Tag: coronavirus

  • Writing conversation during a pandemic…

    ‘Make your conversation real’, is one piece of general advice when you’re writing a book. ‘Don’t use conversation to dump information’ is another, and that one’s easy enough. Don’t write things like: ‘Do you remember how we visited your ninety-year-old but very robust grandmother yesterday, in the gorgeous new villa in Kent she bought last…

  • Coronavirus winter – hope hurts…

    Spring starts two weeks today, so we’re entering the final stages of this coronavirus winter. And it’s just over a year ago, on February 28th 2020, that the first restrictions here in Switzerland took hold – carnival balls and processions were cancelled, along with all other mass events. Ah well, we thought. Next year. Ha.…

  • 2020 – the year that was…

    Well. I usually give my New Year post the subheading: the best of times and the worst of times. But there wasn’t much about 2020 that was ‘best’, though we can sum up the lowlights of the past twelve months in one word – coronavirus. So many deaths, so many empty places at the table.…

  • Coronavirus Autumn – “It all looks so normal…”

    At eleven o’clock last Monday I was in our local medical centre, waiting for the lift after my appointment. It arrived and I stepped in, then noticed a tiny elderly lady – she must have been well over eighty, if not ninety – approaching. I stopped the lift doors closing, and called to her. ‘Are…

  • (Coronavirus) summer scenes…

    To say that springtime 2020 was different to other springs is an understatement, considering we spent most of it in full coronavirus lockdown. Now it’s summer, and while some restrictions have been relaxed, we are still in the middle of a pandemic, and the usual activities and conversations aren’t always possible. Here are a few…

  • Coronavirus Spring…

    We’ll be talking about 2020 for the rest of our lives – ironic, because all we really want to do is forget it ever happened and ‘get back to normal’. But Those Who Know are talking about ‘the new normal’, so the old normal has gone. Forever? The past is always gone forever. Maybe we’ll…