How Time Goes Faster As You Get Older.blog

Carly has become increasingly interested in looking after her mental wellbeing. She thinks that this is a universal need, and she is no different from everyone else. She has been seeking to become more spiritual and has investigated ‘shamanism’. There is lots to commend this practice. It has been around well before organised religion, and it can be developed in a very personal and unique manner. There are no rules, and it seems anything goes. This totally speaks to Carly, who is not interested in following the crowd. 

So, Carly goes on a course to learn all about shamanism and enjoys all the wonderful and weird thoughts and visions that come into her head. She meets lots of unusual people and explores shamanic journeys using dance and music, as an individual, within a pair and as part of the entire cohort of 47 on this course. She is keen to develop this further and finds out about a spiritual Jewish group. They have a residential weekend workshop in early December. She thinks this will marry her Judaism with her newer spiritual quest into deeper realms.

She nearly persuades her new friend Barbara to come with her. Carly pays up but in the end Barbara declines. She says that she cannot spend an entire weekend in silence. Carly is horrified. Neither can she, but of course she has failed, as so very often she does, to read the small print. The print wasn’t even that small. Carly just saw the title of the workshop and was trigger happy with her credit card. Oh dear. She will just have to try it out. She has been attending a yoga and writing retreat for several years, where you have to be silent until lunch. She has done this for a week at a time, and this has been fine. In fact, she has enjoyed this silence to be able to enjoy writing with no distractions. This can’t be that much worse, can it? Carly persuades herself that she will be fine. 

Carly sets off a bit late. The retreat starts at 4pm but she has work and must get home, pack and set off to a village just past Newbury in Berkshire. Carly muses that she went to Newbury several times in the past. She is the world expert in a very rare condition. It was called Familial Rectal Pain. But Carly led the vanguard in changing the name to something much more acceptable to patients, though not nearly as memorable, Paroxysmal Extreme Pain Disorder. One of her large families with this condition is from Newbury. 

Anyway, Carly packs up her dependable fold-up Brompton bike looking like she is off for a fortnight. The bike is completely top heavy with elastics holding everything on the front. She makes sure she sits back in the saddle to balance it all out. She is taking huge numbers of warm clothes as she is worried she will be cold, as the retreat is in a place that used to be a monastery. She also has a feather pillow which is a must for good sleep, and a selection of her mindfulness books to leaf through. She cycles down to the Elizabeth line – such a treat  – and then takes several trains out west. It is quite a cycle from the station and Carly is nearly always cycling on her electric bike so finds this regular Brompton rather hard work. Eventually she gets there. But she arrives late, unsure if the retreat has started. If she can talk at all. It has and she can’t. 

She has a nice room to herself with two single beds, designed for skinny minis. And she looks out over a garden with huge chess pieces. But then she forgot about this, woke up at night and was rather worried about the ghostly creatures outside her room. She knew this was a spiritual retreat, but was worried and kept checking.  Then she saw the checkerboard flooring and remembered. Phew. Too surreal, really.

On this retreat there were lots of rules. It sorts of fits with the building and the nature of the retreat. It is an odd mixture of traditional Judaism with its sabbath instructions as well as alternative reality and spirituality rules. Barbara was right. The whole 48 hours are silent. There will be meditation – some of it guided (“Phew”, thinks Carly), religious services (“Phew again”, thinks Carly who can therefore join in with the singing) and time for walks and alone time (“Phew”, thinks Carly who knows what she does in her own time is up to her. “Surely there aren’t Big Brother cameras in her room?”, Carly ponders). But there are some other rather odd rules. Like no one is to wear perfume as this can interfere with some people’s ability to meditate. That puts paid to lighting her incense she has brought with her. Grummpphh contemplates Carly. And during this silent retreat you need to be in your own little cocoon. So, no passing the salt, no smiling at anyone, no holding the doors for others. Carly isn’t really sure why you almost need to be nasty by keeping the salt within your own reach only, looking downcast and miserable (not everyone has a resting bitch face) or slamming doors in people’s faces. 

Yes, to be honest Carly is very bemused, and although she is open to new people, ideas and experiences, this is all very bizarre and of course she cannot ask anyone. She suspects there was helpful information in the pre-joining literature but of course, if she failed to read it was a silent retreat, which was clearly written in the line under the residential workshop title, for sure she would not have read any other bumf. 

The food was very wholesome and mostly vegan and a bit of vegetarian, with an enormous list of potential allergens – really are there people allergic to celery? She had never heard of this, but maybe this only affects adults. Carly is a paediatrician and so has limited adult medical knowledge. 

There was a lot of mindfulness. Sitting, lying, walking, eating. Carly finds it almost impossible for her mind not to wander. One of the books she had brought down to this retreat was ‘Fine Cell Works‘ by Tracy Chevalier. This is one of Carly’s favourite authors. She wrote historical fiction often based around craft. This was an illustrated book about a quilt made by prisoners on the subject of their sleep. The work was beautiful and haunting. It gave Carly two ideas during her walking meditation. Firstly, she was keen to start some voluntary work, and Carly would be keen to teach prisoners to sew. 

And secondly, she would like all her friends who have enjoyed her Carly stories to each decorate a square on white linen representing one of the stories of their choosing. At the time she had written 41 stories and if she took it up to 49 that would make a nice quilt of seven strips of seven squares. They could embroider them, decoupage them, draw or paint on them. Or even use puff paint, glue gun, beads, ribbons. The possibilities were endless. Carly then caught herself. She was supposed to be draining her mind and walking mindfully. “Hey ho”, Carly deliberates, “Some you win, some you lose”. 

One of the other odd things was that the main room they sat in was freezing. This was early December, and someone had opened all the windows. Carly found out this was because someone in a position of power, which is not really the done thing in a mindful retreat, had decided air was needed in case anyone might fall asleep. Clearly this was impossible. Everyone was wearing hats and coats and covered themselves with blankets. Carly was shivering a lot, despite all her warm clothes. And, in reality, these draconian rules were being promulgated because of one Covid risk averse person who failed to understand how the virus is spread. Carly worked out who this was and when this woman opened all the windows in another room before a yoga session, Carly zipped around and quickly shut them. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. These Covid risk averse people. Enough now. 

Early in the second evening there was an opportunity for talking. It was very much restricted to a small group and only for 35 minutes. Lots of valuable information was shared. Carly found out someone had a beyond hard, lumpy mattress and as she had two, she beckoned that woman into her room and lent her the spare one. They shut the door and dissolved into fits of giggles and talked at 19 to the dozen in a whisper. Carly smiled to herself, as this meant she could be kind, and the other woman could sleep that night. A bit later, Carly needed to plot her escape. Really, she could not manage another hour slamming doors in people’s faces and not passing the salt. So, first thing on the Sunday morning she packed up, loaded her Brompton, and cycled off to the station. She vowed to herself that, really, she must get better at reading the small print. Actually, the not-so-small print.

Carly has long been an advocate of rehoming dogs. But she has two elderly cats and even when the rehoming centres say their dog is fine with cats, Carly knows this isn’t always true. Certainly, her last rescue, Bryn, a tri-colour collie, was pretty appalling with cats. Being carried around in a large dog’s mouth is hardly good for a cat’s self-esteem. Carly kept the cats when she got divorced. Ades the dogs. But they weren’t really what he did in fact want, and so he shifted them off to his erstwhile secretary.

And Carly is lonely and feels that as she has grown up children and she isn’t in a relationship, now might be a good time to get a puppy. And it just so happens one of her oldest school friends Rebecca is going to breed her dog, the inimitable Doris. There is a close connection here. For years, Carly has been telling Rebecca and her husband Bill that, as they live out of London, then a dog is a must. And so, they followed Carly’s instructions. Always better to do that…

Firstly, they had Ruby, then Doris. And Doris is the joke name that Ades calls her. After Sid and Doris Bonkers from Neasden in Private Eye – a satirical political magazine that Ades rather favours. So now Rebecca and Bill have two dogs. And they’re going to breed Doris. Ruby belongs to Bill and is too old to have pups. Oh, and Ruby was a rescue too and so already ‘done’. For a number of years Rebecca thinks about who she will ask to mate with Doris who is a mixture of retriever, duck-toller and collie. She thinks of Milo, a rather skinny whippet so the puppies would be lurchers by definition but that doesn’t work. Milo is rather clueless about what to do when Doris is on heat.

In the end Rebecca settles for a red working cocker spaniel who has fathered other litters. He has form. Hey presto it works, and mid-June 2022 Doris has a litter of six female puppies exactly 63 days later. Rebecca and Bill take this puppy business very seriously. They have all the kit and Doris is only going to be having one litter. None of this puppy farming nonsense. Carly goes down to visit the puppies when they are four weeks old. They are now running around and being fed kibble whilst still breastfeeding. Carly doesn’t really mind which puppy she has and because of her work commitments she is allowed to take the last puppy who by default has not been chosen by the other five families. This makes it easier for Carly. What if she chose badly? Anyway, the puppy that was left was the smallest and calmest. Excellent for a puppy coming to live in deepest, darkest Walthamstow. The ‘unchosen’ puppy.

Rebecca wants to start calling Carly’s unchosen puppy by her name. Carly, Tobes and Boo spend a long time choosing. They look at Hebrew, Norwegian and German girls’ names. In the end the shortlist is Talulah, Delilah, Dizzy and Mary. They narrow it down to Talulah. Everyone seems content until Boo discovers a problem. But, by then, Rebecca is calling this small, calm unchosen puppy by that name. Boo’s problem is that Talulah is going to come to live in Israel when Carly moves there 15 months after Talulah’s birth. And in Hebrew Boo has found that Tatuleh means jerk. But this is not a similar root with that additional middle ‘t’. And instead, Carly goes around telling everyone that her puppy is called Talulah the Jerk. She thinks it will rather suit her.

When it is time for Talulah to make the journey back to London with Carly, she goes down to Dorset with Boo and Tobes to collect her. Everyone stays over and they eat venison which is a novelty and delicious. And Carly can catch up with Rebecca the morning before they leave whilst her children spend time sorting out wood with Bill. This is very novel for city kids. Talulah has a very eventful day. Before she leaves Doris and her human family, she gets a beaded collar, has a swim and journeys in a travel pen on a train and on the tube. She sleeps most of the time and isn’t the least bit bothered. Carly is keen for her to have as many experiences as possible as a puppy so she doesn’t get anxious or frightened. She meets the cats Fatne and Gus who are nonplussed. She tries very hard to engage them in play. And when they aren’t interested, she barks at them. This is actually the only time she barks. She does cry at first in her pen at night. But during the day she is mostly bouncing around or flat out asleep.

The Jewish mother in Carly is a bit perturbed as Talulah isn’t much interested in her food. But after a week this changes, and she is a full on food scavenger. Oh, and pooh eater. It seems this is normal for dogs. If rather disgusting. And Talulah is so keen on poohs she dives into the cat litter to eat waste from other species. Sometimes she doesn’t eat her own pooh. Mostly because it is multicoloured with large bits of colourful plastic she has eaten. Carly has made a mental note to self. Eating pooh is to STOP. By writing it in red shouty capitals Carly really means this…

Boo is going to spend most of the first week training her. Carly zips off to work on her bike and whilst cycling down Blythe Road she notices a buggy on the street. She quickly messages Boo who is keen to march around like a mad old woman with a dog in a buggy. Boo takes the puppy with her there to collect it and henceforth this is Talulah’s favourite way to get around. Usually in the bottom section meant for bags and shopping. It means Carly and Boo can get her to the park where she can then run around. There are very few parks near where they live. But there is a lovely cemetery about a mile away. Talulah loves running around the higgledy, piggledy graves. And no one seems to be there to tell her to put Talulah back on her lead. Phew…

Carly has taken Talulah to other parks. She loves Waterlow park near her work. Talulah is pretty good at not running off. And, as she is fairly keen on treats, it doesn’t take much to lure her back. But she does have a bit of a problem with other people’s buggies. If the lower section isn’t stuffed to the brim with shopping, Talulah hops in. Mostly the buggy owners find this funny but as Talulah gets larger and less puppy-cute she will have to desist from this behaviour. At least, it clearly signals to Carly or Boo when she is tired.

And whereas Boo is great with Talulah, Tobes less so. One morning Carly asked her son to mind Talulah for an hour or so. When she returned Tobes was at his wits end. Talulah had eaten his headphones, and Carly was not only annoyed but rather worried as the puppy had eaten four sewing needles too. Tobes says he had never asked for a puppy, and he much prefers cats. And so, unless he takes her for a walk, Carly won’t expect anything much from Tobes with regard to puppy sitting. The needles in the end turned up in Tobes’ bed so at least she hadn’t swallowed them. But Talulah is a bit of a devil when it comes to finding things. She has ruined a number of socks, balls of yarn and dishcloths. Recently Carly went to the local pool in her pyjamas planning on dressing for the day after her swim and shower. She dried thoroughly and put on her bra. She had previously noted that there was a tear in one of the sides. Easy enough to mend. And now she looked down. Her nipple was popping out of her bra. Oh no! Talulah had made a hole which wasn’t going to be repairable in the central section. Grrrrrrrrrrr. Bras are expensive. Because Carly likes to go away a great deal, she has persuaded Mike and Tom to have her some of the time. This gay couple have never had children and need to be empowered to be strict with her. Certainly not staying up all night soothing her because she cries so pitifully. They will never be able to cope with the ensuing fatigue. But they do have her and after a bit of time she is doing her business in the right place and they can leave her, albeit reluctantly, in her crate at night. They even give Talulah her first bath. She’s not that keen on hairdryers, they find, even though Tom was a hairdresser with Vidal Sassoon in a former life. And they try hard to teach her tricks. She is great at “Sit”. She came from Dorset already trained to do that. But she’s still rather rubbish at “Paw”. Carly is secretly rather pleased. Giving a paw to a human feels degrading as well as stupid. So, Carly and Talulah are in complete agreement about failing to learn that trick. On balance, although Carly is rather worn out by this exuberant puppy Talulah, she is very pleased to have her in her life. Even if it’s part-time.

For a while now everyone else thinks Carly is fanatical about the colour purple. She isn’t so sure. She feels maybe she has been labelled as such. She is well aware that people find it much easier to deal with others if they put them in a box. And Carly’s box has three things. Well for the moment, at least, she thinks. Purple, spiral and prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7. 11, 13, 17, 19 etc). She made this design to express this and also put the extra ‘e’ to put herself in too as ‘me’. To remind her that she is part of these three things and that they are part of her. They help to provide boundaries for her creativity. Well at least this is the line she is touting.

Carly only really came to purple just before her sabbatical in India. She was making some presents for people she was staying with and asked what colour one of them would like. Bravely her friend said she liked purple. And this was the start. And still to date, no end point. Carly made something purple with dogs on it for her friend. But although Carly likes dogs, so much so she has just got Talulah (a puppy) and she loves cats even more, she has decided that animals won’t be particularly depicted in her obsession of purple, spirals and primes for her art and craft projects. She thinks three things to focus on really is enough of an obsession. But what Carly does like about these dogs is that they are chopped up from an old tea towel at work that had seen better days. Carly cut up all the usable dogs and very roughly machine sewed them onto a new piece of cloth that Carly had specially dyed.

Carly knows how purple is made. It is obviously blue and red. Any primary school child knows that. And now that Carly has grey hair, she can very easily dye it purple. The wash-in and wash-out variety. Carly is rather pleased that she looks stylish and swishes her hair this way and that way, a bit like Miss Piggy from the Muppets. Carly tries to speak in a less snooty voice however. However, there is something wrong with the dye. After a few washes it turns turquoise. Clearly the red part of the purple dye is less tenacious. And one thing Carly cannot abide is weakness. She wants to have purple hair. She has nothing against turquoise. But as she has already made clear. She is only obsessed about three things. Adding in turquoise would be a fourth and this isn’t a prime number and that just isn’t right. So, Carly decides, she will add her own red and pink to the purple to make it stay the right colour for longer. But then she ends up with streaks of purple, scarlet and fuchsia which still doesn’t default to purple. Oh dear. Back to the drawing board.

Carly knows that opposite colours work well together. Which is why yellow suits purple so well. They are opposites on the colour wheel. Last night Carly was involved in a sunset meditation. Everyone else was following the person running the session. Carly however found it difficult to concentrate. So, she looked at the yellow sun as it set. She is pretty sure this will kill off her rods and cones in her retinas but maybe they will regenerate? Whilst she was doing that, she noticed moveable purple blobs appearing around the sun. She would shut her eyes and they would reappear quite large, blob about (they were too blobby to float) and then disappear.

Then she thought about other things she knew about yellow. She felt yellow didn’t really suit her complexion. Although she remembers well her lovely satin egg-yolk coloured dress she had for one of her brother’s barmitzfar. That was probably the last yellow item of clothing she had. And well over three decades ago.

And talking about getting older… She knows one of the real reasons that you cannot age bruises and this is because she sees children as her work, some of whom have bruises as your ability to detect yellow deteriorates as you age. So, another very good reason to concentrate on mindfulness and stop staring at the sun. Oh yes, she said to herself. But whilst having this long dialogue within her head, the sun had set. Phew. Supper soon. But wine sooner!

Before leaving for India on her four-month sabbatical, Carly started collecting purple materials. She knew that fabric, beads and other craft items could be easily sourced in India. But she wanted to take her own things out. She went a bit mad and took out a whole suitcase including 23 rolls of fine yarn, silk scarves, knitted purple hats, a lilac stethoscope, purple ribbons, dried lavender, lilac spray paint, cyanotyping chemicals, paint and brushes, puff paint, stamp ink, a spirograph, washi tape, seeds and bulbs for purple flowers or vegetables to germinate whilst in India, sewing and knitting needles, jewellery pliers and findings, plasticine, foam, fleece, felt, temporary tattoos, fabric and paper scissors. Everything she made was to be in purple or one of the other 24 versions of purple.

These are Amethyst, Aubergine, Blackberry, Blackcurrant, Blueberry, Burgundy, Dawn, Haze, Heather, Heliotrope, Indigo, Lavender, Lilac, Loganberry, Magenta, Maroon, Mauve, Mist, Periwinkle, Plum, Pomegranate, Purple, Tayberry, Violet, Wine

Wait a minute. Carly has been keen on purple for a long time actually. When her first son, Haz was a baby she dyed all his muslin cloths purple. It meant she could easily find them. She also dyed a lot of his vests and Babygro’s purple. And those nifty cotton pads you put in your bra to stop you leaking breast milk. She did other colour dyes for Tobes and Boo. It is so easy with those dyes you pop in the washing machine. Anytime some item of clothing is looking dull or has stains then Carly will whisk it off and usually it ends up purple.

And thinking about it now. Purple is here to stay for Carly. Her good friend Penny had retired early from work to immerse herself in sewing. She makes exquisite garments. Once she came over to Carly’s house with a new prototype of a dress. It was large and quite floaty and ideally to be made in silk or possibly a fine linen. Carly really liked the dress and was delighted when Penny said she would make one for her. She felt very special. She decided she would like to be buried in this purple dress. So being Carly and hugely impatient, she rushed to the local fabric store. There was no linen or silk, so Carly bought four meters of purple cotton. And yes, it was quite a fine and lovely cotton. Penny seemed happy with the choice when she received the fabric. But Carly was healthy, so there wasn’t really any rush. Until Carly phoned Penny and asked her to make the dress. She was going to wear it for her son, Haz’ engagement party. At least no one would be wearing the very same outfit!

Penny was a bit worried that Carly had some terminal disease until Carly reassured her, she wanted to wear it before she died. Then there was the small matter of the pockets. Penny said you only needed pockets if you were wearing the dress when alive. So, she put in two pockets. However, when Carly garnered information from her friends and colleagues. Everyone said you had to have pockets to put in objects to take to the next life.

What Carly hadn’t really considered is how very differently cotton hangs compared to silk or linen. The dress was pretty enormous and yes, it is true Carly is no skinny bean, but she could possibly fit in her three children in the dress with plenty of room for herself. This means Carly has to be creative when she wears it. She wears a sleeveless black leather-look belted coat with the dress. And she knows she can eat to her heart’s content until the day she dies. Bliss. Carly really loves her food. That, luckily, can be of any colour. Subsisting on purple broccoli and beetroot halwa might result in significant and harmful vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

All this talk of death, dying and dyeing has reminded Carly of the real reason she has to stick to purple from now on.

This very inspiring poem by Jenny Joseph says it all.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils

and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Thursday January 1st 2026

Friday 2nd January. From the clock tower to Park Midron

4th Jan; Dad’s 87th birthday

Monday 5th January

Tuesday 6th January

Talulah’s turquoise leash up close

Wednesday 7th Jan

I was not actually in Park Midron this morning but on the beach in Jaffa

Again – this is on the beach by the Setai

Jaffa on Saturday 10th Jan

Sunday 11th Jan

Tuesday 13th January

Wednesday 14th January

Thursday 15th January – Luna is 6/12

The day is gone

Nita had told me about this exhibition and Simon had also heard about it. We met Deborah and Neil there. The headset was free and took the story of one day of an artist in Berlin in 1925. Here are some of the paintings.

Zero Hour

On May 8 1945, zero hour was declared with a wish to cast out everything before that moment. The TLV museum of art was very much tied up with Germany and art from there. This eventually led to the director being replaced as he was felt to be too German. These are the art pieces and commentary that spoke to me.

Carly is getting on a bit and is thinking about that next stage. She is finding the rigours and demands of coming in at the weekends and being on call overnight taking its toll. She can do it and she does keep up to date but maybe now is the time to glide down with grace and serenity to work in a different way. She wanted to retain her clinical skills and work but spend most of the year living in Israel. She realised if she could go part-time and annualise this could indeed be possible.

Since she was appointed in 2005, she never did any urgent general paediatric clinics. There wasn’t really any reason, but she just didn’t. Then Covid changed all of that and she found that actually she rather liked these clinics. She even persuaded the managers to change the name. It was previously known as the 10-12 clinic. Patients were only seen within those hours. But this is very limited and what with all the fastidious cleaning of rooms, couches and other equipment between patients during various lockdowns, meant the clinics ran for much longer if face to face. Carly isn’t much of an exponent of telephone or video clinics. There is so much nuance that goes on when meeting in the flesh and the technology often isn’t really up for it. Also, if you were the only doctor seeing these patients, as the GPs weren’t at that time, it really was important to check up on children. Most people felt, including Carly, that the children were the ones who really came out worst in all official measures to mitigate against Covid.

So, early on in the pandemic, Carly saw patients in person at various health clinics. With her trusty bike, she was happy to cycle pretty much anywhere. And parents were loath to bring their children to hospitals which were seen as hotbeds of Covid disease and other dangerous activity. Carly mused that it was a bit unfair that children and their parents had to wait outside on the pavement until their appointment time, even in the depths of winter. But she did see them in person, and it really changed her perspective on the benefits of this type of clinic.

They changed the name to PRAC (paediatric rapid access clinic) which lots of people felt didn’t sound nice. It was rather a harsh name. Not lovely, soft and cuddly. But at least it did what it said on the tin. And one way Carly could increase her hours during the pandemic was to offer to do more of these clinics. It also meant they could be organised at any time of the day. These PRACs played to her strengths as she was very adept at emailing parents during the clinic, if appropriate, and so she didn’t need to bring these children and their parents back to see them again for ‘follow-up’.

This worked really well for the most part and parents really appreciated it. Long before the pandemic she had published on this area and so felt this was an excellent way to offer follow-up. Only very rarely did parents misuse this perk. One parent once sent pictures of her daughter’s stool several times a day to Carly. This wasn’t what was agreed and Carly, not being backwards in coming forwards, and feeling rather overwhelmed by the sheer number of pooey pictures in her inbox, had to explain to the mother that this wasn’t her role. This mother then went to see another doctor and was not allowed any email access. But this was very rare, and Carly has found this way of parents having access to her was seldom abused and meant she can see more patients, as her clinics are not clogged up with follow-ups.

Now Carly is pretty competitive. And Leah, one of the administrators, was a willing participant in seeing who of the consultant body saw more patients. Carly was convinced it was her. So, Leah looked through 15 months’ worth of data. Sure enough, Carly was by far the winner. Most of her colleagues had a new to follow-up patient ratio of about 3:1. This means they see three new patients to one follow-up. Some were as low as 2:1. These were all for exactly the same clinic. Carly didn’t want to show confusing data that compared apples with pears. One colleague was rivalling her with a ratio of 5:1. But she worked out that, whilst he’d been off for many months on sick leave, Carly and her colleagues had cleared his follow-up back-log, and he was basically starting afresh. It was easy to see his ratio falling with every month passing. Carly had a new to follow-up ratio of 9.64:1. Nearly 10:1. Was she pleased? Oh yes. Carly was over the moon. This was because she had an idea, and this would help her case tremendously. And she had to sort this out before her manager, Gordon, left. It had taken a long time to gather this data and once Gordon was replaced, Carly would be back at the bottom rung of the ladder. Gordon was quite a supporter of Carly although not always. He did always laugh when she was up to no good and getting bollocked. This was quite often as Carly finds it hard to behave all the time. He found these instances hilarious, but Carly was keen that he see her serious side.

She prepared an inventory of how much money she saved the hospital by personally having very few follow-up slots. She presented detailed information about what she saved in carbon footprinting by looking at where all 39 patients she saw in five clinics in May 2022 lived. She found they lived a mean of 5.6km and a median of 5.1km. She likes those statistics programmes that easily give you the mean, median and mode. It satisfies her curiosity and aids her memory as she has to keep reminding herself which each one is. Especially as they all begin with an m. But for sure easier than terms used in academic journals such as positive predictive value and false negative. Really, she can never remember them… Surely this will help stave off dementia? She is not really sure why she needs anything other than the entire range (those who live nearby and those who don’t) and the average. Depending on how they travelled to the hospital, Carly summarised their carbon footprint as follows.

If they all came by car (174 CO₂ g/km). Total = 38,000g CO₂

If they all came by bus (21 CO₂ g/km). Total = 4,578g CO₂

If they all came by tube (44 CO₂ g/km). Total = 9,592g CO_2, but the tube station at Archway doesn’t have step free access which is a problem for young children in a buggy or a pram. Of course, if they walked, ran or cycled it would be 0.

She also prepared another paper on how much income parents lost by coming to a follow-up appointment.

Here are her calculations for these same 39 patients. She saw nine babies and she assumed that they were with only the mother who wasn’t working as she was on maternity leave. That left 30 other patients. 15 appointments had both parents attending and 15 only one parent. They lost 3.5 hours of work as parents told Carly for each appointment; they lost an average of three to four hours of work. Carly assumed the pay was £15 an hour. How Carly arrived at this figure is totally open to conjecture. But you have to start somewhere, and it was well above minimum wage (£9.50).

Therefore, the total finance loss on families coming to five clinics in May 2022 is £2,362.50. Additionally, this doesn’t account for the amount of time children are missing school which Carly calculated overall as 120 hours.

Carly had prepared all this information to submit for a national clinical excellence award. But she realised that unless she died within the next five years, then she would be much poorer. Her grandparents all died in their 90s. And both her parents were alive, well and kicking. So, dying within five years was not an option, Carly decided. She did, of course, know that you really cannot be certain about this.

So, she realigned all the data she had collected into another avenue. Giving the data to Gordon who didn’t need to know it was prepared for an entirely different reason. He wasn’t being duped. The data was correct and true. Why collect data and throw it in the bin? That was just plain silly. Carly had started lots of projects and despite being an obsessional completer/finisher, she found some projects did fail. And certainly, Carly can be unsuccessful at applying for things. She has a massive folder on her computer called ‘My Failures (MF)’. Each specific folder is nicely filed within ‘MF’. Sometimes she puts applications in there before being unsuccessful. This could be seen as rather defeatist. But it saves it from being moved there later on. And labelling it as MF, although Carly does hate abbreviations, means she doesn’t need to see the word failures on a daily basis so boldly in her folders.

And Carly also knew, if she was going to work in a novel way, she was best off filing in the forms. So, she persuaded Ben in HR to send her the change of employment forms and duly completed them. She would work flat out in London doing gazillions of clinics during the summer holidays when her colleagues wanted to be off and anyway it was far too hot in Israel where she would live the rest of the year. She filled the form in as accurately as she could. When it came to position number, she cheekily put in she was number 1. Certainly, by the time this part-time job started she would be the oldest in the department. But she did point that out to Gordon, who filled in some random much longer number.

Her clinical lead was happy to support this for up to three years with an annual review to see how things were going. And in Israel, she would have to log on regularly to do the other bits of her job. The NHS is always going on and on about there being novel ways for their staff to retire. And for Carly, and her department this plan seemed to tick the box. It definitely was original. And Carly is all for ‘novel’. That is why she started doing these PRAC clinics in Covid in the first place. To stave off the boredom. At the beginning of the first lockdown there was very little happening with inpatient paediatrics. But parents still had concerns about their children and Carly was able to respond to these in a meaningful and timely way.

Carly has decided she is going to make Aliyah on the 4^th September 2023. Making Aliyah is the process for Jews from anywhere in the world to ‘go up’ to live in Israel as a citizen. Carly has chosen this particular date for a number of reasons. It is a Monday which is the first day of the week in the UK – a fresh start. But in Israel it is the second day of the week. Carly is trying to rebalance and to live her life at a much slower pace. So best not to hit the ground running but rather try a more sedate walk. So, what is the first day of the week in the UK is second and means she can try to slow down. She is keen to live more mindfully. To savour her surroundings, enjoy nature and find love. This is another reason Carly is considering living in hippy, dippy Pardes Hanna rather than Tel Aviv where she has friends and Jaffa where she owns an apartment. But the Tel Aviv/Jaffa conurbation is like London on speed and Carly has committed to at least trying to slow down. And the 4^th is the first Monday after she has finished her stretch of intense clinical work. And the numbers work out for her.

4.9.23

Is really 2².3².23. Almost prime number 23 twice. She had read a riveting series of murder mystery books by Linwood Barclay (Parting Shot, The Number Twenty-Three, Broken Promise and Far from True) all based on that particular prime number. Carly feels a bit like a young adult in her reading. They like series of books, TV programmes etc. So does Carly. She and her mother are working their way through the Peter James detective series. They have iconic names like ‘Dead This, Dead That and Dead the Other’. She has just started the ‘Seven Sisters’ series by Lucinda Riley although there were only six books. Grrrrrrrrrrr. But what she really loved were the knitting murder mystery series by Maggie Sefton such as ‘Knit One Kill Two, Dyer Consequences, A Deadly Yarn, and Needled to Death’. The list carries on in the same vein.

Exactly one year before Carly planed to make Aliyah, Ades is getting remarried. On the 4^th September 2022. The day started with cycling. So that was good. She loves cycling and especially on her purple Ribble pedal assist e-bike. Carly was going to Bushey Old Cemetery for a Stone Setting to commemorate the life of the father of a good friend of hers. It was an appropriate place for Carly to cry. And she did.

Back on her bike later on she went to a local plant sale. Rather eclectic and pretty low key. But she supported the growers with three outdoor plants for £6. At least it wasn’t going to break the bank. And she went via Born within a Whisker to buy some of their delicious focaccia. Yum!

Back at home she had to prepare for her shamanic journey with her friend in Epping Forest. She was going to bring things of significance to make an altar as part of this ceremony.

1. Her yoga mat from India was given to her by Meenaxi made from water tulips.
2. Her fire pit which she bought when she was still with her boyfriend of one year David and had a hole from her son Haz’ over exuberant use of it.
3. Pebble shaped crayons – 16 of them laid out in a rainbow colour order to remind her of gay pride and Brighton as well as the NHS.
4. The shamanic rattles she’d just made from fabric from Senegal she bought when staying with Joe and Libby, with glass beads in one and stones from her mancala set for the other.
5. One of her small plastic purple bottles for breast milk she had for her exhibition (in Highbury) of her sabbatical (in India) with a balloon still inflated exactly a year on.
6. Loads of purple incense sticks – she takes them everywhere.
7. A lilac shell spiral hanging she made in Goa when Boo was there.
8. Small pieces of fabric from a sari to tie onto a hammock and make a wish.
9. Feathers – to remind her of her godson Tom.
10. 3 wooden luggage tags, highly decorated and over the top. She had made them in Pune, India and they reminded her of Johnny – the dog there that she set free, only for him to find poison, eat it and die not long after Carly left – oh dear.
11. A large sliced purple stone from her father that she had had set in a fluid silver casting as a necklace on a purple ribbon.
12. A rose quartz stone which reminded her of her nannies Tash and Stephanie.
13. A stone saying ‘contentment’ from The Bridge Experience (a personal development programme) in Froome, Somerset.
14. Sage to burn to ‘smudge’ the area from Bless in Hackney where she sometimes went for Death Café meetings.
15. A lilac yoga mat to sit or lie on.
16. Wood and firelighters for the firepit.
17. But she forgot the shared food – whoops. Well, she brought the focaccia. But her friend is gluten intolerant – how thoughtless Carly can be – probably just plain forgetful.

All these objects connected her to important people, relationships and these things were ways to ground her. The journeying was really both revealing and healing. Carly is so grateful to her friend for spending the time with her, preparing so carefully and with integrity beforehand as well as being tender and loving with her on the actual day itself. She felt very well supported and indeed special.

In the evening, she went out for supper with a good friend. At home she then waited for Tobes and Boo to return from their father’s wedding. The wait for their reappearance was excruciating. Carly had tried to busy herself but by 10.30 pm she’d run out of errands and just waited by the window to hear them coming up the street. They clearly had had a good time, and Carly didn’t really know what to think.

Unsurprisingly, Carly has found it very difficult to move on. She hasn’t been lazy about trying to get there. She is busy at work taking on any extra shifts (paid) or tasks (unpaid), sorting out her new home in Walthamstow, getting a puppy (enormous amounts of work but endless and hilarious fun), seeing a therapist, going on Shamanic journeys and holidays to the Mediterranean.

She has joined a choir called natural voices. They don’t audition as a principle as that would be the end of that activity for Carly. And what about the ukulele? That would be fun, and they have them in purple too. Of course, shouting in the swimming pool (under the water so as not to worry fellow swimmers) and in the sea. But mostly Carly does buckets and bath loads full of crying. Luckily this is finite, or Carly could get seriously dehydrated.

Barbies twizzle around on a chandelier

Galina gave me a cream chandelier she found. I keep meaning to throw it out. But today was the day. With three Barbies slotted into the bulb socket and a candle where the electrics are housed hung from a hook in my ceiling.

Barbie is released from the golden egg

I went past the very plastic Christmas tree in the Jaffa port. I noticed one of the large gold baubles had fallen off and smashed. So I climbed over a fence and retrieved it. I used the footless Barbie and put different coloured felt wine glass markers Debby had recently bought me from New York.

Rainbow footless Barbie enjoys her time in a coil

I found this metal coil in the street. I felt Barbie needed dressing so with a rainbow assortment of hair bobbles I covered her body and arms and gave her earrings, pearls in one hand and a safety pin with bells in the other. She spent time twirling about and now she is with the keyrings from Anokhi, Jaipur, India.

Mini-mermaid Barbie and mini-merman Ken find themselves enveloped in a balloon sculpture

I found this in Cafe Blue today (2.1.26) and I took it home! It was just lying about. These figures had already had their debut in a photobox book in watery situations in northumberland with Sandra and Hugh.

Obviously mermaid Barbies must be near water.

I bought these three iron water baths for birds in the UK and they came on my shipment. All three mermaids are enjoying them.

A very productive Friday!

Coffin Barbie

Started in Mexico March 2025 and completed in Jaffa in February 2026. I was going to knit her into her coffin but in the end I crocheted an evening dress and put on bells so if she was buried alive she could be heard, exhumed and rush off on her roller blades!

I used some felt balls as a way of attaching the base to the sides, spray painted a wooden skull I had made a long time ago and attached a leaf also to the top. I use some cardboard ties with elastic to keep it sealed.

Carly had really enjoyed living in Highbury. And, for her, there was no reason to move. But her landlady wanted to move in and no amount of crying, remonstrating or other tricks by Carly to get her to change her mind resulted in Carly’s desired outcome. Staying in Highbury was no longer an option. And Carly only wanted to rent in the UK for one more year. So, she had to think carefully where her last home would be. Her kids, Tobes and Boo wanted to be near a tube station. Buses didn’t really cut it for young people who were always in a rush to get here, there and everywhere in-between. The train was too expensive, and the car had been given away. Carly spent all her money paying for fuel and parking tickets and she hardly used the car. In this new age of watching expenses, the car had to go. Her new home had to be in an affordable location and cyclable to work for Carly. She didn’t want to take the noisy and packed underground into work regularly. So, they all agreed on Walthamstow. Well, that was before they actually moved there.

Carly found a lovely house. Much like her previous two homes. Victorian, with a small garden and quite a few reception rooms, enough bedrooms and near(ish) to the Victoria line. For sure the best tube line in terms of speed and frequency. Just a bit of a hike to get there. But for her kids, walking is a good form of exercise, mused Carly. Often their only form. Carly smiles wryly. She cycles everywhere. But shhhhhhhhhh. Don’t tell everyone it is a pedal assist e-bike.

Carly likes lots of things about Walthamstow. Besides the good transport links, there are the wetlands and nearby Epping Forest. Also, Hucks is an excellent coffee establishment on her road. That is probably the most important reason for moving there. And she has met all sorts of people there. Her favourite is Michael. He pretends he is Michael Caine and repeatedly talks about “Not blowing the bloody door off” and she pretends she is Carly Simon and they both sing “You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you.” They both dissolve into fits of giggles, as no one around remembers that song, but they have, of course, heard of Michael Caine. Young people…

Carly is a bit overwhelmed by how friendly everyone is in Walthamstow. She already had an inkling from her ex-step-sister-in-law Tracy. She is actually one of her very good friends. She sees her, and her husband John, all the time. She has been to his allotment and has regular deliveries of blackberries, asparagus and lemon verbena. Tracy is really into birds and one of the highest earning RSPB bird badge volunteers in the UK. She rushes around in her retirement delivering badges to all sorts of establishments. Each badge costs £1 but no one really carries around cash or loose change anymore so she helped persuade the charity to get a QR code so people could donate what they want for each badge. Carly was amazed how much people would give. And in the last 12 months, Tracy has been responsible for 1,000s of pounds pouring in. Wow. But Carly isn’t really much into birds and there aren’t many purple birds which might be one way round this. Similarly, she doesn’t see the value of hours of toil at an allotment when it is so easy to buy local produce down the road at a local shop.

Carly has met quite a number of her neighbours. The day after she moved in, she was minding her business one evening coming home from visiting friends for supper. As she put her key into her door, there was someone shouting at her from across the road. “Oyyy, new neighbour, come and join us for some drinks!” So, Carly put her bike inside and rushed across the road. She met Paul the local chippie, Joe who lived opposite, Munir who lived down a side road and Jeanette a local dog walker, as well as her immediate neighbours Daniel and Sylvia and their daughter. She had a few drinks and had an absolute ball meeting all these people. It was so lovely and even more so as it was unplanned. They tell her about all the good and not-so-good local services like the vet and GP.

A few days later, Munir comes over with pears and Joe with apples. Everyone is super kind and friendly. She meets Malik one morning returning from the coffee shop. It is the weekend, and she sees a refuse lorry coming down her street. This seems a bit odd, but Malik reassures her it is normal for Walthamstow. She notices a bit of a commotion inside his house. Oh yes, says Malik. A black and white cat has been investigating. Ah, says Carly, she knows who that is. Gus is her cat and forever on a mission to check out other people’s houses. Later that afternoon she returns to Hucks. And this time Liv, one of the baristas, leans forward. “Have you just moved into 45 Grange Road?” Carly nods, a bit surprised. “A black and white cat has been coming in through my window and sleeping on my bed”. Gus again. No boundaries. Or even thoughts that he may not be wanted. Liv thinks it is very funny and doesn’t mind. Carly says that’s fine as long as she doesn’t feed him. He’s already a bit on the porky side.

Carly decides to throw a party to meet all her neighbours and invite some friends. They are all able to be outside and she is delighted her parents, and her sons join her. It is a complete hotchpotch of a gathering and going well, until her oldest son Haz warns them the table is about to collapse. Interestingly, he has never liked that table. And Carly has had loads of meals on it with no suggestions of collapse. Both before and after the party. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm” thinks Carly. I think there has been a bit of fiddling with that table because, sure enough, there was an almighty crash, bowls of popcorn and crisps as well as wine glasses come tumbling down, as the table ends up on the floor. Glass smashes everywhere making a large noise, but everyone rushes around clearing up. To be honest it brings everyone together and makes it an interesting focal point for the party.

Carly started swimming regularly in Highbury. This is both good exercise and a way to sort out things in your head. It has been really useful to watch everyone’s breaststroke. No one has even the remotest symmetrical legwork. Not one single person. Carly has watched hundreds of swimmers. On other occasions she decides to think about which length she is doing in multiples of prime numbers. Sadly 1 isn’t a prime number but 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 and 19 are. This leaves 4 (2²), 6 (2 x 3), 8 (2³), 9 (3²), 10 (2 x 5), 12 (22 x 3), 14 (2 x 7), 15 (3 x 5), 16 (2⁴), 18 (3 x 3 x 2) and finally 20. Finished. And, at other times she ponders the rota – she is in charge of the consultant rota at work or how to write a tricky email. And she does like the pool in Walthamstow. The Feel-Good Centre pool is light and airy. But also, there are some strange things. It has a changing village. So, all genders are together. In the end it takes up loads more space as you are supposed to change only in a cubicle. That’s ok thinks Carly, but she’d prefer to be out of a cubicle really. And then there is the problem of the hair dryers. Carly likes to use them to dry under her breasts and down below. But this means in full view of the men. Hey ho. Carly doesn’t mind. She didn’t choose this way of changing. And so far, no one has come up to complain to her. One time she forgot her costume. In Highbury this didn’t matter, as she lived so near to the baths, she could hop back to collect it. But here in Walthamstow it is much further away. She went up to the front desk to see if she could borrow one. The staff looked aghast. She had no money so she couldn’t buy a new one. And she knew they just threw the lost property away regularly. In the end she persuaded them to see if there was one. Hey presto. She was in luck. They apologised that it was damp. But Carly didn’t mind. It would be soaking wet in a few minutes.

Carly also did as much as she could to meet local people. She signed up for singing at Natural Voices, woodworking lessons at the Forest Recycling Project and is having ukulele lessons so she could join a local band. You have to admire her tenaciousness to have a new local group of friends. Or maybe you will be worn out with her exuberance and inability to just ‘be’ rather than always doing, doing, doing.

Even, and maybe especially, in a pandemic, Carly can find it troublesome to follow all the rules. Partly because the rules, she thinks, are silly or don’t really apply to her. They are really more like guidelines. One, in particular, is the wearing of masks. Carly is a doctor and has been able to work throughout the pandemic. Thank goodness as she really likes to be busy. Even when it was pretty quiet in her paediatric department, as all the children were at home and getting no bugs and having no accidents. But try as she might, she has never had Covid. Carly has worked with loads of patients with Covid. And been with colleagues, family and friends who have got it and still no symptoms. Carly has not had a fever, cold, cough or loss of smell in over three years. She does get wheezy with tree-pollen allergy but nothing else. Ho hum. Maybe, she just is immune. And of course, now she is vaccinated. Carly has found the masks a huge inconvenience and bug bear. Yes, there is some evidence they do work. But she just cannot bear them. They feel constricting and uncomfortable. And so, for the last six months in the hospital, where they are still mandatory, she hasn’t worn them. She tells parents it is because she needs to lip read what they are saying to her. Of course, this is the wrong way round and some parents roll their eyes and sigh, but nearly all are equally happy to wear them as beard covers or rip them off all together. 

Recently one of the senior ward clerks, Antoinette, told Carly of a funny incident. Antoinette is well up there on Carly’s approved list. A few years back, Carly wanted to produce some communications skills teaching on breaking bad news using artificial intelligence with avatars. Firstly, they had to film health care professionals acting this out with a plastic baby and an actor playing a distraught mother. Her child’s operation had been cancelled last minute. The staff had to relay this to the mother. Carly had corralled a number of nurses and doctors, who varied greatly in how they could expertly handle this mother’s anger and frustration. Carly then commandeered Antoinette who didn’t have any training in this or expectation to do this in her job as an administrator but was by far and away the best at telling the mother and calming her down. On another occasion, Carly had asked Antoinette to play the part of a mother of an extremely unwell child during a simulation. She was fabulous. So, it came as a bit of surprise when Antoinette was reprimanded by a nurse for not wearing her mask on the ward. She was told categorically that she was not Carly, and so normal rules applied. Both Antoinette and Carly laughed wholeheartedly.

On another occasion, Carly had gone with her daughter Boo to a pottery class. It had been rather pricey, and they thought they were going to be learning how to throw pots on a wheel. But it was just pinch pots. Rather a disappointment for Carly. Surely any old person at home can make a pinch pot. This was still during mandatory mask wearing. And Carly told the organiser she was excused from wearing one. Boo eyed her suspiciously. Carly didn’t have one of those nifty exemption cards. But she stepped outside alone at the beginning with the potter running the class to say that she had panic attacks when wearing the mask and surely, he didn’t want one of his pupils having such a terrifying outbreak in his class? She wished she had not even bothered as the class was really suboptimal. Pinch pots? And as it was in trendy Hackney it was at a premium price.

Other rules during the pandemic Carly found it hard to follow, were ones that stopped her from travelling. Carly only really feels serene and calm when she is away. If only she could spend her entire time away. But, no, that isn’t possible. She should try and learn how to be more tranquil at home. But there is always sorting out, clearing up, laundry, eating and food shopping. So dull and exhausting. 

There have been two favourite places she has been to regularly over these last few years. Lemnaradis in Greece and Long Buckby in the Midlands. Both required ingenuity and bending of rules to be visited. For Carly, the joy of going to these places is both about the place and the people there. And the excitement of reinterpreting the rules to actually travel there. She has to employ different strategies to get where she wants to be.

Carly’s very good friend Sandra lives in Long Buckby. They are both committed knitters who met in a chateau in France in 2008. They have both just been divorced after very long marriages. Their oldest boys are both mathematicians and working in finance. They both love dogs. And food. And are happy to be a bit rule bendy – Carly more so than Sandra.

Early in lockdown, travel was really frowned upon. Some stations had a police presence and cordoned off the entrance which was only allowed for essential travel. Carly was going for some rest and relaxation, which she deemed essential for her mental wellbeing. This in turn helps her to be a better doctor but this is clearly open to scrutiny. However, if Sandra was prepared for Carly to come and stay and sneak her in under cover of darkness through the back gate, then it was incumbent on Carly to make the journey up. 

Some stations had so many entrances that it was difficult to police non-vital travel. But the train to Long Buckby was from Euston. And that had but one entrance. Okey dokey. Carly had to cook up some scheme. She planned to tell the police officers that she was the world expert in Paroxysmal Extreme Pain Disorder formerly known as Familial Rectal Pain. This was completely true. She was going to visit a patient with this condition in Daventry Hospital. This was completely untrue. She asked her good friend Simon to look up and memorise the symptoms should the police want to verify Carly’s alibi. Luckily Simon was happy to be part of this scam and additionally has a good memory for all the salient features of this condition. Eye pain, jaw pain and rectal pain with a harlequin colour change. Carly took her NHS work badge and showed it to the police officer who didn’t enquire further. Once on the train Carly stood Simon down, so he didn’t need to expect any tricky phone calls. Over the last 2½ years, Carly has been Sandra’s guest 19 times. This is lucky as this is her favourite prime number after 7. Sandra prepares the meals with Carly as the sous chef and the buyer of lots of rose wine. Carly smirks to herself that she spends so much time there. No one has ever heard of Long Buckby. It is hardly a holiday destination, but Carly feels enveloped in Sandra’s love and in return Carly brings alcohol and humour. As well as both of them being party to some pandemic naughtiness.

But the piece de resistance is how Carly went to Greece early on when the rules were strict. Both in Greece and in the UK. To get into Greece, Carly had to have a reason. So, she decided she was going to buy a property. Obviously not really. And her host in Lemnaradis, Mariel, was prepared to play along. Over the week Carly was there, they would visit a number of properties. Carly had all the estate agency information she needed in an email from Mariel. Step one achieved. Getting into the country. Woohoo. And no they didn’t visit any houses.

Next was leaving Greece. She would need a negative Covid test. So, Mariel drove her and the other intrepid guests down to the town. There seemed to be a bit of leeway on the documented dates of the test results, despite all being taken at exactly the same time. They were all negative but as each country had different rules on how long the test would be valid, helpfully, the woman in the test centre, slightly fixed the dates accordingly.

Finally, there was getting back to London without the need for staying in a hotel or at home for 10 days as Greece was designated amber for Covid status by the UK authorities. No, this would not suit Carly, who finds staying indoors for one day entirely irksome. She found out that she didn’t need to be isolated if she was involved in a clinical trial. She knew this in advance as she was suitably qualified through her previous research experience. She persuaded her clinical lead, she should be a co-investigator on a trial. They only had to recruit three patients in two years. Surely that wouldn’t be too hard even if the condition was pretty rare? She did all the totally tedious online training and wrote a letter on behalf of her clinical lead who duly signed it. 

But what she hadn’t prepared for was the incident with the wasp. Whilst she was drinking coffee in a local café enjoying the view of the mountains and the sea, in Lemnaradis, she didn’t pay attention and nearly swallowed a wasp. This led to a sting to her lower lip. She had a video call with her mother later that day who asked her why she had Botox. But she hadn’t. Carly isn’t the type of person to have cosmetic injections. She just has to wear more neutral shades of lipstick because, as you hit your 50s, the darker colours bleed out. The vermillion border isn’t so crisp as you age. 

Anyway, when she tried to go through the electronic gates, having shown her clinical-trial-get-out of amber-isolation-letter, she was stopped. The computer said no. There was no big fat lower lip on her passport photo. But the nice woman behind the passport desk could see the funny side and waved her on. The lip soon settled with antihistamines. This was indeed welcomed by Carly who was not only self-conscious but dribbling all liquids! And to this day neither the clinical lead nor Carly have recruited any patients into the trial. And Carly has no intention of ever doing so…