November...ing

 

It’s not been a great month for us. Inspired by Christina ’s post, I’ll give you a flavour of my November. I’ve been:

Looking after husband who has injured his ankle after being pulled over by over-excited dog lunging at crow while he was picking up her ball;

Persuading him to contact medical professionals for advice on his ‘torn ligament’  rather than trust Dr Google;

Trying not to say I told you so when he eventually gave in, three whole weeks after the original injury,  and discovered he had a fracture when it was x-rayed;

Walking the darned dog on my own and trying to avoid any further injury;

Watching in horror as the lawn, now the location for ball chasing, is transformed into a muddy field;

Planting half dead looking bare-rooted strawberries and a rose called ‘Silas Marner;

 Hoping the garden will recover in the spring. 

On a more positive note I had some success with the NaNoWrite project which I signed up for. So I have been:

Writing around 1000 words a day of my ‘family saga’;

Reimagining real events using research, memories and things older relatives have told me;

Exploring the British Newspaper Archive which has given me access to old copies of The Mid Ulster Mail;

Using the details from the newspaper stories as inspiration for my writing;

Feeling like a granny when I joined the local NaNo online forum and encountered rather geeky young men in hoodies;

Accepting that ‘word sprints’ where you race others to write as many words as you can in a set time with no concern about quality are not for me;

Discovering that most of the local participants in this project are writing fantasy and other worlds;

Failing to reach the NaNo target 50000 words;

Feeling happy, nevertheless, that I have written 25000 words and have enjoyed the experience. 

For the Record

 It strikes me that this is a very significant moment in history so I’m going to record my experience of it.

We are waiting for the result of the US election. It is extremely close. This is scary.

My daughter is self-isolating in her student flat in Sheffield because her flatmate has Covid.  She is missing two weeks of face  to face seminars because of this- her course isn’t online. The flatmate had a message on the NHS Covid app on Sunday to say she’d been in contact with someone who had tested positive. At the same time started to feel feverish. She went for a test. It came back positive on Monday. She’d watched Strictly on Saturday evening in the same room as her flatmates. Including my daughter.

I am trying not to worry. My daughter, usually a worrier, is fairly relaxed about this. No symptoms yet except a slight headache tonight. 

Her flatmate with Covid is fine. Yesterday she cleaned the house. She has now lost her sense of taste and to check this out she ate a whole chilli, drunk a shot of vodka and one of vinegar. She couldn’t taste any of these.  A young person’s response to the virus. 

As part of the ONS survey we signed up for Paul and I have had five Covid tests. We are getting paid for this in shopping vouchers though we’d have been happy to do it for free. We had weekly visits where we answer questions and complete the test ourselves. You swish a long cotton bud type thing around the back of your throat and then up each nostril. It makes you gag but isn’t a big deal. They’ve all been negative so far. 

This week I’m nervous that I’ve caught it too as I’ve been to a pub with friends (outside in a ‘beach hut’) and to the hairdresser before lockdown begins. There are many people with Covid in the local area. A friend who has a small business has nine staff off with the virus.  I’m torn between wanting to stay in all the time to avoid any chance of infection and wanting to make the most of the time left before lockdown.

Life is very different to this time last year.