Monday February 15

Maja:

I am spending the days talking to my family and packing.

Mark:

I’m damn sure I had corona back in February, but things have been feeling a little strange lately. Nothing major, but you never know. And corona tests have apparently been a little easier to get lately so I booked myself in last night for one today. It’s a bit of a walk away, 30 minutes or so to Islington. Not ideal if you really are full on symptomatic. How is someone supposed to be able to do that? I arrive at the place and I’m expecting at least some kind of gym hall. Maybe something that looks like a medical centre. Nope. What I find looks more like a field hospital. It’s a large tent, but it isn’t even enclosed. Those poor people working in there, fully exposed to any kind of cold and wind that might happen. Which is a lot right now, as we’re in February. On either side of the tent are five little rooms separated by canvas. In each of those ‘rooms’ are what look like rough, hastily constructed chairs and desks made of bare wood. I’m also expecting some kind of professional on hand to perform the test on me, but no to that too. Instead, when I’m indicated to enter, I’m given a little bag containing a test kit. I do what with this now? Go to the empty room over there, the one that someone’s just finishing sanitising, sit down and follow the instructions on the wall.  So yep. I’ve come to a testing centre to take a self test I have no idea how to do. Well, I guess millions of people have already done these so how hard can it be? Just follow the instructions on the wall step by step. OK. Sample tube goes here, stick goes there, bag goes there, and I have my bits and pieces arrayed out in front of me. It looks mildly complicated and quite medical and technical but again like I said, millions have done this before me and I must be more or as intelligent as at least a few of them so surely I can do this too. Step one, take stick and stick down the back of throat. Simple. Apparently after this you take same stick and stick up nose. Ah. I’m starting to get it now. Then stick is sticked, sorry, stuck, in bag. Then all done. OK, so not quite as intimidating as it seemed when I was first given a bag full of medical bits and told to get on with it and come back when I was done. But stick down throat. This doesn’t go so well as the stick sticks my sick trigger. Oh dear. I try desperately to hold it back and, well, you can imagine the rest. Let’s just say I manage not to make a mess of the table. I now have to call out for someone to come and give me another bag of corona sticks so I can go again. I’m seriously apprehensive this time and really have to hold on so as not to have to repeat it yet again. Ten seconds you’ve got to hold that thing back there, right in the gag reflex zone. I reckon whoever designed this was having a bit of a laugh, imagining all the self induced projectile vomiting going on in test centres all over the country. But I just about manage it this time. All that’s left now is to ram this thing up my nose to complete the sticky process. Done, all safely deposited in aforementioned tube, and now in self sealing bag. Drop that off at whatever you call the outgoing reception, and test experience concluded until the next bit which is to see whether I’m positive or not. I guess if I am I’ll already be well aware by the time the results come but this is how the system works. Spoiler alert: it comes back negative. 

Buying a bass in the time of Corona. Been looking into it, and yes they can be returned within a week if you’re not happy. Still not ideal given the number of attractive basses you might try in a shop before buying but at least it’s not a commitment to something you’ve only seen a pretty picture of.

I have a few things I have to do here to make sure things are prepared for when Maja arrives. Yes, we’re working on the assumption that her covid test will be negative. One of my little tasks is to make sure she has all the bed sheets and towels she needs. Jenn, being a girl herself, knows how important it is to get these things right and is happy to come out with me to make sure I pick up the right things. So that’s one little fun excursion this end. We head out into Ktown and go Maja shopping. I return home with quite a decent haul and lay it out on our floor. All the necessary bedding stuff, towel, other toiletry bits and pieces, extension lead, coathangers, and a Europe to UK plug adaptor. I’ll be adding at least another one of those. I take a picture and send it to Maja so she can see that things really are coming along here and that things will be set up as well as they can be so that she can have as seamless a landing and arrival as possible.

As well as my preparations here, our phone calls are starting to become more and more regular as she needs a little support and steam blowing in between what I’m hearing are some really intense conversations over there in Sweden. Damn. She’s meeting a lot of resistance to this. People really don’t want her to go. It’s a trip away to get some head space while getting out of what seems to me to be a bad situation. I think I can say that now. Through our extended regular chats, I’m really starting to get a good enough handle on how things are.

This is making Friday become a more and more anticipated date and we’re starting to talk about English things to do and see, and just a few more fun things in general. Dr Who is a favourite show of hers, she says, and she’s looking forward to maybe catching up on some episodes here that haven’t been available in Sweden. I decide not to say it just yet, but star of the show Matt Smith is a regular at The Palmerston and lives right here in the area. That’s a fun little fact to keep to myself for now. We’re also anticipating conversations without internet lag. You know, Skype freezes and the like. Very frustrating, especially when you talk a whole bunch about something then realise the connection dropped out sometime just after you started talking. Also, not always an optimal way to teach bass. When our conversations were all purely music related and very much at a professional level of chat, I’d get through a whole song she’d asked me to play so that she could film it, only to then discover her screen had frozen somewhere near the beginning and we’d have to go again. That happened quite a few times. But here’s another thing now I mention Skype. Since Thursday when the possibility of her coming to London was mentioned we’ve only spoken on the phone. We haven’t actually seen each other at all. I don’t know about her, but I kinda feel like I want to keep it that way. Those Skype calls feel like they happened a long time ago.