Stories
Plague Blog — 15
I made yoghurt again on the weekend. Our new yoghurt maker produces very good thick Greek yoghurt. I have to make a new batch every four days to keep the bacteria alive, but we usually eat it up in a few days anyhow. Across town, my daughter-in-law made her first loaf of sourdough bread from […]
Plague Blog – 14
I’ve been resisting war similes, but I’ve started to feel that what’s going on in Canada these days is something like the Phoney War. That’s the eight-month period after England and its allies declared war on Hitler’s Germany in September, 1939, and nothing much happened. Nothing much in the context of what would happen. War […]
Plague Blog — 13
Then there’s my 2020 New Year’s Resolution: to try to pace myself. Cue the laughter in the second month in lockdown. But the funny thing is, it’s still a problem, even though the reasons are profoundly different. I made my resolution after taking on too many commitments over the past year or two. Maybe three. […]
Plague Blog – 12
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 […]
Plague Blog – 11
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 […]
Plague Blog – 10
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 […]
Plague Blog – 9
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 […]
Plague Blog – 8
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 […]
Plague Blog – 7
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 […]
Plague Blog – 6
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 […]
Plague Blog – 5
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 […]
Plague Blog – 4
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 […]
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