anxiety, and allow me to work.  This was effective as long as I remembered to do it.  The trouble with being anxious fudge is that this who you are.  Fudge is not, for example, a serene mint cream.  We'd all like to be a mint cream. 

Most of most days is spent trying not to lay on the bed watching true crime documentaries, or something about Mary Magdalen, so that I can nap.  Right now the urge to nap is overwhelming.  This is all so damned exhausting.  I would give anything to go back to work, even it means wearing a pillowcase over my head.

Heroism on a very, very small scale will be just getting through this bit.  And then we can get back to fires and floods and Brexit for some light relief.

Allergy in the Time of COVID

This is not a romance, be strongly advised of that.  Today as I woke from a nap while watching "The Elephant Man" an email was read to my eyes, ending...and I cannot tell you why.  Somebody in my nap-dream had broken off with me by email and although it was disappointing, it was not entirely surprising.  I would probably break up with me too.

I have dreadful allergy symptoms at the moment, even when indoors.  Seeing as there is little to be allergic to in my flat except dust, most of which is my own dander, it seems I am basically allergic to myself.  This seems to be taking the auto-immune response a bit far.

This weekend, the world has apparently gone back to some semblance of normal, choosing to believe that sunshine proffers immunity to a prickly, somewhat deadly virus.  It is understandable, in a way.  We've all been locked up, or down, for so long that it would be easy to think "Well, I'm either fine or I've had it and anyway, look, a park."  I had a dog like that once, she would go nuts when she saw grass from the car.

I shall continue to stay indoors with my violent skin flakes, not because I'm good at following rules but because I want a future, and to see you all again.  When the time is right.