Daily stuff

What I’ve been up to in general.

Isolation day 20

by feurmann

Well, I had an expedition all by myself this morning! And I got to dress up in adult clothes — proper trousers, my black RMs, and a jacket! The purpose of this outing, officer, was to see my GP in Camberwell Junction. I usually allow half-an-hour for this trip, which I find this leaves time to find a parking spot, and walk to the practice. This morning I was there in ten minutes, with more than twenty minutes to go until the appointment time.

At the risk of repeating myself, as a high risk category patient, I had been instructed to wait in my car until called into the surgery. While doing so I had time to pair my mobile phone to the GT’s audio system. I get very few calls in the car, so going through these steps hadn’t been high on my to-do list (which was why I’d left it until this morning). Incidentally, using a phone while driving has been found a significant driver distraction, even using hands-free. Apparently it adds a hazard factor equivalent to drink-driving. I reasoned, though, that having the mobile paired up would at least allow me to quickly reject a call by pressing the red phone icon on the dashboard. 

I was duly called and entered the surgery. I had been expecting to see a crowded waiting room full of people sneezing and hacking in all directions. There was no-one in there at all. The reception staff were all gowned up, with those transparent shields around their faces. I saw my GP, obtained most of my prescriptions, and got a flu shot as well. This was a pleasant surprise — we had been told the practice had none in stock. (This was not quite correct: they had no freebies for over 65s, but they did have some for which they were charging a small sum.) They were definitely out of the pneumonia vaccine, though, free or otherwise, and I was added to the existing queue for that.

I headed home, where I had a coffee and the rest of my breakfast. Then my beloved and I headed out to get a rather intimidating list of groceries. I waited in the car like the last time, but used the time to make a phone call and send an email, then listened to ABC Classic for a while. My beloved appeared steering the trolley; I assisted with transferring the contents thereof to the car, then took the trolley back. (Loo paper seems to have returned to the shelves, incidentally.)

It is remarkable how the previously mundane act of food shopping has come to require so much of her and my energy. This is a surprisingly complex phenomenon: when I look at it closely, I can see three factors behind it. The first is that I can’t do the food shopping myself, as I used to. I therefore need to involve my beloved in these outings as well; this means in turn that the shopping expeditions need to be fitted around her work. The second is that doing the regular food shop is a concrete task that can, for a while, restore normality. The pandemic has become such an attention sink, and has brought so many changes to so many people’s lives, everyone is getting change fatigue. So it is a relief to focus on something familiar and mundane. The process needs to be done a bit differently for a time, but we still get to fill the cupboard and fridge at the end of it. There is an atavistic reassurance in knowing that, for the next few days at least, we have food and drink. The third may not be a factor for households where no-one was in the paid workforce. For us, however, there is just a bigger volume of food involved now. We are now preparing and consuming three meals a day at home, seven days a week. More meals means more food, more prepping, and more cleaning up. As I posted previously, the dishwasher fills up, and the compost bin needs emptying, just about each day. 

Anyway, when we got home, I made some lunch. While we had that we watched another episode of Deutschland 83 on Stan. We had somehow missed watching this on SBS free to air; there is now a second series, Deutschland 85. Deutschland 83 is well worth catching up on. The episodes are beautifully filmed and art directed; the East German households are chock full of chunky ceramics, patterned wallpaper, busy light fittings, velvet couches, mid-century wall units, and so on. Performances and scripts are all strong. Afterwards we went for a walk up to and around the park, in the lovely sun. With all these outings I racked up over 7,500 steps for the day, around 5.5 kilometres.

Theoretically next week is my last of isolation. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if it lasted for longer than that. We are somewhat getting the hang of it now.

Isolation day 19

by feurmann

The last couple of days have been busy in terms of interaction. On Monday we a virtual drinks session via Zoom with our niece. This went well, apart from a slight mishap involving their son and a chair leg. This was quickly resolved off camera, however, and the meeting resumed afterwards. Yesterday morning I also had a teleconsult with my psychiatrist (I needed a renewed authority to be supplied with my ADD medication). This was followed in about half an hour by another Zoom meeting.

The latter, my second Zoom get-together, was a group exercise session delivered by my exercise physiologist Lauren. She dispensed both workout instructions and technical support with her usual aplomb. There were five aging participants — as Shakespeare would say, her subjects we — although that is usually under fair control. All applied ourselves to the physical and technological challenges. The session was quite a lift, as was the opportunity to chat briefly to my oncology exercise buddies. I used to go to a Thursday morning class in RL, but am intending to keep up the Tuesday morning meetings as well from now. If any such opportunities come your way, my advice is — get set up, and give them a go! Forgive the cliché, but we are all social animals. I find these virtual contacts make a fair-size hole in the quarantine wall. 

Having grown perhaps overconfident after this experience, I suggested to my ex-RMIT buddies that the face-to-face coffee morning we used to have each month in 3D could be transferred to Zoom. My email turned into a bit of a magnum opus — writing a procedure again, after five years. They were undeterred by my prolixity, though, and many were interested to explore a virtual meeting further. So I set one up this morning, crossed my fingers, and sent them out the meeting invitation. (My earlier instructions were probably superfluous, given that the recipients are all capable retired library folk. But they allow me an occasional bit of mansplaining.) 

My beloved and I have just been for our walk, in which we racked up nearly 4 kilometres. (Incidental exercise over the rest of the day will get me easily past that mark.) We took our usual route up to Wattle Park, which like most such includes an oval. The last time or so that we we did this walk, we counted the steps around the circumference of the oval. A circuit takes 600-odd steps, equating to 0.46 of a kilometre;  two times around obviously gets you pretty close to a kilometre.

The reason for all these calculations is that my beloved wants to maintain and step up (sorry) her aerobic exercise. I do a circuit of the oval with her, then either do some stretches or just read my messages, while she does a second circuit for a bit of HIIT. For those new to this, High Intensity Interval Training has been around for a few years. It involves alternating moderate speed exercise with short bursts of going flat out. This is supposed to be very time efficient, i.e. one can achieve a bigger training effect with this type of exercise than with the same amount of time at a constant speed. (There is quite a research base behind this claim, apparently.) While I was participating in the ACU research study a few months ago, I started each session with about 20 minutes of HIIT cardio. Since then I have lost a bit of condition, but I intend in future to accompany my beloved on this second circuit. (She leaves me in the dust at present — not that it’s a competition — OK, it is.)

Off to my GP tomorrow for some prescription renewals. I had hoped to have a flu and pneumonia shot while at the practice, but they have none. I rang a nearby pharmacist, but it was the same story there. Apparently the vaccine is in short supply — everyone is waiting on deliveries. The GP practice has me on a wait list.

 

Isolation days 17 & 18

by feurmann

This post covers Sunday 5th & Monday 6th April. I wrote the part covering 5th April on the day, but didn’t post it. I didn’t want to discard it, so I am doing effectively a double post in one.

Day 17

For most of my devoted readership, today marks the end of daylight saving. I find this is a day that always gives me a little lift; the morning have been so dark for weeks. I was up early this morning and adjusted the clocks. In previous years, this seemed to take quite a while, and required consulting the instruction manuals for several appliances. There are still four clocks which need to be reset manually:

  1. the  one in the microwave;
  2. the one in the convection oven immediately below it;
  3. the alarm clock in the second bedroom; and
  4. the LED travel clock in the master bedroom.

The time display in the kitchen speaker resets itself automatically, as do the internal clocks in our phones, tablets, and laptop, and the all-important one in the Blu-Ray recorder. (I always do a dummy recording just to check that this has reset itself to the correct time; otherwise all the programs I have set up to record, don’t.)

Remember the old clock radios? I found them either too noisy or too bright. I had one in the 70s which had a drop-leaf time display; I used to lie there waiting for each minute to tick over. The newer ones with an LED display were silent, but they would light up the room. The best alarm for me is the one that is part of my fitness tracker. (This doesn’t ring, but vibrates.)

I have read a few things recently about the value of having a daily routine in isolation. Someone who practices this is the American author Vivian Gornick, who is 85 and walks “two or three” miles a day. She describes her daily routine in the NYR Daily:

I work in the morning, walk in the early afternoon, read for four hours in the late afternoon, make a little supper, watch television for two or three hours, go to bed. The part of that schedule that sustains me is the four hours of reading. Then the world disappears, my distraction evaporates, I am wholly at peace, and end up feeling something necessary for survival: refreshed.

(Apologies for cross posting. NB: the link above points to the main NYR Daily site. The information in the quote  was contained in their weekly newsletter, for which one can register from the New York Review of Books site. This registration is free. The good NYR Daily even seems to make its archives freely available in full text, even to hoi polloi like me. .)

I envy Vivian the time she sets aside to read. I am a bit short on p-books that I feel up to reading, but the e-books from our local library are not a bad substitute. Too much screen time, though, is definitely a bad thing for my sleep.

We have evolved a sort of routine. The mornings are a good time to put a load or two of washing on, giving it a chance to get dry over the day. We are both more energetic at this time of day, so it makes sense also to schedule a walk after breakfast. (I recommend this, even when you mightn’t feel like it.) When we return it is time for a bit more to eat and a coffee. After this, I often do some writing, or play some music. After lunch we might watch a show, recorded or streamed, or read for a bit. I tend to get sleepy around two-ish; unfortunately, this seldom translates into much actual sleep. Either way, I get a bit of a second wind in the late afternoon, and this can be an opportunity to do a couple of small tasks before cooking dinner. (My exercise class on Tuesdays and Thursdays are my the only regular appointments; fortunately these occur on the morning of each day.)

I saw the other day that Bruce Dawe had died. It is not every Australian poet whose passing makes it into the newspapers. That his was so noted says something about the accessibility of his work, the exposure this received through being featured in school syllabi, and the sheer length of his career. I haven’t read much of him, but I liked the obituary in The Conversation ; this mentioned the blending of the lyrical with the colloquial, together with its bravery, wit, and sensitivity. It also spoke of his commitment to

 poetry’s place as a voice for, about, and from life as it’s lived by the most desperate and the most ordinary of us.

Five of what turned out to be his early poems are reproduced in The Penguin Book of Australian Verse, published in 1972. By this time Dawe was in his early forties, less than half way along his allotted span. The poems that get a guernsey in that collection include “Life Cycle”, about the Victorian Football League, as it was then, and the hereditary aspect of supporting a football team in Melbourne. (Dawe was born in Fitzroy.)  I remember going to a reading in Sydney in the 1970s, which featured him and Les Murray. The poem he read was “Drifters”, one from his first published collection. It appears below.

One day soon he’ll tell her it’s time to start packing

and the kids will yell ‘Truly?’ and get wildly excited for no reason

and the brown kelpie pup will start dashing about, tripping everyone up

and she’ll go out to the vegetable patch and pick all the green tomatoes from the vines

and notice how the oldest girl is close to tears because she was happy here,

and how the youngest girl is beaming because she wasn’t.

And the first thing she’ll put on the trailer will be the bottling-set she never unpacked from Grovedale,

and when the loaded ute bumps down the drive past the blackberry canes with their last shrivelled fruit,

she won’t even ask why they’re leaving this time, or where they’re headed for

she’ll only remember how, when they came here

she held out her hands, bright with berries,

the first of the season, and said:

‘Make a wish, Tom, make a wish.’

[I took this text from Yahoo! Answers . I looked at a few online versions; most of them make a dog’s breakfast of the line breaks. I hope this example preserves his intentions; I don’t have a hard copy version to check.]

Day 18

Incredibly, it is a fortnight since our last expedition to the Dandenongs. The motive for this expedition was the same, that is, quitting the premises for the morning in order to give our cleaning lady an open go. I also wanted to give the GT a run on the open road. A trip to the mountains fulfilled both objectives.

Before we set off on this hike, we walked up to Wattle Park, then set off on our drive. (As Dad would have said — on our way!) The route was the reverse of that which we took last time, i.e. we headed along Canterbury Road, and turned off toward Mount Dandenong. We had intended to stop at Olinda, but I turned off slightly short of that: my bad, but it didn’t matter. There was a cafe wherever we ended up, and my beloved hopped out and got us a couple of coffees. We consumed these in the car, then returned via Burwood Highway, enjoying its 70 and 80 kilometres an hour stretches. 

While in durance vile, it occurred to me that to memorise the phonetic alphabet would be a useful thing to do. (I am forever having to spell out my family name.) According to Wikipedia, NATO’s is the most widely accepted phonetic alphabet. It has other names as well: “It is officially the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, and also commonly known as the ICAO phonetic alphabet, with a variation officially known as the ITU phonetic alphabet and figure code.” Oskar Kilo! I had come across this alphabet ages ago, when a shift librarian at the RMIT Business Library. We were required to carry a walkie-talkie, and sign on and off at the beginning and end of each night shift.

Even longer ago, Dad told me a slightly schoolboy-humour anecdote about Sir Vivian Fuchs’ radio call sign. This gentleman participated in many expeditions, including a series of British explorations of Antarctica in the 1960s. It was at this time that he visited Australia. According to Dad, his radio call sign then was “Romeo Fox Juliet” — ideally rendered in an American accent. (Maybe “Fox” for the letter “F” was one of the variants mentioned above. Nowadays it would be “Foxtrot” — but don’t let me spoil the story.) 

Journalists and/or subeditors were naturally also alive to the comic possibilities of Sir Vivian’s family name. For many years we had a book of newspaper misprints, featuring a couple of headlines which exploited these possibilities: “DR FUCHS OFF!” and “DR FUCHS OFF AGAIN!”. I suspect many more people remember these headlines than they do Sir Vivian’s exploits. The latter must have agreed with him — he only pegged out in 1999.

 

Isolation day 16

by feurmann

Another bad sleep overnight — I am really stuck in that groove, for the time being anyway. At least being awake at odd times gives me ideas about writing. While I am sitting up I can write them down without disturbing my beloved. I woke up a bit before six, as I was in the habit of doing when bringing her in a coffee on her work mornings. (That time, when she actually left home to go to work, already seems ages ago.) Instead of getting up, I went back to sleep for a bit, and had some strange dreams. In one, I was passing through some kind of customs barrier, and being interviewed by a female official. I was carrying my orchid, which she admired. So I broke a bit off it to give her.

I was glad to hear my beloved moving around a bit later on. By the time we had made breakfast, it was time to fetch The Age (it was one of the days on which it is delivered).  I took the precaution of putting on rubber gloves before walking down the driveway, in case the newspaper had been packed and/or delivered by someone with coronavirus. It was there, but only in one part — usually there are two. I reasoned, however, that this was due to the strange circumstances in which we all find ourselves. This turned out to be correct; all the expected parts were there, except for the travel section, which is suspended for the duration. 

After breakfast I called one of my brothers, to whom I hadn’t spoken for a while. Everything was fine with him: indeed, his life was much the same in most respects. After that I went for a walk, during which I heard most of the Dvorak 8th Symphony on ABC Classic. We then mounted a joint expedition to get fish and chips for lunch. I was to sit in the car as usual while my beloved fetched the food. She started feeling quite hungry on our way there, however, so I drove home while she ate a potato cake. We watched the latest episode of The Capture, recorded on our Blu-ray player, while we had our modest repast.

(This was actually the first take-away meal we’ve had since beginning isolation. Fish and chips always leaves me feeling extremely full, even though I take most of the batter off the fish. What they call “grilled” fish is actually fried, which just dries it out, using no less oil than you get with “fried” fish. We only ever get chips for one. A few months ago an intrepid reporter in The Age ordered this at several fish-and-chipperies to see how large a portion of chips each one gave. Unsurprisingly, the results varied considerably between establishments. I don’t think he or The Age will get a Walkley for that!) 

We had quite a bit of rain in the afternoon, so I was glad to have gotten my walk in earlier that morning. One of the pharmacy chains is offering not only delivery of prescriptions, but also flu shots. I thought about getting one of the Woolworths basic boxes, or whatever they are called, but we are actually quite well stocked with what they contain — even toilet paper. At least these services are being offered to people in our circumstances so that they can get some of what they need. Amen! What a dull day.

Isolation day 15

by feurmann

The day didn’t start promisingly, when I thought it was Saturday, and walked down the driveway to fetch The Age. There was, as a French structuralist would say, the presence of an absence. (To clarify for readers not in our household: we only have the paper delivered at the weekends.) This chrono-confusion was dispelled in a rather Pinteresque exchange:

[The Author, wearing a dressing gown and an irritable demeanour, enters from stage right. Beloved is seated at the dining table, similarly attired, peering at her computer.]

ME: The paper’s late again.

BELOVED: It’s Friday.

[A beat.]

BELOVED: I saw you go down there.

Fortunately, things picked up after that. We had a mission for the morning! A purpose to assign to the proceedings! Supplies were running low, and we had hatched the following plan to remedy this. My beloved had an appointment with her chiropractor. I was to go with her in the car, and remain therein while she was lasered and adjusted. We would then proceed to Maling Road, where she would obtain some meat from the butcher. I would stay in the car. She would then drive to the supermarket, where this division of labour would be repeated; the variation being that groceries would this time be the desired object. At all stops, I would transfer the results to the capacious boot of the Camry. When stowage was completed, we would repair chez nous.

This plan was executed without significant holdups. We put a mini esky in the boot of the car to keep things nice. I took my tablet along, thinking to read The Age on that device while waiting. Unfortunately, I had neglected to open the paper on the tablet while at home (and thus within range of our wifi). I was able to use my mobile as a hotspot; this worked much better than it had last time I had tried that little trick. Shazam! The whole thing downloaded to the tablet, and I was able to read the paper and look at my email. I had brought a coffee with me from home in one of our Keep Cups. Some music from 3MBS-FM via the car radio accompanied. Most enjoyable, though, was that I was somewhere new. Things were quiet — Camberwell looked rather as if someone was doing a remake of On the beach.

Back at base, a second round of coffees and a snack hit the spot. My beloved returned to work; I was suddenly energized. I put the groceries away, started a load of washing, and put some chick peas on in the pressure cooker (presoaked the night before). I completed a lengthy email to my former RMIT colleagues, offering to start a Zoom account for them, so that we could transfer our coffee meetings to virtual mode. The sun came out, and I rather daringly put the washing out in the courtyard. Cupboards and freezer were full; I knew what we were having for dinner the next few nights. (Having to improvise meals always makes me rather grumpy.)

Friends have commented on how much time, when in isolation, one spends thinking about food. When all meals are sourced at home, it does require more planning. The dishwasher runs almost daily, and the compost basin requires emptying at a similar frequency. It makes sense, of course, to focus on food. It is one of the few things over which we retain control. Delivery does present difficulties, but generally we still get to eat pretty much when we want. We are fortunate in this. The focus on food does have a downside, though. In spite of going a walk most days, and continuing with the exercise classes, I am definitely not losing weight. As one of my ex-RMIT buddies said — it is time to think about flattening my own curves!

Isolation diary day 14

by feurmann

I had rather a restless night last night. (My sleeping seems to run in cycles, which I can make worse by having too much screen time, but otherwise am largely powerless to influence.) At about 3.30 I decided to transfer to the second bedroom, and give my beloved a few undisturbed hours.

I had been thinking about poetry a bit more recently, and that of Thomas Hardy in particular. I came to read Hardy’s poetry by a circuitous route. I was browsing our bookshelves when I couldn’t sleep a few nights ago, and found my old copy of The Mayor of Casterbridge. This is neither Hardy’s best known novel, nor the most admired. It is, however, the one I read first, as a teenager, while we were living in Sydney. I still have that copy, published by MacMillan in their PaperMac series. I must prize it, having lugged it around all the places I have lived since then. When I took it off the shelf the other night, I found to my surprise that there was a second copy sitting next to it. This copy was also the PaperMac version: obviously not an expensive edition. (We had weeded our book collection before the last move, but for some reason neither of us could rationalise our copies of The Mayor of Casterbridge down to one.)

When I was looking for something to read before going back off to sleep last night, it was Hardy’s poetry that I thought of this time. This was an odd choice in some ways. Hardy is much better known as a novelist than a poet: in the latter genre he is caviar to the general. Even when I was doing English, I didn’t encounter a word of his poetry. One could do great slabs of Wordsworth, and acres of Milton, but Hardy was not on offer. Hardy’s poetry has its devotees, though. I must have made a mental note to read him at the right time, which rolled around last night.

My weighty Norton Anthology of Poetry has sixteen of his poems, and I looked at about half a dozen before I eventually got to sleep. I am guessing this is the best known one; I had read it, but hadn’t remembered it as being Hardy.

In Time of “The Breaking of Nations”

 I
Only a man harrowing clods
    In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
    Half asleep as they stalk.
                       II
Only thin smoke without flame
    From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
    Though Dynasties pass.
                       III
Yonder a maid and her wight
    Come whispering by:
War’s annals will cloud into night
    Ere their story die.

The Poetry Foundation

I only had a vague idea about when Hardy was around: I had thought of him a Victorian author. His dates were 1840-1928, so I can say I was not quite incorrect in this. The Norton Anthology dates this poem as 1915-16, and they also supply a footnote on the title: ‘See Jeremiah li.20: “Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee I will break in pieces the nations, and with thee I will destroy kingdoms.”‘ The line “A maid and her wight” is puzzling, though; what does Hardy mean by “wight”? According to the Cambridge online dictionary, this word has several meanings, including “deserter”. The alternative meaning of “a living being, especially a human being”, however, seems to fit better.

To me this is a poem of deceptive simplicity. I particularly like how all the lines, except two, have no end punctuation. The rhythms are subtly irregular. The subject matter, and some of the vocabulary, is archaic; the man harrowing clods, the maid and her wight. But the elements of the poem are irreducible: earth, fire, desire. It is is as weighty and abrupt as something fallen to earth.

From the sublime to the gorblimey: what else have I been up to today? We didn’t go for our usual walk this morning. My beloved was booked to meet a friend at our local park. They arranged for the latter to bring her a takeaway coffee; they consumed these while walking around. As well, I had a strained quad muscle after our walk yesterday, and didn’t want to do further damage before the exercise class I had coming up at 11.30, via Zoom.

Beforehand I did a couple of loads of washing, laid out the mat, weights and resistance band, logged into the appropriate web site, and got my equipment ready for class. My beloved has also been working industriously away for several hours, with the exception of a lunch break. I haven’t really done much — not even been for a walk — but somehow it seems as if I have had a full day.

Isolation diary day 13

by feurmann

Well, we have passed the half way point in the four weeks. (It is only day 13 because we weren’t really isolated on Day 1; consequently I started the count on the second day.) It has been quite a busy day. As usual, we went for a walk after breakfast. Our route, however, was a new development. We walked up our street to Wattle Park, then headed first east, then traced a big arc back the other way almost up to Riversdale Road. Continuing south, we came out at the golf course club house, where we used to go for coffee before the current unpleasantness. I found the hilliness of this new route tiring; possibly I was still feeling the effect of having done a walk and a workout yesterday. It was a good time to be about, though. It was cool, only about 16 degrees, and pretty quiet. We saw a neighbour on our way home, who waved theatrically at us from the far side of the road.

When we got home, my beloved went back to work, preparing for a virtual staff meeting at 11.00. I had a bit more breakfast, then, as silently as possible, mixed up a batch of bread dough, and put on a load of washing. The bread was necessary because Woolies hadn’t been able to supply the loaf I requested in our last online shop. This is a minor drawback with the process. If the store that fulfils your order doesn’t have a particular line in stock, they just don’t supply it, and give you a refund. But it isn’t possible to nominate a second option in case your first choice is unavailable. You never know what they’ll have, however,  so if you order two types of bread you might get both. Why not just freeze one? I do this quite a lot, but at present the freezer is pretty chockers, already containing a gluten-free loaf for my beloved, batches of rice, chickpeas, pasta, meat, and so on. 

Anyway, I was well placed to knock up a loaf at home, having flour (both wheat and spelt) from a previous shop, and yeast, salt, and sugar in the cupboard. The recipe I have taken to using is for an oatmeal no-knead variety, which is easy and reliable. You can find it here; do give it a go! The recipe as it stands makes two loaves. If you don’t want to make this much, just adjust the quantities. But I reckon if you’re going to go to the trouble, you might as well get two loaves out of it. (Ease back on the salt, though. The recipe calls for a tablespoon, which is far too much. Just use 1 or 1.5 teaspoons, for one or two loaves respectively. And I put the yeast up to 2.5 teaspoons for two loaves.)

Apart from these tweaks, I make the recipe as it stands, but I use a roughly 20 cm square tin with a removable base. After the loaf cools down, I just cut it in half to make two rectangular loaves, slice both, and freeze one. This time I used a mixture of wholemeal wheat flour and white and wholemeal spelt, mostly because I had bits of the last two hanging around. I have also used chia seeds instead of half a cup of the oats; sunflower seeds would probably work well too. As you can see, this recipe is very forgiving. 

(Speaking of baking, I was puzzled to read about a lady complaining that she had plain flour, but wanted self-raising. She wanted someone to swap the latter for the former. Had she not heard of baking powder? You don’t even really need a sifter; just stir the baking powder into the plain flour with a fork.)

I had a minor contretemps yesterday when I thought of the poem, and was looking for my notebook in which to jot it down. It was nowhere to be seen — the notebook, that is — although some might think I was referring to the poem. My beloved sensibly observed that the notebook must be in our place somewhere. Am I the only person I know who can lose something after a fortnight in isolation?

I found another notebook, of course, but the experience was quite irritating. At various times I need to make notes for poems, bits of the memoir, things that I am told by various medicos, and general stuff. I have tried splitting a big notebook up into sections with sticky tabs, but it is hard to predict how many pages to set aside for each section. Using several notebooks is just a nuisance. Different stuff ends up all over the place, and is impossible to keep track of. And, particularly for poetry,  I need to capture what thoughts come my way before they evaporate!

What works best for me in these literary endeavours is a Japanese system called a Traveler’s Passport Notebook. (That’s how they spell it). This is basically a leather binder with an elastic strap that goes around it. This binder is about passport size, as the name suggests, so it readily fits in a jacket pocket, or the outside pocket in a backpack. The binder can hold five or six bound A6 size blank books, each on its special rubber band-type thing. Consequently the books sit nicely next to each other. (If you prefer, they can go one inside another, but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do this.) There is also a piece of heavy thread sewn into the binder that you can use as a bookmark. The Traveler’s people also make a pen holder which clips onto the binder, which I have — no more hunting for a pen. With my trusty vintage Dymo labeller, which I found in the local op shop, I have made labels for each of the books. Genius! Now I can readily make notes, keep them all in the one place, but separate all the different materials. (This of course assumes I can find the thing.)

When I got my hands on it — it was in a jacket pocket — I wanted to be able to find it the next time I lost it. So I ordered a few more bits and pieces for it, including a transparent zipped pocket. Thank goodness for the internet! I plan to put a Tile device inside this pocket. This is a little bit of electronics that works via Bluetooth, and is intended to help you locate your keys, phone, and so on. (I don’t tend to lose those things, but I have misplaced this notebook before.) This may sound a tad both OCD and OTT. However, I find losing things monstrously irritating. My memory is so bad, I almost never remember where I left something. Anyway, all these schemes keep me off the streets, so to speak, and I’m doing my bit for the economy! A win-win! 

 

Isolation diary day 11

by feurmann

So I called yesterday day twelve! Big deal! As most of you will have found, one day resembles another to a fair degree. Back when the isolation started, I actually cut a post-it note in half, and stuck it on our kitchen calendar to mark the current day. I stuck the other half of the post-it on the nominal last day of my sentence. Of course, the latter date, whatever it is, falls in April, so the two yellow bits of paper are on different pages of the calendar. (They will soon be on the same page, however, and start drawing ever closer.)

I slept in a bit this morning, until about 7.45. After breakfast, coffee #1, and a few other things, we headed out for our walk at about 11.00. This was rather later than our usual excursion, and had gotten quite warm by then. (On the weather report this evening, I see that was about when the maximum of 26 degrees was reached.) We did our usual route in reverse, probably just for a change. (By the way does anyone know why people have started saying “Change it up” recently, instead of “Change it around”, or just “Change it”?) Anyway, when we got back it was time for another coffee, then lunch. Coffee #2 was better than its predecessor. I still had some grounds in the container this morning, so I ground a smaller quantity of beans, which turned out to be fewer than I needed. (I am still getting these settings right; I might need to turn the quantity dial to 2 cups, and press it twice.)

We entertained ourselves during lunch with an episode of State of play on Stan. Afterwards I managed to place our second online grocery order through Woolies. For some reason, the their web site wouldn’t accept the password that I had set previously. So I had to reset it — twice, or possibly three times. Each time I was sent a message containing a reset code. I had to click on this code to be taken back to the web site, where I would reset the password. The messages were quite slow to get through, and all filed underneath each other in my email inbox. I managed to open a message twice, and click on a link I had aleady clicked on, so had to go through the reset process all over again. I finally managed to log in, retrieve the list of items I had ordered last time, add a few more, and place order #2. There was a delay right at the end for some reason I couldn’t fathom. After a few goes I worked out that I had to supply the CV code, or whatever it was, for the credit card. (This was unexpected. As far as I can remember, when I order something using Chrome, this code is usually stored in the browser.) So it all ended up taking about half an hour. Still, it is better than trooping along there in RL.

For a bit of light relief after all that, I played one of Mariss Jansens’ CDs that I hadn’t previously played: his newer recording of the Shostakovich Leningrad symphony.  This is probably the longest of the Shostakovich cycle, and undoubtedly the heaviest. I will have to go back to the earlier one, part of his complete set — I think the performance that time was done with the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra. The newer one was with the Bavarian Radio Symphony; being an SACD, it is superbly recorded, if rather low in volume. I will give it another go before deciding which I like better. This symphony gets very loud; anticipating this, I hadn’t turned the amplifier up quite high enough. I will turn the wick up a bit more next time!

We didn’t get any new appliances today, but we did get some rain. Also, possibly inspired by the Shostakovich, I wrote a poem.

See them coming

During the pandemic
that everyone knew would be declared
we stayed home and cooked
watched TV
not the news.
When we let ourselves out for walks
we crossed the road when people came.
They did it too.
No-one had to pretend to be cosmopolitan
everyone was a stranger
we could avoid them openly.

A white cat hovers in our driveway
on the damp concrete
next to the nandinas
it can see the street but still
climb the fence.

It’s one of about four
which used to pace around our courtyard
then they stopped coming
it’s like the Berlin Wall dissolved overnight
and there was nothing any more to patrol.

 

Isolation diary day … err, 12?

by feurmann

OK, technically, my isolation started on Monday 16th of March — the date of my last consult with the oncologist. I have tended to think of Tuesday 17th, however, as Day 1 of the isolation proper. This is partly to do with having done some food shopping and — shock, horror — had a coffee out, both on the way home. One neither could nor would do the latter now. Anyway, for these reasons, the Monday didn’t feel like a day in isolation. But who’s counting? 

I knew that the new coffee grinder was coming today. We chose the delivery option “Someone will be home” instead of the more usual “If no-one’s home, we will deliver to the nearest Post Office”. (This was so my beloved wouldn’t have to schlep up the street and possibly break social distance at the local sub-post office.) She had a chiropractor appointment this morning, so I knew I had to be back from my walk before she left, to be home for the courier. I therefore hot-footed it out after breakfast, pacing out my usual route up the street to Wattle Park and back. (I often combine this with a turn around the oval, but there was a number of other people already doing this, so I cut my expedition slightly short. It still came to about 25 minutes.)

All this finagling was unnecessary, as it happened, because the courier left it on the front verandah anyway, ringing the doorbell to alert me to its arrival. No signature was required; times being what they are, this was fine by me. So I unpacked it from its double box packing and set it up in the kitchen, with the result you see below.

Smeg

Although technically all these thingies are the same colour, the grinder proved, on first installation, a paler blue than the toaster and kettle. The somewhat sordid reason for this slight mismatch was that we have had the last two for about eighteen months, in which time they insidiously took on a faint kitchen-y patina. This in turn is as a result of being next to the cooktop, on which I make a stir fry every week. I also sit the pressure cooker right in the corner shown above, bang in front of where the grinder is now. This also gets an outing at least every week, cooking lamb shanks and so on. (Yes, we do have an exhaust fan, always switched on while any of these operations is carried out. Obviously the fan isn’t very efficient. Hey — it’s a 20 year old kitchen!) Anyway, giving the more senior appliances a going-over with Jif rendered them more worthy of sitting next to the spanking new grinder.

This gadget leaves the old Gaggia in its dust, as it were. Grinding up the first coffee was like stepping into the GT after five years trundling around in the twenty-year old Fairmont. The Smeg stores beans above the grinder. One selects the amount that one wishes to grind (determined by the number of cups one is making) and the fineness or coarseness of the grind that is desired. The grinding is started at a press of the button, at the conclusion of which it switches itself off! All that remains is to remove the (cunningly non-stick) receptacle underneath, twist off the lid, and pour the grounds into the Aeropress. So, I offer this modest palindromic caption: Smeg are now, won era Gems!

Another busy day was fitted around the installation of the new appliance. My beloved is working from home, as mentioned, and is by now well ensconced at our dining table with her laptop. A week or so of working in a kitchen chair proved hard on her back, however. (She had coincidentally strained this in a yoga class not long before the isolation period kicked in.) In one of our walks around the neighbourhood last week, I picked up a laptop stand from the nature strip. (I gave this a good wipedown with bleach to keep everything nice.) In combination with a Bluetooth keyboard and a proper chair, this had the potential to make her setup more ergonomic.

To this end my beloved drove in to work yesterday, to pick up her office chair, and (she thought) a proper keyboard. She came home with the chair and keyboard, but the latter was fatally missing the USB dongle needed to connect it with the laptop. So, after another trip in today, she collected her usual keyboard. This connected mysteriously to the laptop without any apparent assistance. Bingo! The laptop stand was pressed into service, and an Instagram-worthy setup was thus created. This image, together with that of her IT in-house consultant and barista, was duly shared with her colleagues, all of whom are reinventing the wheel in like fashion in their search for the perfect WFH setup. 

Music has been something else that has been fitted around all this unpacking, installing, ergonomic and technological wrangling, and general coffee making. I did manage to play one of my favourite recordings of the Sibelius Violin Concerto yesterday, though, the one with Hilary Hahn, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. This is quite a stately reading, much more lyrical and searching than any of the Heifetz recordings I have heard. Hahn and Saraste might not be in any hurry, but they generate quite some tension, and are wonderfully recorded by DGG. Hahn is such a beautifully clean player, with immaculate intonation, but it is never just technique — she seems always to be thinking the music through. After that I played the Shostakovich 6th Symphony with Jansens, a different performance from that in his complete set. (In that cycle it was played by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, whereas the one I heard yesterday with with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.) In both, indeed in everything Jansens does, tempi seem just right, all the lines are beautifully balanced against each other, and the music always has a direction that seems to come from within.   

Isolation diary day 7

by feurmann

Wow, what a busy day yesterday was! We had both slept in a bit, so my beloved skipped the walk and got straight down to work after breakfast. (I got my walk in, listening to ABC Classic on my Blluetooth headphones.) A second coffee was my reward, and the rest of the morning passed with doing three loads of washing, making myself some lunch, and similar domesticity.

In the afternoon I had a scheduled teleconsultation with Dale, one of the exercise physios from the practice where I did my exercise classes. As part of the package, so to speak, they had provided me with a gym session via the PhysiApp platform. This allows the exercise physio to design me a program, complete with videos showing the proper form for each exercise, and the capability for me to enter my data each time I work through the program. So Dale just modified some of these exercises in order that I could perform them with the equipment I have at home. We were able to speak to each other via my phone through the PhysiApp app. (I had to get out my headphones so that I could hear her properly, but these worked really well.) She could see whether I was doing everything correctly and provide feedback. The call was a bit interrupted, as first my phone started running out of battery, then her laptop! The connection was restored, however, and its objectives completed. Assuming I keep doing them, these exercises will allow me to maintain condition while I am confined to barracks. 

(The physio practice also uses Zoom in order to allow other class members in the same situation to have a virtual exercise session, during which they can see and hear each other. This occurs at the time in which the class was held in RL. I’m not sure whether I will do this tomorrow, but I probably will in future. It’s good to keep in touch with the fellas as and when possible.)

Communications were running hot yesterday! When my beloved had knocked off for the day, she rang our super fund to get some information about some of her investments that had dropped alarmingly. After a fairly lengthy phone discussion, we had a pow-wow about what the information with which we had just been supplied.

Basically, our balances are about where they were eighteen months ago. As we had read elsewhere, the bottom of the market is never a good time to sell out. Fortunately, super contributors in Australia now (as of a couple of days ago) have the option to reduce their minimum pension draw down from 5% to 2.5%. It seemed a good idea to be emptying the bathtub a bit more slowly. The relevant form to accomplish this was emailed to her to be filled in and returned. (Other changes could be made via the fund web site.) We may have to make some adjustments to my pension as well; again, this is something I can do online. These phone calls and discussions took a fair time, but it was a very worthwhile exercise in that we now have a much better grip on what our best course of action is in the current financial situation. 

I needed some “me” time after all this interaction! After a sit in the study I made us some dinner, and we watched State of Play on Stan. This was a British thriller, made in 2003, about a parliamentarian caught up in a mysterious murder plot — you get the drift. The cast is very good, though; John Sim, David Morrissey, the wonderful Bill Nighy, and Philip Glenister, who seems to specialise in seedy, grumpy detectives. We probably saw it on free to air, but if so, it was 17 years ago! All the London locations are very atmospheric, and the dialogue up to Beeb standards. After all the excitement I slept rather poorly, so am happy to have had a quiet day today.