How blessed is this: a warm spring day, riding my new white bike HiHoSilver to a drugstore 15 minutes away on Bloor Street, walking in, instantly getting the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, riding home. Couldn't be easier. Second dose in a few months.
As I've written here many times, my father was a scientist, a biologist and researcher. One of his greatest moments of pride was the discovery of the Salk polio vaccine in 1956. That took years of testing and research, while countless people, including my father, were infected with the virus. The fact that several vaccines were produced in the same year as a vile virus appeared - nothing short of miraculous. Dad would have been extremely proud. Thank God for medical science.
The warm weather, while so welcome, is really a cause for concern. It should not be 16 degrees for days on end in mid-March. There has been snow in May in Toronto, and that may still arrive. But I do find it hard to object. Pruned the honeysuckle, the phlox, the clematis. The daff shoots are up and ready to bloom. Never has spring felt more welcome, after a year of being shut in.
On the other hand, I do not feel like writing. Anything. Except this blog, and to my new relative in France, my fourth cousin Lesley, about our shared Leadbeater ancestors going back to great-great grandparents in Northamptonshire.
Another reason I appreciate the AstraZeneca vaccine - it was developed in Oxford. My parents met in Oxford in November 1944. The fact that a Jewish soldier boy from New York City and a young British code cracker born in a nearby village actually met, let alone connected and continued to correspond, let alone eventually ended up on the same side of the Atlantic and produced a magnificent girl child - ahem - well, thank you, Oxford. Must be something in the air.
I love that you are connecting with remote cousins.I just bought your book and look forward to reading it. I wanted to check with you, did you ever work at Stratford? I ask because Michael Jones, my husband's uncle was William Needles. Michael and I both share a connection to theatre- at University-he did music for the Bob Review at Vic College, and I did Costume Design at McGill way back in the sixties.
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoy the book, Judy - let me know. No, I never worked at Stratford - my acting career, as you'll see in the book, was mostly in Vancouver.
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