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Sep. 10th, 2023 03:49 pmSo we had our days in Oxford and London. We got to see and stay at Somerville College, whose alumni include Dorothy Sayers and Indira Gandhi, even if they also unfortunately produced Margaret Thatcher as well. Mom got through her presentation and panel, we met a lot of people she'd only seen online, and we even stumbled into the famous Blackwell's book shop and saw a bit of the city. I skipped out of the conference Saturday and ended up seeing some gardens at Christ Church, including the tree that they claimed inspired the Jabberwock, and looking at it, I believed it, too. That was largely good, even if there was stress involved.
But we made two mistakes when we decided our London plans: we decided to stay there too long, and we booked a hotel called the Traveloge, which turned out to be the kind of place where everything is lousy-even if they're charging you extra for it! Another mistake: though I'd corralled mom into masking for the flight there, she kept on losing her masks, noone else was wearing them, and by the time we boarding the train to London I was pretty much giving up outside of theaters. We still saw Mark Rylance act his heart out in Dr. Sammelweiss, and saw Rufus Wainwright perform in a late night BBC Proms concert, met with online friends a couple more times, and went to various museums and famous places, including Westminster Abbey, where we found Trollope's memorial plaque. But the stress reached terrible levels-and then my throat started to feel sore. For most of the rest of our time there, I was convinced it was just sinus issues, but I was coughing too much by the time we got home Friday-by which time I was very much masking again-and that night we found I'd gotten a fever.
The fever was gone by early Saturday, but the coughing's only increasing, I can barely talk, and mom's gotten it too. We went to the effort (way harder than it had to be) to get working Covid tests today and took them, and we both came up negative. Still, I've already contacted the dentist about postponing, and if I do go back to work tomorrow, it'll have be at home.
But we made two mistakes when we decided our London plans: we decided to stay there too long, and we booked a hotel called the Traveloge, which turned out to be the kind of place where everything is lousy-even if they're charging you extra for it! Another mistake: though I'd corralled mom into masking for the flight there, she kept on losing her masks, noone else was wearing them, and by the time we boarding the train to London I was pretty much giving up outside of theaters. We still saw Mark Rylance act his heart out in Dr. Sammelweiss, and saw Rufus Wainwright perform in a late night BBC Proms concert, met with online friends a couple more times, and went to various museums and famous places, including Westminster Abbey, where we found Trollope's memorial plaque. But the stress reached terrible levels-and then my throat started to feel sore. For most of the rest of our time there, I was convinced it was just sinus issues, but I was coughing too much by the time we got home Friday-by which time I was very much masking again-and that night we found I'd gotten a fever.
The fever was gone by early Saturday, but the coughing's only increasing, I can barely talk, and mom's gotten it too. We went to the effort (way harder than it had to be) to get working Covid tests today and took them, and we both came up negative. Still, I've already contacted the dentist about postponing, and if I do go back to work tomorrow, it'll have be at home.
