Kyiv - a story of love then war

There is a groundswell of comment these days saying people who are showing compassion, sympathy and sorrow for Ukrainians being killed or displaced by the Russian invasion have uttered not a squeak for those from Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and Chechyna and more, so here is a link to support refugees worldwide. This is a link to a BBC story about how to help Ukraine and its people. 

Late 2018 or early 2019

It's some time late 2018 or early 2019, and I am either very pregnant with DB2, or sleep deprived due to having recently had DB2. I can't remember which, because time has passed and, as I may have mentioned a few times, my children, right from birth, to roughly aged five, consider sleep for the weak, so my brain is fully made of cheese.

Him Indoors tells me in a rare moment of calm, when I'm not working, being covered in baby vomit, or my own vomit, depending on when this actually was: "We've been invited to Nick and Anna's wedding."

"Ah great," I say. "I notice, cynical as I may be, that you're not telling me where they're doing it."

"Kiev." (That's what we were all still calling it then).

"I see. Erm. Do we want to go to Kiev? Can we go to Kiev considering we'll have a five-month-old baby then?"

You'll notice a clever diversionary tactic here by Him Indoors: "It's meant to be absolutely beautiful, full of amazing buildings, incredible history, and it's not that expensive once you're there because, you know, former Soviet Union, so it wouldn't cost us that much."

"OK then," I say vaguely, "Er, isn't there some kind of fighting there at the moment, something about Crimea?" 

"Oh that's calmed down now.. And it's down South anyway, we would be in the North, and it's a massive country, it's absolutely miles away."

"Um, OK. Well as I'm either heavily pregnant or chronically sleep deprived, you have a look into it and let me know, eh? It sounds like the kind of place budget airlines probably fly to anyway, so perhaps it wouldn't be too bad in terms of costs, considering, you know, that I'm either unemployed or about to be unemployed."

June 2019 

Him Indoors, our two kids, aged then four years and five-months old, board an Air Arabia flight from Sharjah (for the uninitiated, the slightly less prosperous but slightly more conservative emirate to the north of Dubai) to Kiev to attend the wedding and spend a week there.   

We land in Kyiv, as we now know to call it, on a warm day and take a taxi to stay in a decent sized two bedroom flat in a smart street in the centre of the city which Him Indoors found on air bnb. A week there costs us about as much as a night and a half in a nice Dubai hotel. On the way from the airport, I see the soviet-era blocks of flats on the edge of the city, I see the billboards of Mayor Klitschko inviting us in English to invest in Kyiv, although I don't know his name then. There are billboards, also in English, with pictures of scantily clad young women in provocative poses, clearly aimed at the stag weekend market. I cover DB1's eyes, because after a five-hour flight with her, plus a fractious five month-old, I don't feel like explaining what men do at stag parties in Eastern European cities. 

Spotting severe faces on political posters that are still hanging around from the previous month's election, I mutter: "Didn't they have a revolution here not long ago?"

Him Indoors smiling patiently, he's used to my ways, says: "The Orange Revolution, it was in 2005. They've just elected a new guy, actually, he's a comedian."

"O for f***'s sake," I grumble. "Have they not learned what a terrible idea it is electing people who have no idea about politics from watching the rest of us, Reagan, Trump, and all those porn stars in the Italian parliament?" 

"I believe he's actually doing OK," Him Indoors says, as I mutter quietly to myself about people wasting votes on celebrities. 

We arrive at the flat, which is behind a heavy wooden double door and up a wide flight of stairs which is dark enough for vampires, and dump our belongings. After an early start, grim airport and airline food, we are hungry, so we bundle the tired children back out into the streets again to find somewhere to eat. 

A restaurant called Chicken Kyiv catches our eye, and like the green as grass tourists we are, we walk in. It has an extensive wine selection, which Him Indoors is of course pleased as punch about, and sets about selecting the most esoteric local one he can find. I can't quite bring myself to order the chicken kyiv, as I've read in the Lonely Planet that it's not something that Ukrainians actually eat, but Him Indoors does, and it's delicious - perfectly cooked with fresh melted butter, and not surprisingly, nothing like the frozen brick supermarket-bought things, most likely produced in a Saudi factory, that time poor working parents cook for a quick week night dinner. 

 

We chat to the waiter, who's also a student. He speaks perfect English, and is curious about where we are from. He would like to go to the UK, he says, but the plane fare and a night or two in a hotel are just beyond his reach financially. It's just not possible. Like many of the Ukrainians we meet, he's friendly but reserved with a dry sense of humour. His style of service is entirely suited to uptight British types, not once asking us if we're "ok guys?" He is just pleasant and helpful and appears at the right time to clear dishes and bring drinks, but otherwise leaves us alone.

The the next day we dress in our wedding finery before catching a taxi to the fittingly named Perfect Place, a stretch of land on an island in the River Dnieper, which some enterprising sort has turned into a wedding venue, with gazebos and plentiful shady trees.

The day is blastingly hot, but not as hot as Dubai is at this time of year, of course, because nowhere is. We sit under the trees, chat to the other guests, read kids' books to keep DB1 happy, and wait for the bride. She arrives looking entirely perfect for this light-filled setting, and we sit by the river watching the wedding, and afterwards, as we eat dinner under a gazebo, the sun starts to set and a hazy pink glow envelops the scene. 

My rubbish iPhone pic, taken while holding DB2, does not begin to do it justice.  

Even for one who is used to desert sunsets, and trust me, we get some absolute belters here, the light by the river is angelic. The shining, still but flowing body of water gives way to the river bank, which rises up steeply, covered in darkening trees, with the golden dome of one of Kyiv's orthodox churches appearing near the top. 

As I carry the sleepy, but not sleeping, obviously, as previously explained, DB2 down by the river, I can't take my eyes off it. The lights from the wedding reflected on the water, the small beach nearby where the last day-time visitors are watching the incredible sunset before heading home. I can hear the music starting for the dancing and the voices of the Ukrainian and British guests, many meeting today for the first time. If I close my eyes now, I am there. 

I have a habit, possibly inspired by my expat status, of imagining setting up home in the cities I visit, what the cost would be, what I would do? Where would the kids go to school? Kyiv is no different. In my head I am already walking through this elegant city on the way to work, or catching the Metro, trying to understand my kids as they speak to me in Ukrainian or Russian, bringing them swimming to this heavenly place at the weekends in summer and taking them ice skating during Kyiv's cold winters. 

It's the wine, conviviality and happy vibrations from the wedding of course that is bringing this idyllic existence to life in my imagination, but even allowing for my natural cynicism, it's been such a perfect day that I convince myself it could be real. 

Over the next few days, we pack in seeing as many of the golden roofed orthodox churches that having two small children in tow will allow, including the most famous of all, the Catacombs, a monastery which contains the preserved remains of Eastern Orthodox saints. Each church we see is different, but they're all in pristine condition, not a minuscule crack or fade to any of the paint, nor any damp, or age-related decay. 

We see the Kyiv Academic Puppet Theatre, although we are not quite together enough to actually manage to see a show. We see the Motherland Monument, the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad, Independence Square, and we visit Kyiv's slightly eccentric Museum of Water, where a young woman shows us around, pointing out things and tapping them with a wooden stick, making sure we have seen everything there is to see, which we later read is typical of Ukrainian museum employees. 

We walk for miles, pushing the buggy or carrying DB2 in a sling, DB1 on our shoulders, until sleep defeats her on the longest days, and for the first time in her life she actually gives in without a fight and droops over and curls up clinging to her dad's head. We gape at building after opulent building, each with more ornate detail than the last, interspersed with stops at shady green parks when the kids get historied out. 

We stop in cafes and restaurants for Ukrainian food, Armenian food, Georgian food. We catch buses and Metros which cost almost nothing. At one point, we stumble upon Arsenalna, Kyiv's deepest and therefore the world's deepest Metro station, built into the bank of the River Dnieper, 105m below ground level, where it feels like the descent is going on forever and that the temperature drops by 5C. 

Among all the incredible beauty, the delicious food, the kind, courteous but reserved people, are glimpses of a dark underside of the city - fly posters that accuse men pictured of "money laundry" and corruption.

I'm now far from naïve about the challenges Ukraine has faced since it became independent from the collapsing Soviet Union - the Russian interference, allegations of corruption, Oligarchs, the fighting and the annexing of Crimea, but I feel annoyed with myself for knowing so little about it until this point, so I read as much as I can about the history of the country. 

Before this trip, Ukraine for me, as it is for many British children of the 1980s, is the Chernobyl disaster on John Craven's Newsround, and the Ukrainian folk dancers who visited my home town on a tour of the continent as part of a cultural exchange with former Soviet countries. 

And of Kyiv, I know only the Great Gate of Kiev, the bombastic finale of Russian composer Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, inspired by a painting of the gate, which is actually known as the Golden Gate in real life. The music suggests magnificence and splendour, but nothing could have prepared me for what the city is actually like. Again, my hastily snapped phone pics do not even scratch the surface of the beauty of the place. 

We buy souvenirs including Matryoshka dolls, the real name for Russian dolls, and toilet paper printed with pictures of Putin's face. And then finally we leave again, chatting about potential future trips to Odessa, Kharkiv and Lviv, to see more of this magnificent country, none of which come to fruition of course, because early the next year, borders close due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, and, when we can travel again, the world seems harder to navigate. Fast forward to the present, and I now know the names of other places, Kherson, Sumy, Irpin, Vinnytsia and Mariupol, all for the worst possible reasons.  

February 2022

I can't pinpoint the exact point that I fell in love with Kyiv in the few short days I was there. Perhaps it was the first full day in the city, at the wedding by the river or the mystical Catacombs. As a Brit who spent nearly 10 years in London, I know a capital city does not give a full picture of a country, but if it weren't for that other massive, world changing thing, you know, the pandemic? Remember that? I think we would have had further adventures there. My love for the place endures to the degree that in the days prior to February 24, I'm filled with a horror, even more than I would have thought possible, at the reports of Russian troops gathering at the Ukrainian border and of what is about to be unleashed on a country which seemed so full of hope, ambition and confidence during our brief visit. 

Then after the invasion begins, as I silently scroll through the horrific news emerging from Ukraine, hour by hour, my brain is numb but nauseous with grief. It's a misery that means nothing in comparison with the cataclysmic suffering of Ukrainians, of course, the indiscriminate killing of civilians of all ages, some as young or younger than my own kids, horrendous injuries, the cities under siege with no power or running water, people running out of food and being forced to drink water from puddles, the flattening of a country, homes, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, landmarks, the endless footage of Ukrainians carrying what they can and leaving. 

And, I keep remembering all the people we met while there, the family and friends of the bride, the kind waiter who chatted to us on the first day, the young woman who showed us around the museum, the drivers, restaurant and shop staff, and realising they will be now be picking up machine guns, filling molotov cocktails, or hiding in basements, bomb shelters and that deep, cold Metro station, fleeing their homes for increasingly hazardous journeys across the country to try to reach safety, not knowing if they will survive, or when or if they will return. 

I also keep thinking about the lovingly preserved landmarks and churches of Kyiv, which, having stood for centuries or been painstakingly rebuilt or restored during Ukraine's sometimes tumultuous history, could be obliterated in seconds by Russian bombs. Tributes to the human impulse to honour the glory of God, their country, or just straightforward human endeavour, crushed.

 I read that the city and its wonders are so important to the scheme of Russian history and nationalism that it will be spared the bombs, but other accounts are not so certain. And as the deaths and destruction continue across the country, it seems inevitable that they will fall, even as the Ukrainians continue to stand unflinchingly in front of armoured vehicles and tanks, but I am hoping with every part of me that that is not the case. The woman who told the Russian soldier to fill his pockets with sunflower seeds on the first day of the war seems like a century ago because of all we have seen since then. 

Then there's the comedian, now President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who I scoffed at back in 2019, who has now become a rallying figure. I don't think I'll ever forget seeing the video he recorded after stepping out of a bunker into the streets of Kyiv with senior aides to deny Russian lies that he had already fled, and as I write this, I'm listening to his speech to the UK House of Commons, the first time I have ever seen a foreign leader address it, and he's being referred to by commentators as Churchill with a social media account.  

You only need to read a tiny fraction of Ukrainian history, the journey to independence from the Soviet Union after Chernobyl, and before that the Holodomor - the 1930s famine, also under Soviet rule, to realise that this is not a people likely to return quietly to having their destiny decided by Russia. That will is as plain as ever when you see them preparing to fight, facing down guns while unarmed or carrying their children for miles to safety.

 

Even now, after everything that has happened during these 14 terrible days, seeing a murderous invasion play out on the internet and TV in all its gruesome detail, my head is still filled with the memories of our little family. We are still pacing the city of Kyiv, criss-crossing from monument to church to park to art gallery and onwards during those long sunshine-bathed days, and I cannot reconcile that to what the city must be now, fear - trenches, barriers, armed soldiers and volunteers, checkpoints and snipers. 

So far, at least 1.7 million people have been displaced by the invasion and war, and there are estimates that as many as four million could be displaced in total, with thousands of lives lost. It just does not seem real, but I know experts are saying it is fatuous to be disbelieving that something like this could happen in the 21st century, as it has happened recently in other countries this side of the Millennium, and that this conflict has been a long time in the making. 

I am hoping against hope that the conflict does not spread further than it already has, and that Ukrainians will be able to go home and start the process of rebuilding their lives soon, although that hope seems to get fainter with each day. I wish peace, safety and the right to choose their own destiny for Ukrainians, and for everyone displaced or suffering due to conflict, as it is the very least we as human beings deserve.  

School's Out Forever? The Corona Chronicles 7

I am pretty sure I am not the only UAE parent who spent part of Sunday in a daze having read this article in Gulf News, which suggests we may have to continue homeschooling our little darlings in September.

For me, early July when term ends, and I can stop torturing my five year old through daily doses of maths, phonics, letter and sentence formation, rudimentary Arabic, and so forth, and just let her get on with the business of being a child again during our time together, ie playing, has been a like a beacon that I am sailing towards through rough waters. As I get closer to that beacon, I also get closer to hurling myself into a lifeboat as I develop a shorter and shorter fuse while she finds increasingly ingenious ways to delay doing her lessons. So the thought of having to start it all again in late August, in year one, after she has spent seven weeks busily forgetting all we have struggled together for her to learn, is not a cheery prospect.

Mimi and Catkin. 

I know, I know, without a vaccine, the coronavirus is so virulent that sending the little disease factories back to the breeding ground without some kind of restriction would be foolhardy. But I do despair slightly that the impact this enforced isolation is having on the kids seems to be of little interest to those making the decisions.

The thing that really made me stomach hit the floor about the article linked above is the mention of the usage, or not, of school buildings, and, I quote, "the extent of a student's need to sit in a classroom five days a week, school hours, and the extent of the students' need to study daily from 7am to 2pm".

Does anyone else find that quote somewhat sinister? Does it, to anyone else, imply that the government may not just be looking at how to manage education during the coronavirus crisis, but that they may be considering wholesale changes to its education system in general? I know there has been much talk of the positive impact the crisis has had on the environment, the way the air is cleaner, roads are relatively traffic free, we can hear birds singing and so on thanks to the reduction in air traffic, and supposedly some are busy rethinking the need to attend business meetings in other countries when simple Zoom call will do.

Germinating seeds for online STEM day. 

But does this also mean we could see the beginning of the end of our education system as we know it? Could it be the impetus governments want or need to divest themselves of the need to provide physical schools for education and simply move the entire system online?

Honestly, I am aware of the economic and environmental benefits of making schools virtual from here on, but I also cannot think of a more depressing prospect for my children. We as parents are continually castigated for allowing our small children too much time staring at a screen due to the negative impact and the addictive nature of devices on small brains. Therefore, forcing their entire education interactions onto a screen for any kind of extended period, just fills me with abject horror. 

I know this is a giant example of worst case scenario doom mongering, but as the crisis continues, and the economic consequences pile up, and governments find themselves compelled to relax restrictions to save economies, not really knowing the potential impact or the number deaths they will cause by doing so, it is hard not to catastrophise. Maybe it is the case that DB1 and DB2 and their peers could after all be the last generation to be educated in a physical school environment, the virus may just be bringing the day when none of our children go to school forward. 

Phonics.

To slow down the doom mongering a little, it is true that there are upsides to DB1 not having to go to school. Foremost, is the fact that I get more time with her. Then, the days of the mad scramble of the school run and "discussions" such as this are temporarily over: "You need to eat more than one spoonful of cereal every 10 minutes if you want to finish it before we leave" and "No, I do not have time to read you a chapter of Dogman before driving you to school," and of course, the classic: "For the love of suffering f***, will you for s***'s sake put on your f***ing shoes, we were meant to have left 10 minutes ago if we are to have a chance of not going in the late book". I paraphrase, I do not really talk to her like that. Not very often, anyway. 

The reduced costs are another benefit. We have not filled the car with petrol since movement restrictions came into place. There is also dispensing with the need to blearily prepare packed lunches the night before, and the disappearance of the stress of remembering PE kits, theatre club clothes, reading books and swimming kits on the right days.

From my part, being a massive nerd, I did not have a great time at school for large parts of it, and even though that is not a problem afflicting DB1 yet, as far as I can tell, I am also quietly pleased that she gets to enjoy an extended break from the fray.

But, but and indeed but, that does not mean that I want her to be out of school forever. And it does not mean I want her to undertake her education remotely even over the medium term. Digital learning may be he future, but it is not something I would choose for any five year old. A child this age is still learning about human interaction, so to take it away from them and expect to pick up what they need to know about how to build friendships with their peers via a screen does not seem a happy prospect.

Right now, in the UAE, we have had 203 deaths from coronavirus, and approaching 20000 cases in total, a drop in the ocean compared to my home country, the UK, but still significant. Restrictions have been relaxed to a degree, although we have twice broken the record for the highest number of daily cases in the space of the last week. There is still precious little to compensate kids for the lack of school and daily interactions with their friends and teachers. All "family entertainment" venues are closed, meaning those UAE summer staples, the soft play centres, cinemas and so on. Public parks and beaches are slated to reopen, but with midday temperatures topping 35C, they are of little use from now until around October or November.

DB1 has coped with it all pretty well, she is on the whole a well behaved child, and she is interested in school enough to make a good stab at a lot of her lessons at home, but I feel so sad that her first year at "big school" will end this way, with end of term sports days and fun days replaced by me desperately trying to compensate for what she is missing out on, and, that it seems likely that a substantial part of her second year at school could be the same.

Him Indoors and I were talking about how to get through the next months, or possibly years of this crisis, without going insane, and we came to the conclusion that we may as well write off 2020 in terms of any kind of progress, and that just maintaining as much normality as possible, particularly for the kids, will be a win. We also resolved not to sit every evening, once the kids are asleep and there is a moment to think, discussing "the situation" and how we will move forward, because it is futile, as things seem to change daily. We just need to get through it and avoid agonising about it while sloshing back wine every evening, tempting as that may be. 

That is easy to say as it is hard to keep the feelings of stress and frustration at bay. And the general sense of doom about the possibility of remote learning continuing was not helped by the fact that yesterday was not a good day at the coal face. DB1's school, a fairly aspirational and well established British curriculum school favoured by the offspring of the staff of a certain large airline, has done a corking job providing as much of the curriculum as they can online.

If you are in any doubt how much effort DB1's school are putting in, this is one of the teaching assistants as Princess Leia for a Star Wars themed "dough disco" where they show the kids how to use play doh to improve their fine motor skills.

But school is not meant to be like this - me desperately trying to summon the requisite playful enthusiasm needed to teach a five year old and get some foundation stage phonics into her head, and pretending that brief online interactions with her teachers are just as good as having them on hand to help her with lessons.

I think it's safe to say she hit the wall yesterday, although she seems a bit happier today having had a one on one webex chat with her teachers. By the end of yesterday, I had to go and hide in the office and read some relaxing coronavirus statistics for my blog, if you will excuse that glib mention of this very serious situation. She is sick of my stupid face, I am not a school teacher by any stretch of the imagination, and believe me, being from a teaching family I am painfully aware of how lacking I am on that score.

As we lurch towards the end of our eighth week of me playing school teacher, we had both had enough. No matter how much the school says do not worry too much about the kids engaging with home learning, the fact remains that school life is rumbling on in the virtual sphere, and at some point, whether it is now or through hefty amounts of catching up within the next year, the work will have to be done. Yesterday finished, as many have, with me bellowing about how we could have finished the work and be doing something else by now if she would just bloomin' well get on with it. Believe me, that is not something I am proud of. I think the most difficult thing about it is the way remote learning changes your relationship with your child, adding a stressful new dimension to your daily interactions that neither of you, in all honesty, particularly want.

Again, there are upsides to learning this way. I am fairly sure sure she gets a lot more one to one attention from the teacher, even if the teacher is a woefully unqualified me. And I have enjoyed seeing her progress, as her reading and writing improve, that she is actually pretty good at maths, and finding out what she else she actually gets up to at school. Usually, the most I get out of her during the school run home is that school was "fine" and she "can't remember" what she did during the day.

What I also have not mentioned so far, in this endless screed, is that although we do know all of three families for whom the father is taking the homeschooling lead, this responsibility inevitably falls for the most part to the mothers. And there does not seem to be any discussions about the extra burden this places on stay at home mums, particularly those who have several kids at school, or how working mothers are still supposed to continue to work while shouldering the bulk of the responsibility of educating their kids at home. How are we supposed to magically fit in teaching around work? The ridiculous stereotype about women being multitaskers and being able to do it all is rife at the moment. And I worry that women will be expected to simply absorb the stress of it all, unrewarded and unpaid of course, unless the path we are on changes some time soon. 

Move number 17, in a time of Covid: The Corona Chronicles 6

A friend of mine, on reading this old post, about my 16th house move in 18 years, said she felt a little bit sick at the thought. Well, friend, if you are reading this, I think you may be about to vomit, because we have spent four and a half years at our current flat, and, knock me down with a Covid-infected feather, we are moving again. Him Indoors and I have never made it to five years at any of our places of residence since we left home in 1997 and 1998 respectively, so, you know, we thought, let's move house during Ramadan and a global pandemic, because we are MENTAL.

I have shared the above picture with you, taken this morning, because Him Indoors pulled off the miracle of completing the complicated admin involved in getting the keys to the new place today, despite everything that is going on, so the movers are coming at 9am tomorrow. You read that right.

The movers are coming tomorrow.

The. Movers. Are. Coming. Tomorrow.

As you can see, we have packed not a jot, because we are taken up with schooling (me) and work (him). Luckily moving is a pretty common occurrence in Dubai, what with one thing and another, so moving companies will do the lot, pack everything, right down to the 10 year old novelty pants stuffed at the back of your underwear drawer, and then pull down your curtains and put them back up in the new place. So it's fairly easy. In normal times. Now, of course, is not normal. Normally, one of us would supervise and the other would take the kids off somewhere, but there is no somewhere because everywhere is closed.

The malls are open but kids under 12 are not allowed in them, and even if they were, entertainment options such as soft play and cinemas are closed. You are allowed to take them out for a walk. For one hour. Parks are closed. Swimming pools are closed. What the hell are we going to do with a five year old and a one year old while we get our worldly possessions crammed into a lorry and driven 500 yards down the street to our new, bigger apartment? I have literally no idea, but I think it is going to involve going for the obligatory hour long walk when the movers first arrive, then taking the kids to the new place to run around until the movers get there, then bringing the kids back to the old place to play cleaning so the movers can do their thing at the new place.

Why the hecking heck of all f***s are we doing this to ourselves? Well, there was a half-hearted plan to move to an apartment nearer DB1's school because the commute is a pain at 7am and there is a school bus option, but it goes all around the houses, and it would take her the best part of two hours to do a half-hour journey on the way home.

This did not happen because of some tedious stuff to do with the landlord changing their minds about notice periods needed to move from one development to another, even though the landlord owns both. But, we did have the option to move somewhere bigger within the same development, and because there are currently five of us in a two-bed apartment, which, as Him Indoors would say, is not premium, we decided to go for it because if we don't do it now, we won't get the option until the same time next year, rents are at an all time low, so we are getting a bargain, and the alarming combination of restrictions plus UAE summer means we are spending a heck of a lot of time indoors, so we need more space.

There is also the fact that our unbelievable bellend of a downstairs neighbour has started thumping on the ceiling like a caged gorilla when DB1 does her 15 minute PE lesson twice a week, I can only assume because she has the temerity to to sound like she might be having fun and these people are the enemies of joy. It is, of course, beyond him to give us a tiny bit of a noise-based leeway for a child who is literally imprisoned in a two-bed apartment 23 hours per day seven days per week. Of course it is.

Five of us, you say? Have I squeezed out an extra kid without mentioning it? That would be very unlike me. No, our formerly live out nanny has had to become live in for the time being as the Covid restrictions mean she would not be allowed to come and go from our house. As great as our nanny is, it has been somewhat cosy over the past month or so. The new place has an extra bedroom, a little room that I can use as an office. And a store room. A store room! AKA a place where I can throw all the stuff in that I swear I am going to sort out but never get around to, close it and forget about it. This may not sound ideal, but believe me, it will be better than the hourly rages about the fact that my house is full of stuff that I have nowhere to put and there is nowhere I can look without seeing a surface piled up with children's toys, school-related gubbins, lego, old notebooks, stationery, nick-nacks and piles of dust.

This will be fine of course until more stuff makes its way in to fill all the spaces, and the stuff in the store room gradually forms into a monstrous sentient being made up of old wires, forgotten birthday cards, clothes that I am too fat for and old baby paraphernalia that I want to sell but can't because of the restrictions, and crawls out and assumes command of the apartment and makes us all its slaves.

Anyway.

I really should go and do a bit of packing so I do not have to suffer the indignity of a team of movers hurling my ancient nursing bras and piles of dusty desk-based rubbish into the same cardboard box.

Wish us luck. 

How to be a Covid patient without having Covid: The Corona Chronicles 5

Something that has been at the back of my mind since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak here is what will happen if any of us experience any kind of medical issue while hospitals and clinics are busy with Covid-19 patients. Thanks to DB2 and her periodic super high fevers, I found out.

Just over two weeks ago, she started to develop a fever, which happens every other month or so. The familiar scenario of a small, sleepless and cranky child with no appetite emerged, and we survived on coffee for us and regular doses of paracetamol, followed by Nurofen when paracetamol did not even touch the fever, for her.

By Tuesday, she was no better, so I booked an appointment with a pediatrician at a well-known hospital as this has been happening more than I am comfortable with since she was born, with a particularly nasty episode when she was aged six months when she had to be hospitalised. During prior episodes, my local doctor had shrugged her shoulders and said it was most likely her older sister bringing home bugs from school. Well, I reasoned to myself, her older sister has not been near the school for getting on for two months, so something must be up. It did not occur to me to think it might be the c-word, as we have been observing all the lockdown rules.

Starting to feel better.

I asked for a telephone consultation to avoid having to venture out, but the admin staff said no, with a a fever you have to be seen by a doctor. But, once we were there, we were screened for fever and travel history by a security guard on the way in, although the forehead thermometer did not pick up DB2's temperature. Then, the doctor who was assigned to see DB2 would not see us once the nurse established she indeed did had a fever, as he was not seeing any fever patients, due to the risk of him being infected with Covid 19. I understand it, of course, the hospital must operate some kind of system where certain staff members have no contact with potential Covid patients at all to ensure they can keep running in the event of an outbreak among staff, but I did not feel particularly understanding being shunted off to a remote part of the outpatients section and left to wait in a corridor with a sick one year old while they decided what to do.

We were then dispatched to the accident and emergency department, while DB2's fever climbed, so she was given the usual fever reducing medicines and after having the life scared out of her by a doctor in full personal protective equipment of, gown, mask, visor and gloves, and following a series of complicated manoeuvres to get her to give a urine sample, we were sent home with a suspected ear infection and a prescription for Augmentin.

A bit peaky.

It was getting towards the evening by this time and the hospital started to take on an eerie quality as most of the day's outpatients left. There was no busy cafe open to sit and nurse an over priced machine-produced cappuccino and bribe fractious children by feeding them chunks of diabetes-inducing chocolate muffin while waiting for prescriptions.

Perspex screens surrounded the pharmacy, so one had to shout not only through a mask, but through a small gap between screens to be heard. The only people there besides us appeared to be those with acute pain relief needs, and a guy inquiring about a supply of alternative medicine to his usual brand, which was unavailable in the UAE, as he was unable to get back to the USA to see his doctor.

The pharmacists were run off their feet as even though there were relatively few patients, they had to spend much longer than usual on hold to insurers, with some of them on hold to two different insurers for two different patients on two different phones at a time. I expect health insurers are among the busiest people on the planet these days. The pharmacists were in full protective gear of gowns, hairnets, protective glasses, gloves and masks, making communication even harder.

Getting ready to be discharged. It took my until 24 hours after we arrived to realise those cupboard doors open by pressing them inwards. Prior to that, I had been levering them open using hospital cutlery. I was quite sleep deprived. 

While we were waiting to see the triage nurse earlier, we had seen a Covid-19-related episode which I imagine is fairly typical. A crew of a passenger ship turned up in reception, wearing the obligatory protective masks, saying they had been told to come to the hospital to get tested as they had been exposed by a passenger who had contacted them after disembarking to let them know they had tested positive. "We need to get tested so we can find out our status so we can get back to work," the guy in charge told the manager, who had to be summoned after the receptionist told him there were no tests available.

The hospital advised them to stay at home for 14 days to see if symptoms emerge, and then contact the health authority or a clinic if they became serious. Obviously, that would not be possible for a ship's crew on a sailing schedule. The discussions continued back and forth for a while, before the boss got on the phone to try to sort out tests for them. DB2 and I were called to see the nurse before I could earwig enough to find out what their next move was.

Our own hospital experience complete for the time being, we headed home. The kind A and E doctor tried to reassure me that it was most likely nothing to worry about, as even though DB2's big sister has not been near school, the little one could still acquire an infection as the tiny, narrow tubes that make up the pathways inside the ears, throat and urinary tract of a one year old are absolute breeding grounds for bacteria, so the slightest sniffle or incidence of being under the weather can lead to an infection.

On Thursday, after a couple more sleepless nights with fever spikes of nearly 41C, I took her back to A and E, as the doctor said to do so if she did not improve within 48 hours. After a stressful hour waiting for the online movement permits that we were using at the time for everything, and a tearful phone call to the service centre who told me to just go and show the police the "pending" message on my phone if they were to stop me, off we went.

By the time we got to the hospital, DB2 was clinging to me like a limpet and burning up. Even the triage nurse, who had been kind but a little abrupt on my first visit, called her a "poor child", and cleared the route through to the emergency ward as a fever for an extended period is one of the key signs of the c-word.

Intravenous antibiotics were prescribed and those of you with small children who have experienced similar will know how nightmarish that is. It involves two nurses holding down your screaming, sick and distressed baby to put the cannula into their hand. All I could do was bend over the hospital bed with a cartoon playing on my phone, acting like having her hand pierced and strapped to an IV drip was absolutely fine, totally par for the course, and attempting to sing silly songs to distract her while trying not to burst into tears myself.

An X-Ray was taken using a portable machine, to check for Covid-related lung infection, and I was asked to get her to provide another urine sample. I sighed heavily at this. Thanks to her history of high fevers and suspected urine infections, I know by now that getting a toddler to do this basically involves following your nappy off toddler around for hours and gradually getting covered in your own child's p*** as you try time after time collect it, while they employ a series of tactics to outwit you. as follows:

1. The stealth lap pee 

Sitting on parent's lap, waiting until they least expect that familiar warm sensation, usually when they are answering a phonecall or speaking to a doctor, commence peeing making sure parent has no chance of getting the cup ready on time.

2. The wanderer 

Walk around appearing to be reasonably content, with parent following closely behind, get into a corner to squat down and pee, it is even better if you are behind a piece of furniture, so your parent has no chance of catching any pee. Then if you are feeling really special, slip over in it and bang your head immediately afterwards, so your parent has no choice but to scoop up your pee-covered self and comfort you while also standing in a pool of pee aforementioned pee.

3. The stop/starter 

When your parent does succeed in getting the cup under you at the opportune moment, immediately desist from peeing and burst into tears, hold on to remaining pee if possible to maximise the chance of actually getting a urine infection if you don't already have one.

4. The p***taker

The A and E doctor could see I was about to lose it, particularly when DB2 decided to go and pee in the corner of the cubicle while I was busy Googling "how to get a toddler to give a urine sample" on my phone. Of course she did.

The doctor took pity and let me use the pediatric urine bag which fits in the nappy and does the collection job all by itself.

No such luck on the Thursday night. DB2's blood test results came back, and her infection markers were extremely high. In addition, having eaten pretty much nothing all day, she decided right before the cannula was fitted that it was a good time to eat a tangerine that I had shoved into my bag before leaving the house. Unfortunately, she then got so upset that a bit of orange went down the wrong way, and she started coughing violently, barely able to catch her breath. I could feel the tension in the room when she started displaying a second key Covid symptom.

So we were admitted. The nurse saw my face and said don't worry about the urine test, just get her to do it when you get to the ward. She was swabbed for Covid-19, so it turned out tests were in fact available in the hospital, the men I had seen in reception earlier in the week obviously did not meet the criteria. We were then taken up to the children's ward.

As we arrived, the duty doctor told me that they suspected she had Covid-19, despite the fact that I had no idea how she could have caught it if she did as we had been at home as directed by the UAE government.

I am not going to keep you in suspense, she tested negative and we received the results on the Sunday morning, one week after she first became ill. The stronger intravenous antibiotics did the trick and sorted out whatever infection it was, so by day six, Saturday morning she was her old self, wondering around the hospital room, shouting "Bah" at the top of her voice, twerking to the Hokey Cokey played repeatedly on YouTube and eating handfuls of hospital pasta bolognese while covering as much of the hospital room as possible in the sauce.

Settling down for a two and a half hour nap at the exact point we were meant to be being discharged, because that's how she rolls. It was probably her longest sleep during our entire stay, including night-time. 

The time prior to this was pretty grim. As a suspected Covid patient, she was not allowed to leave the room, so neither was I, and we were allowed no visitors. The doctors for the most part did not come in at all, but called us on the room telephone when they needed to speak to us, the nurses, cleaners or ladies serving food were dressed in full protective gear, and it was only towards the end of the 66 or so hours that we were there that DB2 found that any less terrifying.

And then the urine sample. The saga of the goddamn sample. I am not joking when I say it took me the best past of 40 hours before I managed to collect it from her. The consultant in charge refused to let us use the urine collection bag in her nappy because he said they risked the urine being contaminated and therefore gave false positives. Far be it from me to suggest that they could test two or three samples if they were so worried about the false results, and save carers of children hours and hours of getting covered in gallons of pee.

After 24 hours of worry and very little sleep and being stuck in a stuffy hospital room with a toddler who was still sick and feverish and chasing her round and round with a small plastic cup, both of us getting more tired, stressed and upset in the process, I ended up demanding to see the doctor and had a row with her, which ended with me angrily refusing to let her ask the nurses to insert a tube into DB2's bladder collect a sample that way. I am not going to recount the conversation here, as it was not my proudest moment, but the general gist was "over my dead body will you do that to my child".

The nurse came to see me shortly after that, and said forget about it now, it's too late for the laboratory anyway, just try again in the morning. And sure enough, once DB2 was feeling better, by half way through the next morning, the job was done.

Our pseudo-Covid experience was mercifully short and obviously it turned out fine. But the stress of being alone in a room like that with a sick child is not one I would wish to repeat. She is fully recovered now, although various test results did not tell us what kind of infection it was that gave her such a high fever this time. We have been told that the super high fevers are not a particular worry, some children have them, some don't. It's just that some bodies react differently to illness than others. Although we have been told to keep an eye out for any similar episodes along with unexplained bruises or any more losses of appetite.

I do not regret taking her to hospital as the need for intravenous antibiotics showed that she was sick enough to be admitted,  and that I didn't expose her to potential Covid risk unnecessarily. I had read an article not long before she got sick saying that if your child was sick enough to need hospital treatment, you should not hesitate in taking them even if you are nervous about the the virus as clinics have measures in place to protect them. Although I was anxious about taking her, and I felt the staff were a bit to quick to assume it was Covid-19, they only had my word for the fact that she had not been exposed, and of course they cannot be too careful.

Seriously, though, friends, you need to avoid exposing yourself to even the suspicion of having this illness if you can. DB2 and I got off lightly, obviously, but being stuck in a room only visited by people who look like they are working on a nuclear waste cleanup is no joke, even for 68 hours.

Disclaimer. This is a subject hat comes up in one form or another reasonably regularly on here, but it is rather more serious at this rather difficult time. I have access to good private healthcare, I live in a rich country, even though I am as poor as a church mouse compared to some of the super rich types that frequent Dubai, I am unimaginably privileged compared with many both in the UAE and around the world. This blog is in no way a complaint about the standard of healthcare in my adopted homeland, and I realise that I very, very lucky to have healthcare cover at all, and no, I do not think I am badly off compared to those who are very sick, dying, died of or have lost loved ones to Covid-19, so please don't send me angry messages about that. Thanks.

The inevitable postponement of Expo 2020: The Corona Chronicles 4

The last few weeks saw the the news that Expo 2020 Dubai, the mega event world fair that was due to open in October, is to be postponed. As far as the international press is concerned, a one-year delay is a done deal, but the local press are saying a postponement is at the proposal stage.

For some context for those of you who have never set foot in the UAE, I wrote about the announcement of Dubai's winning bid, at what was a very different time in my life, and not just because there wasn't a global pandemic at the time. We were pre-kids, we were still running half marathons, we were living in a high-rise flat in Downtown, which was the venue for some corking new year parties thanks to a killer view of the Burj Khalifa and its gigantic new year fireworks display.

My shaky Blackberry shot of the Burj Khalifa, the night the winning Expo 2020 bid was announced, taken from our apartment in 8 Boulevard Walk. You would not be able to take a similar shot today as Emaar built several more towers in the gap between our old building and the Burj since then.   

I was in the midst of a short-lived semi-career change, working in-house as a copywriter for a real estate agency. My time there mirrored many in Dubai's experience in the run-up to and aftermath of the Expo bid. I was hired just after the win, there was an inevitable surge in interest in real estate, in both residential and commercial sectors, and then in June, the usual summer slowdown was not the usual slowdown, but a bit of a slump, and by November, I was seven months pregnant with DB1, and "made redundant" from my job. I say "made redundant", because  they brought in a younger, distinctly more male person, while I was still working there, to do my job, which is another story, connected to the fact that employee rights are not exactly top of the agenda for many. 

But I'm not bitter.

Anyway.

You can read in my old blog post, linked above, and here again, how Him Indoors and I looked at each other and sighed wearily when the winning bid was announced, because we knew that it would mean another spike in rental prices, and that we would be turfed out of our apartment by another unscrupulous landlord keen to get round rental increase caps of 20 per cent and find tenants willing to pay more.

It is also very easy to be cynical about Expo as the world now is unimaginably different from the one that saw the first World's Fair, which took place back in dear old Blighty in 1851. If you'll pardon me stating the bleedin' obvious: back then, if you wanted to see great innovations and inventions, the only real way to do so was to travel to see them in real life, whereas today you can of course see anything you like at the swipe of a smartphone without leaving the comfort of your armchair.

But, hosting the expo is a great source of national pride for the UAE. It is the first time an event of its kind has ever been held anywhere in the region, and the country has made a huge investment in creating a purpose-built expo site to the south of the city, and of course there is the small matter of the claims that the event will bring 25 million visitors to the UAE during its six month duration.

With the airport currently closed except for a fraction of its usually scheduled flights, entry suspended even for pre-existing visa holders, and the emirate of Dubai living with some of the tightest restrictions to prevent the spread of Covid-19, it was of course inevitable that it would be postponed. Talk of a vaccine for this miserable disease is apparently a long way off, and it seems unlikely it will be ready for widespread use by October this year, so it would be a kind of madness for it to go ahead.

While its cancellation may not have the same global impact as that of the Tokyo Olympics, it is big news for the UAE, and for those who livelihoods depend on it going ahead in October. It is not for nothing that the event was being marketed earlier this year as the world's greatest show.

On broader level, there are many millions of us, Him Indoors and I included, whose livelihoods depend on things returning to some kind of normality at some point soon. But, I remember saying to him in the early stages of the outbreak as it began to spread from country to country: "Can't people just stop s***ing all over the world?" And surely that will have to be the case if a vaccine is not identified, will it not? Perhaps regular air travel will once again become the preserve of the super rich. If Greta Thunberg is not enough to convince the great and the good that burning tons of fossil fuel for the sake of attending a meeting or a conference that could easily take place online, or for the sake of "winter sun" or having a place to drink beer at a third of the price of one's homeland on a stag night, then maybe the risk of contracting a potentially fatal strain of viral pneumonia, or passing it on to a vulnerable loved one, is.

Maybe we are about to see the last of these global events. After all, many of us who were told, no, it is simply not possible for you to work from home, found that suddenly, when there is no other option, it is perfectly possible after all, albeit with the help of the dreaded Zoom. And my inbox is stuffed full of press releases about events and conferences that are being cancelled and hastily reconvened online.

There is no doubt that when the expo does eventually go ahead, it will be enormous, brash, bursting to the seams with the evidence of hefty quantities spent on staging it. But perhaps, in its efforts to host the expo to host all expos, the UAE has inadvertently done just that. Perhaps when the new normal is not getting on a plane at the drop of a hat, experiencing the wonders of an expo is purely something that will take place virtually, and these in real life experiences will be the a thing of the past.

It's my blog and I will grumble if I want to: The Corona Chronicles 3

Public service announcement: If you found my blog because you're looking for information about how Covid-19 is affecting the UAE, you will find a page with everything that's been happening (that I am aware of) here. 

I'm sitting here on a Saturday night, looking down the barrel of week two of home learning with DB1. She's a good girl, even though she reserves any bad behaviour for me alone, and sometimes her father, and our nanny, if she's really feeling like sharing the love. But I should not grumble, (although grumbling is something I will return to later) as home learning has been OK so far, even though it was hard to keep up her motivation on day four or five, the weekend came just in time to give her a long enough break that I feel OK about tackling it again tomorrow.

To set the scene of what it's like here as I sit writing this: In Italy, they have been playing glorious renditions of folk songs or opera to each other from their balconies during their confinement. Here, in our development, in a northern suburb of Dubai, to celebrate the healthcare workers and also, today, Earth Hour, various neighbours have been sort of loudly groaning and playing what sounds like a vuvuzela.

I started writing this last weekend, before things got really, serious, before we were were told we shouldn't leave the house except to go to the supermarket or to carry out "essential" work, and then we cannot go out at all from 8pm to 6pm unless we apply for a permit to do so while government workers carry out nationwide street sterilisation.

So I took DB2 on one of her nap walks, as she has always slept better in a moving buggy or car, and although the officially declared cases were and still are tiny in number compared to the most badly affected countries, there was a quiet sense of unease in the air that something is out there waiting to get us.

That sounds melodramatic, but while it was not supernaturally quiet, it was certainly more silent than usual. The complex where we live can be a noisy old place. We are next to a six, or is it seven lane highway? I've lost count. We are close to Dubai International Airport (DXB) so reasonably low flying jets are ordinarily our constant companions, but the flights were already drastically reduced in number, and stopped altogether now, except for the odd evacuation flight and cargo. Lorries usually beep away as they deliver to the small supermarket across the street from us. The call to prayer is sometimes absent now as the prayers are temporarily taking place in people's homes as one of many measures taken to curb the spread of this s***ing awful virus.

I watched the road for a minute or so as DB2 slept, and I would say about one out of every three vehicles on them was a delivery motorbike of one kind or another. I saw a taxi driver frantically tapping his monitor, presumably desperate for a fare, any fare, to appear on the screen, and another driver, this time for our local equivalent of Uber, Careem, sitting idle, presumably doing the same.

A couple weeks ago, I caught a taxi back from a doctor's appointment. I usually try to chat to them as they do not get paid high salaries which can be a challenging way to live in Dubai, and let's just say a lot of people are not that nice to them. The driver on that day had recently left a job as an electrician to be a driver, because it was a jump up in salary.

"How's that going?"

"It was OK," he said. "Then corona destroyed it."

At the time of writing, taxis are still allowed to operate, but I imagine most of them are experiencing similarly difficult circumstances as the friendly driver I met on that day, which was only a couple of weeks ago, but doesn't it now seem like a century ago?

To return to the subject of "mustn't grumble", I am seeing a lot of delightful memes about how blessed we all are to have this time with our families, and how many, many people are in worse situations than those of us who can afford to stay home in order to protect their families from Covid-19, and so on. And then there are the people who I am starting to think of as the enforcers, who are on every single Facebook community group, lecturing people about how they should stay at home and like it, and that they are basically selfish individuals if they express any desire to leave the house or any kind of dissatisfaction with this confinement so many of us are now experiencing.

I want to make it abundantly clear that I am abiding by the stay at home rules, I have not left the house except to occasionally stick my head out the door for fresh air or go to the supermarket for groceries, since the restrictions came into place. But, I find the level to which some people seem to be relishing this experience, relishing the need to stay on their sofas in their pants watching Netflix, and what's more, relishing threatening to report people to the authorities if they believe they are not complying to the absolute letter to the rules, maddening. I have had to leave most of the local community groups I mentioned above because they were depressing the heck out of me, which is a shame because they are useful for community news and updates and answers to the occasional thorny kid-related issue that arises during my somewhat haphazard parenting. It is the glee, I tell you, the absolute glee, that they say they are going to call the police that really sickens me, even more so than the act of calling the police itself.

And, of course I am happy having some more time with DB1 and DB2, particularly as I started getting back into work when the littlest one was nine months, (which is actually pretty good by UAE standards, as many women end up going back to work when their babies are just 45 days old, but that's another story) and it has been super hard having to head into work and leave her with the nanny some days, particularly as she has had a rough time with infections at certain points. And it will be even nicer when Him Indoors is working from home next week.

But I feel regret that what was becoming a quite a nice portfolio of freelance work has basically evaporated over night, and this home learning businesses means that I am not exactly flush with time to source new projects.

We live in such a flippin' binary world these days. I bore Him Indoors about this regularly, but it seems anathema to so many that one can feel two things at the same time, a trend that I attribute to social media, as people who hold the opposing view to you will quite happily make threats to your family or tell you that you are a cretin, having never even heard of you minutes earlier, never mind know anything about you.

Again, of course I am observing the rules the government has put in place to stop the virus ravaging the country and overwhelming the healthcare system the way it has elsewhere, but I still regret the economic impact, the colleagues who have lost jobs, been scaled down to three days per week, lost countless freelance projects, and the impact on the wider economy which could be felt for years, and the many, many thousands, millions, worldwide who will more than likely lose their jobs, and the impact on their families.

I particularly regret the schools closure, and the need to keep children away from their friends. Frankly, it is cruel, expecting a child who spends most of her days with a class of 24 kids to suddenly be content with just her parents and a nanny as her entire social circle. Again, I know why it has been done, but that does not stop me feeling sad for DB1, particularly when I saw the look on her face when she saw all her friends in a Zoom call that one of the parents of a classmate set up, and when I see the struggle to concentrate on lessons with me clumsily attempting to guide her through phonics, repeatedly having to Google "digraphs", instead of the highly trained professional who had been helping her thus far.

I know why these tight curfews are in place, I have seen what the virus has done elsewhere, but frankly, it sucks being confined. Anyone who has ever sought any kind of help for any kind of mental health issue will tell you is that one of the first things the professionals tell you is that if you are feeling low, you need sunlight, you need fresh air, you need endorphins from exercise to help you. Staying inside, away from natural light, away from fresh air, watching endless TV, or playing endless video games, or whatever, is the last thing that will help, and I fear for what will happen to many of us should this continue for more than a few weeks.

I know millions and millions of people all over the world are in similar situations, but I am drawing a line under "mustn't grumble". I will flippin' well grumble if I feel like it, thanks very much, because this situation is unprecedented, it is awful, and frankly, it would be weird if we did not feel stressed to the eyeballs about it for at least a 30 per cent of our waking hours.

So, my dearest readers, you have it on my authority, it is OK to grumble, it is OK to love being with your kids more but feel you could happily crack open the wine by 10am to get through another day of teaching the little blighters. It is OK to worry about keeping your job but also feel relieved to not have to do your horrible commute, and be away from your highly strung boss. I absolve you. Grumble away, I know I will be for as long as this extended nightmare goes on, and getting through about 100 times my usual Dairy Milk consumption, which was pretty high anyway. 

Iceland was robbed: The Corona Chronicles 2

Public service announcement: If you found my blog because you're looking for information about how Covid-19 is impacting the UAE, you will find a page with everything that's been happening, here. 

I'm setting here at the end of a day mainly spent inside our flat with Him Indoors and DB1 and DB2. We have not yet been told to stay home by the government, but let's just say, so many things are closed it is barely worth going out, and we have been advised by them that that may be for the best. I don't want this to be another doom and gloom post, so I have chosen a light-hearted thing to write about, which I will get to, I promise.

Obviously, it has been something of a weird day, ended with a sobering announcement of how fast the virus is spreading in my dear homeland, particularly London, the city I called home for nearly 10 years before we moved here.

While this is not a cheery subject I have chosen to take over this blog for the time being, I really do not want this to be a total misery fest, so today, children, we need to talk about the fact that Eurovision has been cancelled this year.

I heard this news a little later than most, today, on the BBC's Coronavirus Newscast, which some of you may well know, is a daily podcast on the virus-related news of the day, which features the same team as Auntie's mega juggernaut of a podcast Brexitcast, with added scientists and experts. It is a good listen, and manages, for the moment at least to occasionally be light-hearted.

Today, Adam Fleming, who has returned from his post in Brussels to work for the BBC in London, announced with Radio DJ Scott Mills that Eurovision, yes Eurovision, is cancelled this year, something that, obviously, has to happen, putting thousands of people from all over the continent in a stadium together to watch bands from all over the continent perform would basically be some kind of madness. I am sure a fair few of you are now thinking: "So there is a silver lining to this virus after all," but I think us masochists who enjoy watching it, who also happen to be Remain voters, would have loved the chance to see the typically absolutely risible UK entry, more risibly bad than any Eurovision entry in history, most likely being awarded "nil points" as is a fairly frequent occurrence anyway, followed by being booed off stage as punishment for leaving the EU. Alas, it is not meant to be.

I was also looking forward to seeing the obvious winner, Iceland, win big at this year's event. For those of you who do not follow Eurovision, first of all - what is wrong with you? This stuff is cultural comedy gold. Just look at it:

You see. The guy's name is Daði Freyr. I had to go and copy the special d from another website as I do not have it on this content system. This one of the many points I am glad I have always been a print or online journalist, so I do not have to make an absolute t*t of myself trying to pronounce his name. 

Honestly, the tune is an absolute banger. Now, those of you who know me personally, and let's face it of the people reading this blog that is the vast, vast majority of you, can imagine me saying the phrase "absolute banger" and how totally ridiculous that would sound. If that does not cheer you up, honestly, nothing will.

I do feel heartily sorry for Mr Freyr and his deadpan band, several of whom I believe are related to him. What am I talking about? They're Icelandic, everyone is related to everyone there. That is not a racial stereotype, it's true, read about it in my fascinating blog about our trip to Iceland. 

I heard about this track due to Mr Freyr clearly having something of a good social media team, as his tune made it into my Facebook feed, and I saw it and immediately thought: "That is a winner." And Iceland, bless them, with their 300,000 strong population (?) I think, came up with this absolute quality tune, which I would actually listen to other than just for the usual kitsch Eurovision value. 

I remember seeing postcards in Iceland that made fun of the fact that Icelanders have a great fondness for music. For example: "What do you do for a living?" "I am a plumber, but I also do music." "I'm a teacher but I also do music." "I'm an accountant but I also do music." Etc. I am sure there is anthropological research on why this is, but I would guess it is something to do with the long, dark winters. Singing songs was probably most likely a way to get through them, and that has endured. With apologies to my friends who are from Iceland. Feel free to tell me that that is a right load of stinking old b***ocks if you wish.

They have never won before according to my two second Google research. But I think they would have been a sure fire winner this year. I'm sorry, Iceland, you have missed your chance. I probably would not have actually stayed up to watch you because of the time difference, and I'm usually passed out by the time the competition would have most likely been starting, but I would have certainly celebrated your victory the following day. Iceland, it was not meant to be. Let us visualise together when this stinking awful disease has finished wreaking havoc, and the deadpan Daði and his band can delight us on another stage. 

Good night, friends, family and readers. I love you all. Stay well.