Carly isn’t sure she has always been so obsessed with numbers. Like anyone, she has to use numbers in her day-to-day life. She needs them to get on the right bus and pay the right amount of money for any goods. Especially cappuccinos. That is a very important daily ritual for her. She doesn’t like to think about how much she has spent over the years, but one of her ways of keeping sane and meeting people, especially during times of war, is to go out at least once, and often twice for a coffee. In Jaffa, Israel, they range in price from about 14 to 16 ₪ for each cappuccino. In Europe, it is more variable and, of course, it really depends on where you are. Greece is cheap whilst Italy and France aren’t. Carly has set up her phone calculator, so it always converts a number into a currency. Usually, it is set up to switch between shekels and pounds. She has only lived in Israel for three years and still really thinks in pounds, but this is slowly shifting.
She has mostly been obsessed with prime numbers. And if she can, she loves to live in houses or apartments that are prime numbers or a simple multiplication of them. To be honest, if the number isn’t a prime, then it should be a product of primes at the very least! As a student, she lived at 31 Englefield Road. That was before this prime number mania had begun. She lived with a load of medical students, some of whom she is still in touch with, but not most. The walls were paper-thin and there was often a lot of groaning of new partnerships fulfilling their fantasies. This distracted Carly a great deal from her studies, so she would play Cilla Black loudly on her record player to drown it out. She knew this wasn’t necessarily a popular choice, but she made her statement about these antics loud and clear. Then she moved to 81 South Hill Park as a young married woman. Now this isn’t a prime number, but it is a cool number. 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 (34). Something nice about this. She loved that flat and the garden. Then she moved to 5 Pond Square – phew, a prime and eventually to 3 Bloomfield Road – yes, you guessed it – another prime. She lived in that last house for just over 19 years. And 19 is her favourite prime number overall. She then moved when she got divorced, and didn’t need to be constantly reminded of her failed marriage. Time to move on and make new memories. And ta da! She moved for 3 years to 29 Horsell Road. That was a really pretty place. It was a new-build and had been thoughtfully planned and expertly executed. It had been built on the site of a house that had been bombed in WWII. And an unexploded bomb had been found in the garden when they laid the new foundations! She lived there with her three children and two cats during most of Covid. She made two friends whose named both began with a B (the 2nd letter of the alphabet) but then she lost them. One because she was rejected by her and the other through drifting apart. Then Carly moved to 45 Grove Road. She consoled herself with the thought that it was still not a bad number as 45 = 3 x 3 x 5. This time she kept the friends she made while she lived there. After 13 months there she moved to Jaffa and lived in an apartment 2 at 23 Hanina. Great – both primes. She was almost in two minds to think about whether to buy the apartment above hers to turn it into a duplex as it was number 4. But that is 22. And by this time, she really had made loads of friends and has kept nearly all of them. But it is early days. “Give it time,” she remonstrates with herself.
She also thinks about her date of birth. The vernal equinox in 1965. The 21st of March. 21 is 3 x 7 and 7 is her favourite lower prime number (19 is the higher one). March is also month 3 so that is fine, and 1965 can be split into 19 and 65. 19 is fine. Phew. And 65 is 13 x 5. So, all good, really. She lives another day comforted by the fact that her birthday numbers are ok. Not great but for sure, not terrible. “Ok,” will have to do, Carly supposes.
However, Carly is not only preoccupied with prime numbers. She likes it when dates, which are usually written as numbers, have some numerical relationship to each other. When Haz and G-girl consulted her about which day in March 2023 they should have their wedding, giving her a choice of dates, Carly opted for the 26th of March. Haz is also keen on numbers and knew she would pick this one. Because 26 (the date) minus (-) 3 (the month) equals (=) 23 (the year): 26-3=23. “Perfect,” thought Carly. And it was. Carly wore the burgundy dress, with its bolero jacket, that her friend Betsy had lent her. Betsy had worn it at her own second wedding. This meant for the marriage ceremony she could hide her extensive black henna tattoos and then with great aplomb, when she removed the bolero, everyone could see the sumptuous decorations. Quite a few people thought they were permanent. But Carly really hates tattoos. They don’t weather well and always end up a faded turquoise blue on saggy and wrinkly skin. NO THANK YOU. One of her colleagues brought along Carly’s dog, Talulah, for the photos, and that was great fun. She made a speech that wasn’t vetted by the her family but was funny and actually didn’t embarrass anyone. Like with her inaugural lecture on becoming a professor, Becky kindly oversaw what she should include, and more importantly what must be left out. It wasn’t Carly’s day after all, but Haz and G-girl’s.
Before their wedding, Carly suggested to Haz that they celebrate a special date and time by going out on the canal in Camden in a rubber ring as his apartment had direct access to the water. She wanted to do it on the 22nd February 22 at 10.22 pm. So, it was all a load of twos. 22.2.22@22.22. The date was an ambigram – you could flip it over and it still showed the same string of numbers. It was also a palindrome (same backwards and forwards). As it was a Tuesday, it became commonly known as Twosday!
Haz said the canal was far too filthy to go into a rubber ring in the winter, so Carly brought a blow-up rubber dinghy, Haz sourced an electric pump and having clambered over the garden barrier, in they jumped at 10pm. Twenty-two minutes later whilst rowing up and down, Carly did scream a bit. But it was late, so she kept the volume down. A few months later, Haz used the boat to whizz up and down the canal and propose to G-girl.
Seven years earlier than all of this, Carly, with her colleagues Hannah and Will, had chosen the day they would launch the UK’s first single undergraduate paediatric curriculum. It was the 4th of November 2015 (4.11.15, since 4+11=15). Having a date meant it could be a planned day of celebration, and all the work would need to be completed by then. They had several really important stakeholders on board, including the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), the Academy of Medical Educators, the General Medical Council and the Medical Schools Council Assessment Alliance. There were a load of talks and interactive workshops as this was above all about education but the highlight for Carly was the launch. This was officiated by the then-president of the RCPCH, Professor Neena Modi, who cut a very long piece of knitting in two. Of course, Carly had knitted this ‘yarn ribbon’ as two scarves that could be separated for Will and Hannah as thank you presents. It was great fun to have yarn take the place of the traditional cutting of the ribbon.
Two more dates were important. Carly gave her inaugural lecture with lots of razzmatazz on her son Toby’s 20th birthday. This meant she could bring along the caterpillar cake from M&S and get hundreds of people to join in the singing. Later, there was ample food and lots of gin and tonics. Anyway. That’s what everyone remembers. Carly planned to have a breast reduction. She had been contemplating it for years. Now was the time. She had finished breastfeeding almost two decades earlier. So she went for it. This did mean she would need some time off work. A fortnight at most. But she had an exemplary sickness record with no sick days she could remember. She found a lovely plastic surgeon who had done thousands of these operations. He gave Carly the usual warnings and she chose the date: 21st February 2019, because, of course, if you subtract two from 21 you get 19 (21-2=19). Her brother worked at this hospital and brought in a huge basket of fruit. Carly was delighted at this thoughtful and kind gesture although she did muse that the basket was very old fashioned in design. But the fruit was delicious. She should learn to be less critical when it came to receiving gifts. She feels so much better and of course lighter. He took off 750 g from each side. She only wishes that she had videoed her party trick of getting her nipples to kiss together. Hey-ho. The value of hindsight. It’s a great thing. “Like numbers,” contemplated Carly.
