My New Year’s resolution for 2019 is proving hard to keep during the lockdown. In 2018, I vowed to stop wasting food, and that’s been working well. In 2019, I decided to stop using single-use plastic bags, visions of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch dancing in my head. But here’s what happened in the drugstore […]
I made a New Year’s resolution in 2018 that’s proving useful during the current emergency: don’t waste food. In the kitchen, as I write, a pot of stock is simmering on the stove, as it does every week. A couple of years’ worth of resolution builds habits. I now keep a bag in the fridge […]
Our English friend with COVID had been moved to intensive care, but his family felt encouraged yesterday when he was able to make phone calls to both his wife and son. He’s been there for two days, and we hope the specialists have helped him turn the corner. As well as COVID-related pneumonia, our friend […]
Our English friend with coronavirus remains in hospital on Day Thirteen of his illness. We’re taking solace from the fact they haven’t moved him into intensive care, but remain worried. Last night, his fever went up and his blood oxygen levels were down. He’s strong and fit, yet he’s struggling. We’ve all heard about the […]
Our friend in England went into hospital yesterday with breathing difficulties. At the time, he’d had the coronavirus for ten days. After speaking with him on the phone, a National Health Service doctor told his wife to drive him straight to hospital. She was advised to drop him off and go directly home, where she […]
Our great friend in England remains very sick with COVID-19. This is Day Nine of his illness. His daughter has been directing his care, but she’s an ob-gyn resident, not an infectious diseases specialist. On Thursday, his condition worried her to the point where she spoke to front-line doctors at the National Health Service. They […]
Today is garbage pick-up day in our part of Toronto, and I wonder how long they’ll be doing it every week. I have no insider information and don’t mean to be alarmist. It’s an essential service and I’m sure pick-up will continue, but I wonder whether the city will have to reduce the frequency. Sanitation […]
It’s been such a strange waiting period. Canadians holding our breath—while we can—waiting to see what will happen. But it feels as if it’s getting closer. A dear friend in England woke up on Thursday feeling awful. He’d just arranged his job so he could work at home, but he’d been in the office until […]
I had a dream last night where I was looking out the kitchen window into the backyard. It was our kitchen window and the backyard was roughly our backyard. But there was a hawk in it, and the hawk was watching a squirrel. The squirrel was foraging around a stump that’s not really there, a […]
I went out to our local fruit and vegetable store yesterday. I’m not infectious anymore, and since the last time I shopped was almost two weeks ago, the fridge was pretty bare. Still, having had the flu so recently, I went from self-isolation into temporary social distancing, remaining hyper-aware of everything going on around me. […]
I spent the past couple of days reading the newspapers we get delivered on weekends, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star. Theoretically, I have a leisurely weekend, or at least a leisurely Sunday, reading the papers, eating a croissant, feet up, cat happy, a fire in the fireplace. Theoretically. This time, […]
About the same time as the first case of coronavirus was reported in Canada, I came down with the flu. Yes, I’d got my flu shot. It doesn’t always work. I thought I had a cold. A bad cold, but a cold. I only went into my family practice last week when I felt I […]