Plague news

Caitlin received word from the NHS today that Louis was, at least theoretically, still contagious - however free of symptoms he may be. His Covid test of two days ago came back positive, meaning he and his mother have to quarantine another ten days.

It's possible she made the move to test him too soon. They had just passed the ten-day quarantine period - from Bob's positive test - when they tested Louis. If Bob was infected first and it took a couple of days for Caitlin and Louis to get it, he could easily have still been in the contagious period.

On the basis of that, Caitlin thinks she will have them both tested again on Friday - and hope for a better result.

Louis has been a sweetie through the whole thing. Today, when Caitlin was down and needed to rest he very kindly put a washcloth over her head where she was lying on the sofa and offered her one of his teddies, and a toy car to help her feel better. "You rest Mummy."

But she thinks he's stir-crazy. Of course, he hasn't been seeing Carrie, his part-time nanny, or his little friends. Caitlin did the test as soon as she thought it reasonable to do it because she wanted him to be able to get back to Carrie - both for his sake, and hers and Bob's. Of course, he can't now.

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I finished Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet last night. Her contention seems to be that the title and name of the main protagonist in Hamlet - the names are really the same - cannot be a coincidence, that Shakespeare must have somehow been alluding to his dead son. 

She has a point, you would think, but I believe most Shakespeare scholars would say it's a mistake to attribute to him the same kind of personal psychological investment in his work that we take for granted in modern authors. 

One of the interesting things about O'Farrell's method is that she never mentions the name Shakespeare or Hathaway or even Will. Ann is always referred to as Agnes, another of her names apparently - although I don't think there's any indication it's the one she went by. And Will is always referred to by his relationship to the other characters, as "Agnes's husband" or "Hamnet's father" or "John's son." 

I think the idea is to keep us from thinking too much of what we know or think we know of the man while reading the story. He's not the main character in any case, the other members of his family are. He's mostly absent, and mostly not thought well of in Stratford. And yet the whole story, in a sense, hinges on the Hamlet-Hamnet connection.

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A long-ish walk today, with even fewer photo stops than yesterday. I think I need a change of scenery. 

The old Call The Office. Can't remember what it was back in the 70s, but it's where Keith Whittaker's band, The Demics, cut their teeth - Keith being younger brother to our old friends Lin and Ian. Ian and Keith are both long gone - cancer in their thirties - and we haven't heard anything from Lin in years.