FYI – the title is a quote from William Sansom

Tuesday

Welcome to quarantine!

First off, it’s not that bad. With our amazing benefactor, Mr Ward, we have a lovely little ‘pied a terre’ in central London with two bedrooms, nice bathroom, living room and kitchen. Everything is clean, tidy and convenient. It is basically everything our house is not. So despite thinking I might immediately miss the high ceilings and space, it’s not that different from home. After all we only use 2 of the rooms currently as the rest of it is a complete mess and non-functional so the amenity and sense of being somewhere complete is comforting and not of a dissimilar size all up.

Peter is incredible, what a lovely curry and so good to have some food ready for us. Thank you, again.

We may be in a different country but sadly this is no holiday so it’s a regular working day. We did however have to work out how we would get food. And this is where it got not only good but amazing. We were back in the world of delivery take-outs.

Lesson 1 – Pete’s place has one of the best takeaways nearby and the one right across the road (which we still had delivered, as we are in quarantine) does Peking Duck worthy of awards. We also had a rather good chilli beef, lemon chicken and black bean beef, with some egg fried rice. I reckon you can call this Date Night. It was amazing. God I’ve missed high quality take out from any cuisine you can imagine. London is where dreams are made (and delivered in about 20 minutes by a guy on a scooter).

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Dinner was also washed down with a cheeky bottle of Prosecco, also virtue of Mr Ward, he’s quite the absent host.

[29 July 2021]

Wednesday – Saturday

It seems that quarantine isn’t massively different to being at home. We could only spend time with each other and had nowhere to go. The differences:

• The lack of gardening
• The lack of jobs to do in the house after work
• Everything isn’t covered in dust

But there is still only one functional toilet… but 1 of 1 is better than 1 of 6.

So while we were working as hard as ever we actually got to relax in the evenings without wondering what we ought to be doing, and making the most of having food delivered.

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We decided to take the option for the 5 day release test (at pretty vast expense for what it was). We’d been tested before arrival, 2 days later, then the day 5 test and then later would have our day 8 test; all at a grand total of around £450. The flights may have been cheap but wasting time in quarantine (therefore not making progress on the house) and the cost of tests means this can’t be as regular as we would have liked. Tough to swallow when tests are free in France.

We got the tests done at the lab super early (around 8am – which for me is pretty crazy for a Saturday). Since we were allowed to be out for an official reason, and to reduce the chance to infecting anyone else of course, we enjoyed the walk back from London to Farringdon. It was the first day we had left the flat of course.

Managed to get the results quickly so we were ready to see people. Henry dropped round briefly. I kept pinching his knee. It was odd to realise after all this time on Zoom, Teams etc that people had legs. Lucy dropped round later and despite being a pro she got a little worse for wear when we sent her back and I had to have a nap (on the Central line). It was soon disrupted by Lee and Vicky’s arrival however. We had a great time, I think. I know Vicky and I did anyway but not sure about the boys, or the neighbours for that matter.

Most definitely time for bed.

[30 June – 4 July 21]

Sunday

Our test results are back mid afternoon so there is just enough time for a quick trip out for Sunday lunch at Doug’s with some crazy people.

Then Tonia came over with Anya to visit. Finally got to meet the puppy. Seems that looking the same as my sister is a good thing. She was more than happy to hang out with me and as I spent a lot of time with Matt she wasn’t remotely worried about him either.

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Eventually however they had to go home, and so did we. Time to move back to Matt’s.

[5 July 2021]

Monday – Sunday

First day of freedom was good. Managed to meet up with Peter at De Hems for drinks and Bitterballen. Great night and loved seeing him.

Also, caught up with Brandon at the pub, although apparently there was some sort of football game on and everyone got very excited and loud.

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The rest of the week however turned out to be rather a disappointment.

Welcome to Track and Trace, or what the media is now calling ‘the pingdemic’. [For the non-UK crew, the ‘NHS’ Track and Trace lets you know that you have been in ‘contact’ with a person who later was diagnosed with Covid and you have to quarantine for 10 days. Sadly the whole thing is largely flawed and people in adjacent buildings have been ‘pinged’. It’s a bit of a farce but what can you do?!] Fancy slap up dinner with Peter was cancelled because apparently he got slightly too close to someone infected, Lee and Vicky were isolation because someone on their flight tested positive, and work was also tough. All the tours and visits I had planned were changed or cancelled at short notice as, for example ‘the whole core team has been pinged today’, so I was constantly changing plans and rearranging.

We made the most of it however spending time back in our old stomping ground.

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By Sunday however Lee, Vicky, Jeff and Vivian were finally out of quarantine so we went out for bottomless Prosecco and Sushi. Fun ensued with some drinks in the park after but all too soon it was time to go home and just relax in the hot tub.

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[6 – 11 July 2021]

Monday

Time to start having more tests, I need to have PCR tests twice a week and Lateral Flow every day to be on campus/in the hospitals this week. Since I have to be tested every day Matt has been recruited to be nurse, in exchange for not having to let me do them on him – after all if I have it he has it and vice versa.

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[12 July 2021]

Tuesday – Thursday

Tour days. [Figured it was time to get an insight into what I do for a job, or at least some of the more interesting bits.]

1. Tuesday: Association of Clinical and Laboratory Medicine, Guy’s Hospital: The Chaney show of what we have been doing and how we are setting up a new Innovation District. I usually sit at my computer and just talk through a slide deck. It was the first time I stood up in front of a new audience to do it off the top of my head. I’ve done it a million times before though and they seemed to follow and like it so must have been ok.
2. Wednesday: Peter Ward et al, St Thomas’ and Guy’s hospitals: A fascinating tour of some of the hospital and university’s hidden gems. From the 7T MRI to the robotics lab and Gordon museum of pathology there was a wide variety of things to see.
3. Thursday: Elka and Mitul: The clinical research facility, currently doing Covid booster trials (amongst other things) and a range of other mental health, psychology and psychiatry initiatives. Literally mind blowing.

Despite the challenges putting it all together it went like clockwork and was absolutely brilliant to show the assets and amazing opportunity for life sciences.

Clearly however I have been away too long. On the way to Guy’s I managed to get on the wrong tube from Whitechapel and instead of getting on the District line to Westminster I got on the Circle line and ended up basically where I started.

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Now enough of the sales pitch. Had time for some drinks and a catch up with Peter and Dan (Southwark) on Wednesday, we finally made up for the missed dinner, and a quick drink with Matt and Brodie (Lambeth) making me late to meet Doug before finally heading down to Sussex. [Thanks for your patience and sorry again.]

[13 – 15 July 2021]

Friday

Mum had a whole day set up. First up was the first official meeting of the ‘Les Bengalis Blog Fan Club – UK chapter’. Not only was it wonderful to see everyone, but it was incredible how supportive everyone is. I was however reprimanded for not having been keeping up to date so I am sorry. I am doing my best to rectify that. Thank you however for our wonderful presents, it was like an NZ Christmas (hot).

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We then had a short break so Joelle and Monty took us over to see Finley, Stu and Sky; then over to Steph and John’s to see their work in progress. Both were lovely and we went round stealing ideas for our place, with a particular focus on bathrooms.

Back at Mum’s and the clan was gathering. We weren’t at full compliment but it was great to see everyone and catch up. We miss you a great deal.

[16 July 2021]

Saturday

Back to London and our last Saturday night to catch up with the Lee, Vicky, Rhys, Lucy, Jeff and Vivian before we go. Late lunch bbq and drinks followed by a couple of drinks in the hot tub.

[17 July 2021]

Sunday

Off to Clapham Common on one of the hottest days of the year to meet up with Tonia, Anya, Lee and Vicky.

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[18 July 2021]

Monday

It’s our last day in London and lots of work and packing to do. A few pics of the plants, well what do you expect by this point?! Jolanda has been doing a great job and the hollyhock might not be a fraction of the size of our French one but it is a double and very pretty. I may have also forgotten to clean all the plant pots before we left London so just a few to get through before one last relax in the hot tub [can you tell we’ve been missing it?]

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After the hot tub it was time to start packing, and sorting through those last boxes. God it was awful. I hated every moment. We managed however to get through it without any real threat to life or limb, and only limitedly frayed tempers. Time for a glass of wine. Matt is off to bed but I have tomorrow as ‘leave’ (let’s see how long that lasts) so decided to write this one. Anyway, I know someone will be looking forward to reading this on a Saturday morning with their cup of tea and I would hate to disappoint (however, Crazy Chrissy, I won’t be able to live up to your requirements, sorry but trying to write every day was way too much!)

Managed to have a last dip in the hot tub with Simon and Jolanda before we left and one last big Thai curry takeway. Not a bad way to wrap up.

[19 July 2021]