End of an Era - or The Beginning of a New One

 Well....it was bound to happen.  Oxford City Council announced today that the city is moving to Tier 2 in the fight against COVID.  Numbers have been rising, and now it isn't just the student population.  Now it is moving into the population at large and the most vulnerable in particular.



It begins on Saturday morning.  We will have some YSAs here tonight for dinner and a little socializing.  We had our special "The Sound of Music" scheduled for Saturday evening, and so in an emergency move, rescheduled it for tomorrow night.  That will be the official end of our having people here in the flat, for who knows how long.

From all the dire predictions we hear, it may be a very long time before things get anywhere near back to order or normalcy.

We got a letter from the visa department.  It was so exciting to see that it was from the government....but it turned out to be just a letter saying that they were sorry this process is taking so long, but that we are fine in the country until a decision is reached.  They said that we are not forgotten (we might be happy for a few months to be forgotten).

We had a young single adult over tonight with her boyfriend.  She is a PhD student and she is incredible.  I love visiting with her.  Her boyfriend is from Barcelona Spain, and so very interesting.  We had them all to ourselves for the evening and it was absolutely lovely.  Last year at this time, I was so busy in the kitchen, and everyone was visiting with everyone else....which is really the point of getting them all together.

But it is so lovely to just sit and visit with two people.  You really get to know them that way.

After tomorrow night, that will end for the foreseeable future.

Comments

Erin said…
I’m sorry.
October 30, 2020 at 12:47 AM
melissa said…
Oh, that’s so sad!! Will you be able to continue your walks if you keep a respectable distance away from people? And can you still make doorstep treat deliveries? That’s always fun! You ought to order a bunch of takeout containers on Amazon for soup and such and then you can drop off little things with notes. It’s something!
October 30, 2020 at 7:56 AM
Elder and Sister Madsen said…
Yes, we can go out for exercise and to buy groceries. That will be nice. And that is such a lovely suggestion. We can deliver warm cookies! It may be a problem with our students who live in the colleges, but perhaps we could tell them to run down and pick them up from us!
October 30, 2020 at 9:46 AM
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