les Davey de France

 Covid. Mrs D. I was jabbed couple weeks ago.

 I’m pretty well back to whatever usually counts as ‘normal’. I have a sticky cough but I no longer absolutely need to nap during the day, I have resumed my forced marches to local supermarkets and I think I’ll try running next week, though early in the morning to avoid the sun. Pat is also fully recovered and no longer needs to nap. At least not every day. The city is now in summertime. This means fewer trams with more people in them. Since covid is once more on the rise we wear masks in the trams and try to avoid the busiest ones… Except we have no idea when the busiest times are!  Summertime means parks, and the Jardins de l’Ars are resplendent with their trees and shrubs, picnic tables, sun-loungers and little platforms for performance poets. The trees are not yet tall enough to provide much shade, so the picnic tables are not as busy as they will be, but it’s great to wander through the paths and that’s where I will run next week, if I can rouse my inner pig-dog. The summ...

 So I have been out and about and functioning now for over a week, and I'm basically fine.  There are some continuing struggles. Firstly I have a very sticky cough. We're very thankful that I cough during the day but sleep sweetly, sound and deep all night. I have a steroid inhaler that the doctor gave me some months ago to use morning and night if and when I need it, so I've been using that at night. I noticed that a friend who came to stay last week and who's asthmatic uses the same inhaler. The second is tiredness. I can't party. Well I can, as long as I do nothing physical all day beforehand. So I've been able to preach and lead on Sunday, but was drained afterwards, was able to go to dinner for someone's birthday but did nothing all day beforehand, and so on and so forth. I first noticed symptoms just over two weeks ago and tested positive two weeks ago today. I don't want this to drag on, so I'm going to start working on stamina. I'll push ...

 So the rules are that when you have covid you must self-isolate for seven days from the onset of symptoms. However, after five you may be released if you have been free of symptoms for 48 hours and you test negative. My symptoms developed on Tuesday. Five days (inclusive) from then is Saturday. I was full of hope until I realised that I was not completely symptom free (I still had sinus pain etc... and, realistically, I will be coughing for some months yet.) I tested anyway and got a thick black positive line. Oh well, after seven days you can be released anyway, symptoms or no symptoms, no point testing. That means that today (still counting inclusively) I can once again run amok in the streets of Bordeaux. And it's raining.

On Monday evening I felt the onset of something. Aches. Cough. So Tuesday morning I tested myself for covid-19, and sure enough, there came a faint line by the T. Tuesday I spent mainly sitting quietly, drinking water and taking paracetamol. Wednesday I managed without pills till about 2pm. Thursday morning at 2am I got up to use the rest room and realised I felt fine. Absolutely fine. It didn’t last. Today I have a dry cough. Current rules, I think, are that you have to isolate for seven days from the onset of symptoms. HOWEVER on the fifth day you can test yourself and if it’s negative you can resume normal life. So for me that’s probably Saturday morning. I’m hoping for a negative test on Saturday so I can preach Sunday.

 Monday was Whitsun Bank Holiday and the weather promised to turn out well, so we were very glad as we left the flat to go to the CNEF33 ‘Day Together’. Planning for this day began some years ago. We’ve long wanted to organise a day when Christians from different churches could worship together but also spend time getting to now each other. Anyway I think it was in 2020 that we settled on a venue and started to plan the day when covid struck and put all our plans on hold. Meanwhile I left the CNEF33 committee.  Now with covid on the back foot and much greater freedom it was possible to meet. The day consisted of a time of worship together with one of the local preachers, then lunch - you could either bring your sandwiches or order from a sandwich bar, or order a portion of a giant paella. The afternoon would involve various games, sports and also an open mike, before the day closed with a brief closing message. It all seemed to be impeccably organized and to go very well indee...

 On Sunday I was due to preach on Luke 4:1-13, the temptation. I thought I'd have enough breath control to cope without too much coughing, though I knew that singing would not yet be possible. Mrs Davey, on the other hand, was not due to be released until Monday, one week after she tested positive for covid. We've effectively lived apart. I've lived in the office and the spare bedroom. There's a small showroom and a toilet. All this on one side of the living room. On the other side of the living room is our bedroom and an attached bathroom. That's where Pat lived. The living room was our dirty zone. In there we would wear masks and be careful to wash our hands on entering and leaving. Whenever possible we would leave a window open. There I would prepare lunch and we would yell thanks at each other across the room before going to our own ends to eat. It all sounds very tedious, and it was. But others have done similar things or worse. A doctor friend in the UK hired ...

 We're so thankful for this flat just now. I can live at one end and Pat can live at the other. We have a "dirty zone" - the kitchen and living room - where we have to wear masks, open windows and wash our hands obsessively. I prepare the meal then scuttle down to my end shouting to Patricia that it's feeding time. Then once the coast is clear she gets her plate and scuttles off to her end. We sneak in with our dishes and pop them in the dishwasher decontamination apparatus to await thorough cleansing. It occurred to me that this might be a lot of effort to no effect if my catching covid is inevitable. It also occurred to me that there might be things we should do that we have't even thought of. So I arranged to call the doctor. "Well you mustn't see her", he said. "I mustn't SEE her?" I emphasised. "Well, you must't spend time in the same room." I explained our arrangements I detail and asked if there was any point. He s...

 She's been ill since Friday and tested positive this morning.

 We got back Tuesday evening and a happy and full week of activity awaited us. Wednesday was Bible study and prayer at the home of a couple who live in one of the suburbs - Mérignac. It's quite a hoof from the tramline, so you switch to the bus and the journey, though not long, takes up to an hour. Sometimes I reserve a pool car but it takes just as long because of having to get around the city centre, then negotiate a maze of different routes. The evening was good, however. Wednesday morning we had met up to work through the statutes for the association which will run the café-style centre in front of the church building. We met in one of the local coffee-shops and I drank a great flat white to kick-start my little grey cell. Then it was preparation. We changed our preaching schedule a while ago but, still high on San Sebastián, I totally forgot so launched into reflexion on Luke 3, instead of the end of Luke 2. Luke 3 is a fascinating chapter and Rory will preach that this coming...

 From yesterday we can go to discothèques, eat and drink standing up in cafés and bars and buy and eat popcorn in the cinema. I guess you are allowed to remove the mask while you eat, but then you got to stick it on again. Meanwhile it is proposed soon to no longer require masks in places where the pass vaccinal is checked - so no more popping your mask on to go to the loo in a café, for example. At present when you're seated you can take your mask off, but when you're standing you have to pop it on. Unless you're eating and drinking standing. Oh, look, we're transitioning, OK. Meanwhile the virus is on the retreat pretty much everywhere in France.

 So the drill is that if you are a cas contact, you hie you away to the pharmacy to get yourself tested. If the test is positive, congratulations, you have covid and you must isolate yourself. If, on the other hand, the test is negative, then you must test yourself two days, and again four days later, with the home test kits which are now on sale in our supermarkets. Thus it was that yesterday found me wielding a rather long cotton bud. I put off doing the test as long as I felt I could, and set the appointed hour for 3pm. On opening the kit, obtained from a big pharmacy in the middle of the city about a week ago by Patricia, I traced the instructions, printed in  various segments and not in the correct order, but in several languages. To my great relief the cotton bud does NOT have to reach the innermost parts of your nasal sinuses, like what they do at the pharmacy. It is enough to insert it about 4cm up your nostrils, one after the other. I did it. I dripped two drops of th...

 We've had a covid scare. It was overdue. After all, at least a quarter of our folk work with children. Small children. The type that pick their nose then pat you on the cheek to get your attention. Anyway. Word reached us yesterday that one of our number has covid.  I messaged the couple concerned. "We're about to get tested". The chap doesn't have it, but his wife does, with mild symptoms of a runny nose. Quick time of deliberation.  1) Inform all the folk who were at the Bible Study on Wednesday that they need to get tested. 2) Move our Bible Studies online until the all-clear is sounded. 3) Go get tested and see what we do from there. Messages were duly sent, repeated and reinforced. "you should get tested" turned into "you really need to" turned into "you must get tested". English is so subtle and flexible :-( Then I hied me off to the pharmacy, which was suspiciously empty. Like just three customers and two staff. I got to the c...

 From time to time someone in the church becomes a "cas contact". This means that someone they have been in contact with has contracted covid or has tested positive for covid. Omircon being so contagious, this seems to happen every couple of weeks. In fact, if we counted our teachers, then they'd be "cas contact" all the time since there's always some child or other off school. Anyway, the drill is that if you are fully vaccinated (at present this means the two doses) and a cas contact you get yourself tested by test antigénique as soon as you can. If that test is positive then you are positive and you must isolate. If the test is negative then you must test again in 2 days' time... and so on. Our excellent pharmacy does testing without a need for an appointment, so for us it would be quite easy to get tested, but so far none of our "cas contacts" has transformed into a "cas". We're very happy about that because informing all the ...

 One of the chaps who was at church last Sunday became a "cas contact" - someone he had been near had contracted covid. For UK readers, I think it's a bit like being pinged. The drill is that if you get covid or test positive you warn the people you've been having out with so they can get themselves tested.  We faced the possibility of telling the folk who were at church that they all needed to be tested. Our man went to get a test, but was unable to do so. In addition he said that he had some symptoms. We called at the pharmacy on the way back from our walk. There's no shortage of self-test kits and we could also get a test done by the pharmacy without needing an appointment. We said that if there was still doubt the following day we would call back and get ourselves done to be sure. There was a little queue of people waiting to be swabbed, and I noticed that the main pharmacist was wearing protective goggles as he served.  Later that day our friend said he'd...

 Of course, we wondered whether we had been wise to cancel our trip to the UK. One couple travelled by train from Paris to the UK uneventfully.  But then we heard other reports. One family flew from a south Asian country to the UK. Clear to fly, their day 2 test revealed that all the family were infected. They would spend most of their two-week visit in quarantine. Another family travelled from France and one child tested positive for covid on day 2. Another family has a child stranded in the UK because he tested positive and was not cleared to fly to their home in Southern Europe for Christmas. Yesterday the government met to discuss the rise of the omicron variant and announced new measures. A limit of 2000 people meeting indoors and 5000 outdoors. Masks must now be worn in all city centres. (The local Prefect had already imposed this in Bordeaux) No eating or drinking stood up - everyone in cafés, bars and restaurants must be seated. (I thought this was already in force!) N...

 It's more than two years since we set foot on UK soil. This is actually quite normal for people who work overseas. Very often people spend four years away before coming back for a year's "home assignment". But our pattern has been to spend a couple of weeks each year in Britain. Until covid came. For reasons I won't go into, Gwilym and Beth are unable to travel to France, so they missed both Catrin and Froim's civil and church weddings. So we plan(ned) to travel to the UK to spend Christmas with them in Norwich. However that was until omicron arrived. The UK government is under huge pressure firstly to take action to stem the rising tide of omicron infections, but also not to cancel Christmas. So I think it's unlikely that the UK will go under any kind of further restrictions until Boxing Day at least. But we're not due to fly back until New Year's Eve. Then European countries are shutting their borders and putting in strict controls on who can tr...

 Oh boy. Well, we need pre-departure antigen tests before we fly. Here we can do that at our local pharmacy without rendezvous while you wait. Then we need Day 2 PCR tests after arrival. Trying to order these was a trial. We chose Boots, because they have a branch in Norwich. The routine is that you order and enter your passport and payment details on the Boots Special Covid Testing Website, then you book your appointment with the branch. The Norwich branch has no available appointments. I huffed and puffed. We wanted to avoid having to post off phials of test substrate over the Christmas period, but I don't think there's an alternative. So in the end we ordered the cheaper "stick it up your own nose" tests, which you have to post off. Then before we fly back we have to have antigen tests. Boots do these too. Same routine. Payment details. Book appointment. No appointments available. OK. At our return airport there are two companies who do on site rapid antigen testin...

 It's not very French in its spelling but in general people have accepted the idea of the QR code on your phone that shows your covid status and allows you to enter cafés, restaurants, concerts, trains, planes, etc. For it to be valid you need to have received your second dose of vaccine at least two weeks ago, your booster shot if your second dose was five months ago, or to have had a negative lateral flow or PCR test in the last 24 hours.  To be honest, it's not always checked in every café - there's been one or two occasions where we haven't been asked for it. When it was introduced there was some protest but it also induced a scramble to get vaccinated. The other day we went to Ikea for something or other - net curtains for an angel, I think - and went for lunch there. You don't need a pass to shop, but you do to eat. One woman in front of us in the queue had a pass, but it was not valid. Perhaps she had too recently had her second injection. Despite her arguing...

 So yesterday I tried to make appointments for our third jab. This time we are to be given either Pfizer or Moderna. There are two ways of making appointments. The first is on Doctolib, and it's the way you make an appointment with your doctor generally. The system for booking a vaccination was swamped. It said we had a wait time of some ten hours. The pharmacy uses its own appointment system on its own website. It was also swamped.  Still, yesterday evening we managed to make appointments with the doctor to be vaccinated on 3 January. I did wonder if we could do better, though, at the pharmacy. This morning, when I woke up, I went onto the pharmacy website and got an appointment for a Pfizer vaccination on 17 December. Yes! I cancelled the appointment with the doctor. Then when Pat got us she booked an appointment for an injection of Moderna - TODAY! So she just came back from getting it done. Voilà ! All done.