Basil

I had a dream that private Skype chats with colleagues were sent around to all my contacts as spam emails. I therefore woke up feeling unsettled, plus with that nice aching sensation after several hours of cycling yesterday.

I had a couple of fun catch-ups with friends/peers who run our Romania and Cambodia programmes, about their current priorities and the battles with coronavirus in their respective countries. Jeremy who manages the work in Cambodia has a theory that the pungent fermented fish dish, prahok, kills the virus, and that the Indochinese traditional greeting of forming a prayer pose with one’s hands (instead of making physical contact) has limited the spread. If there are other reasons as to why Cambodia (and Vietnam and Thailand) have been virtually untouched by coronavirus then they are not clear and there doesn’t seem to be any government cover-up that social media would doubtless be shouting about. Jeremy reckons Cambodia ‘did everything wrong’ in that the country never shut down, shops didn’t close and life continued as normal, yet has registered barely any impact. The tropical heat argument holds less weight now that Latin America is suffering. In a supermarket yesterday Jeremy was directly coughed on by a man who took his mask off to do so. It’s important to point out this wasn’t a malicious act, just standard practice.

I collected a van as I was asked to empty some possessions out of my flat, now that my colleague is staying on there longer. I was given a free upgrade as they didn’t have any small vans. This wasn’t really what I wanted to hear as manoeuvring around Cambridge isn’t the easiest at the best of times, especially not when in charge of a large vehicle that I’m unused to handling. However it was handy to have the extra space as I ended up carting off more possessions than a) I was expecting to, and b) I remembered owning. Now they’re occupying a corner of the bedroom I’m lodging in, and add a layer of logistics to what will happen when Gugs and I either a) are able to go back overseas or b) have to find a new option when Heidi returns to her house. I’ve been complaining about lacking possessions so perhaps there will be some useful finds, such as the bottles of shampoo and shower gel that we found at bedtime. From a very limited number of possessions I now have a huge accumulation of books, badminton rackets and picture frames.

This trunk is the prize find. I’ve blipped it before as Tony gave it to me when I was storing things whilst in Cambodia. Gugs was also close to Tony so I popped her basil plant on it, and it makes a nice feature in the living room whilst we’re at Heidi’s.