nineveh_uk

And in 2023, no less. I'm not entirely sure how that happened. Well, I am - time rolled on, and I am still on the long haul with Covid. I've been reading over bits of my diary and DW from the time, and it's obvious how early I wasn't getting over it, but also how strong the external messaging was that anyone not on a ventilator was just fine. And I didn't appear to have any breathing difficulties, which turns out to be extremely inaccurate, because obviously I did but I wasn't really aware of them, so obviously it was just a cold.** We live and learn, but I am very pissed off that I didn't get to go skiing in 2020 for good reason, but the reasons for 2022 and 2023 have been a lot less bloody good.

All of which is to say that today I am feeling long Covidy and a bit grumpy even though yes, I am better than I was, and my shoulder hurts because I swept in front of the house yesterday*** thinking that it was getting better (which it is) and it would be fine (which it wasn't), and once again I haven't written any fic this weekend, because I've been really tired and I just don't want to look at the computer outside work. It has not helped at all that for three days I had to be up and dressed by 7:30am for the roofers, and on Saturday they didn't arrive until 9. In fairness to the roofers, they shouldn't have arrived on Saturday at all, but they were set back by the weather. They were very nice and professional and grateful on Saturday for M&S cook-from-frozen Danish pastries.*****

So to be all Pollyanna about some better things:

- Four days of work left and then I am off for eleven and staying at home. Nice as it is to go away, I really need more than a weekend at home for a combination of rest, doing some sorting in the house, and using a modest amount of energy on enjoyment both doing hobbies at home and also going out. I'm not going to drag myself to London or anywhere else, but I might get to the Ashmolean.

- I am reading The Flight of the Heron. I can see why it has a niche fandom, it is extraordinarily full of slashy hurt/comfort, enemies-to-friends, and also very well written with deft characterisation and some in excellent landscape descriptions, in a 1920s sort of way.**** It does show up how thin my eighteenth-century history is, though.

- It is spring! All hope of snow is clearly over, the daffodils are out or nearly there, the cherry trees on the communal lawn have buds on. And the March showers, of which there are many, are now landing on my new lead flashing and flat roof.

- I have been having some fun doing some painting, both experimenting with watercolour technique and returning to the fantasy landscapes of my teens (at Easter, I'll do some drawing practice so I can put people in them). Having annoyingly mucked up the sky on one, this was resolved by trying the mount I had originally intended it for, but which I had exceeded in an enthusiasm of paper-stretching. Turns out cutting out most of the sky and otherwise altering the proportions back to my original thought made the whole thing much better as a composition.

- Although it is - oh woe! - the end of the winter sports season this weekend (except ski jumping, which I don't care about), I have enjoyed the cross-country skiing and the skating a lot. So to finish, here is an about to retire Keegan Messing having a lot of fun.



*I need to pay more attention to my handwriting and write more slowly if need be in pursuit of long-term legibility.

**My breathing is actually vastly improved these last three months, since I had a 'course' on it in late December, and seem finally to be able to do good practice in it most of the time, to cumulative benefit.

***The roofers cleaned up respectably and I ought to have just left it for another time, but I was "oh, I'll just pop out and do a bit more." Idiot.

****Some tolerance for 'phonetic' dialogue is required.

*****I need them to be willing to do the garage roof in a few years time. I had better go and pay the invoice.

Has anyone got a Cambridge Mask Company mask, and if so does it fit you? And if I haven't met you IRL do you mind telling me about your face shape?

TL:DR I have the same problem with masks as for glasses. Adult size too large, child size too small, and a narrow but highish nose.

I have received my second Covid vaccination, courtesy of a centre of great efficiency, which was something of a relief given that I want to spend as little time as possible indoors with the general population of Oxford at the moment, given our very high rates.* Less smooth was the drive there, which involved an annoying crawl due to a car accident blocking half a road, minor looking, but not ideal, and which took me home via the A34, so that I have now circumnavigated Oxford, and also seen 5 red kites.

Then I read Sense and Sensibility** in the garden and did a little chopping down of things, prior to a weekend on which I intend to do very little physical at all in the aim of trying to keep my body calm and not running off into weird reactions. I am very glad it is hot and I can just sit in the garden, as (a) I like sitting in the garden, and (b) post-Covid temperature regulation continues to make me feel cold whenever I am a bit low. 28C will at least make that less of an issue.

And to bring the two subjects together, I give you a sentence originally written of Fanny Dashwood and yet highly applicable to the Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party: for when people are determined on a mode of conduct which they know to be wrong, they feel injured by the expectation of anything better from them.

Vanity, spite and misjudgment never really change.

*I took my best mask and only got back to antisoppist's message about a friend of a friend having caught it at the centre afterwards, which may be a good thing. And yet there is no proposal for a lockdown, unlike if we were a northern mill town, and despite the high levels of people who travel in and out of the place. Funny, that.

**It's a very long time since I have. Not Austen's finest, the bitchiness has not been quite refined down to the stiletto point that will later mark her, but enjoyable as she always is.

Person whose job is probably clinical research nurse: "I've completed the training, but as I haven't done that many yet, my colleague will need to join us to supervise. Is that OK?"

Me, in my head: AAAAARGGGGHHH!!!

Me, out loud: That's fine.

She was fine. Definitely not in my top experience of phlebotomists, because experience really does seem to count here, but adequately competent. Fortunately I have highly cooperative veins. Still, I've evidently moved a long way since when I routinely anaesthetised the site with lidocaine first.

And now I wait a month for the results, which will tell me For Science whether I have coronavirus antibodies, to which the answer seems probably not because it has been too long. Still, fingers crossed!

*Via VirusWatch. I am very disappointed that they have clearly now had their consent form PDF proofread properly and updated it to talk about blood samples rather than the first version I received by email, which talked about bleeding people.

Making masks is proving less of a fun way to use up fabric scraps and create a well-fitting, comfortable, attractive new necessity, and more of an exercise in frustration. So far I have tried five patterns, and am yet to come up with something that makes me feel like a dashing highwayman with comfortable ears.

* They are small. Small things, especially small things that need to be turned inside out, are a pain.

* Pattern sizing is vague to say the least.

* They're a really annoying place on the body to try to fit closely without a custom-fit design. Faces vary a a lot, and they vary in multiple dimensions. A fabric mask that is mass-produced (including ordinary surgical masks) or has been home-made but not to an individual tailored pattern is by definition of not being made to fit an individual face shape not going to "seal" to the fact, and a "snug fit" is going to be pretty challenging if not impossible across the upper edge of cheeks and nose. Nose wires make a bit of difference, but can't make up for a poor fit or simply the effects of such things as occasionally needing to move the jaw in order to speak.

* Speaking of nose wires, bits of wire inevitably end up poking through the material, and the dedicated "nose bridges" only really worked in the pleated type of mask. There is no getting away from it: glasses with small lenses steam up. I suspect it doesn't help that If I am doing anything other than sitting absolutely still, and sometimes even then, I have to breathe through my mouth to some extent, so the warm air isn't being directed downwards as it would be by my nostrils.

The patterns...

(1) SleepingBaby The first I tried, and so far the best. Unfortunately, I traced the pattern off the computer screen as I haven't got a printer at the moment, and made it a bit too small. The instructions are a bit limited, but there's a comprehensive video to help. Does have the disadvantage that there's quite a bit of fabric over the mouth, which tends to be pulled towards it when breathing. I might try a piece of plastic boning down the centre seam. However this plus trying a couple of purchased ones suggests that it is the shape that works best for me, and I'm going to try it in the correct M size next.

(2) Burda. Lives up to everything you have every heard rumoured about Burda's terrible instructions. Despite being produced by a commercial company, the photos are useless because it uses the same brown gingham for the outer and lining fabric and it is impossible to see what process is being illustrated. The linked instructions are in German because I am 100% not recommending this to anyone so felt no need to go and find the English ones again. Having said all that, it's reasonably comfortable to wear, but there are much easier ways out there to achieve the same result.

(3) Pleated. Pattern over-complicated for what it is, presents the machine with a lot of layers, and the sides don't fit very well, whether in home-made or the blue surgical style. That said, the flat fabric over the mouth is comfortable.

(4) Japanese Creations. Courtesy of caulkhead. Not a terrible pattern, it has the considerable virtue of simplicity, but size M is too small, and the nose shape will obviously be wrong for me in a larger size. I like that you don't have to press a centre seam, but the turning things inside out bit was pretty tricky. It also doesn't allow for different outer and lining fabrics, not a simple interlining.

(5) Dhurata DaviesThis was the clear winner on many fronts. A straightforward pattern that - uniquely - gave face measurements to help select size. Good instructions with clear photographs, and easy to sew. Unfortunately, the finished mask didn't work that well for me for two reasons. Firstly, that while the nose-to-chin fit is excellent and the chin dart a really good idea, the mask fabric lies far to close over the mouth for my comfort, although this might not be an issue if you breathe through your nose more than I do. Also, despite the good lower shape, the fit above the tip of the nose over the bridge* and cheeks was too big for me. This could easily be tweaked by using a larger dart, but due to the fit over the mouth, it is the second choice for me of the five.

I am persevering, because my reward when I have the perfect pattern will be to make a mask out of peacock-feather printed silk and it will look amazing. In the meantime, I'm sticking to scrap cotton.

*I am increasingly getting the feeling that my nose is relatively short in length for its height at the nostrils.

My principle record of spring 2020 as the coronavirus season will lie in the fact that a diary volume that normally takes 6 months to fill was complete in 4 1/2. Sorry, archive readers of the future, it is largely not scintillating political commentary but a lot of whinging and "I don't feel well". But being glued into the next volume for future reference will be my creative response, not in haiku form as I considered one morning (i must have been feverish), but lino print. I thought it would be a fun subject for continuing to learn how to use my new inks, and also done on A6 paper would not be too demanding, and so it turned out. So I thought I'd share the process of printing the second layer yesterda (the red spiky bits) in my Blue Peter inspired registration jig. I am rather chuffed with it, especially the fact that the second layer aligned well, which was definitely the tricky part, and the prints came out nicely. Unfortuntely, much as I'd like to blame this hard work for my not really getting much else done yesterday, I can't. It only took two hours.

Not sure what to do next. I've got a number of ideas, but I think I'll wait to work them up until I have some holiday. At the moment I think I am in the mood for sticking to simple and fun rather than particularly ambitious.

( SARS-CoV-2 )

In Dominic Cummings complaining - giving zero evidence, zero indication he informed the police, and zero indication that he engaged with the security personnel he meets daily in his job for advice - that he had to go on holiday to avoid death threats from the Evil Mob, and people who raised questions about his behaviour (in this case bishops) actually getting death threats.

Though first, a low ( hoisting of the black and yellow flag.  )

Whoever manages to be up to date with everything that they might watch on TV/the internet? I certainly don't. And coronavirus is only making it worse, because a whole rack of art and media companies are making material available for free online. So here's a few I'll be availing myself of. I can access all of these in the UK, but some may not be available outside it.

Norway's state media 24 hour Maine Coon kitten cam: https://www.nrk.no/alltidsammen/ Talk about lifting the national mood! You can stream cats all day and night. (During the day there seems to be great Norwegian sports highlights* at the weekend, radio in the week, but you can click on "Alltid katt")

Previously mentioned in this space, Opera North's amazing semi-staged Ring Cycle was my introduction to Wagner: https://www.operanorth.co.uk/the-ring-cycle/

The National Theatre will be streaming a play a week starting on 2nd April with One Man, Two Guv'nors, which I'm especially delighted about because I missed it in the theatre, and then in the cinema twice (last time in September - I had a ticket, but was ill...) https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/at-home I'm also looking forward to Twelfth Night at the end of April.

OperaVision is an existing programme of free opera from mostly European opera houses. Everything from Glyndebourne to modern Icelandic/Danish opera (no, I haven't watch that one yet)@ https://operavision.eu/en

There's an awful lot on iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer. I suppose it is time for me to watch Fleabag. Meanwhile I might revist the 90s with channel 4 vampire series Ultraviolet: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/ultraviolet/on-demand and Leeds set legal drama North Square https://www.channel4.com/programmes/north-square starring a youthful Rupert Penry-Jones and Helen McCrory.

*Insert obvious joke here.