Coronavirus diary, Wednesday 26 August

The internet is still in some ways a mystery to me.

I now know how to blog and use Facebook but it is emailing that makes communication so immediate and easy.

For me it ranks as one of the most amazing discoveries - inventions? The only parallel in my lifetime for communicating is the telephone.

We depended on letter writing with pen and paper, and the GPO (General Post Office) founded in 1660, first as the General Letter Office, to get our messages over, delivered next day by post.

I don't think I used a phone until well into the 1930s. We did not have one at home until years later.

Now I use emails every day, reaching friends around the world in seconds. It's almost as good as chatting, and it's free, too.

This was brought home to me today by a long email from Doreen, an American friend whom Rosemary and I met when she visited our Penarth neighbour Therese, her former college friend.

Some years ago when we were on a cruise, Doreen gave us a day tour of Boston, and she came to see me in Sunrise just before lockdown. 

Her email gives a vivid account of her Coronavirus life in Massachusetts, isolated at home, unable to meet her children and grandchildren.

As if coronavirus was not enough of a problem, the weather  has made life worse. A tropical storm recently caused widespread damage, causing power cuts across half the state. 

There was better news in an email from Werner, another long standing friend, in Esslingen, Germany, where conditions are far better and where his large family are able to travel and meet.

Doreen is worried about their coming election, fearing that Donald Trump might stay in power, while she and Werner are surprised and disappointed by the mistakes being made by Boris Johnson and his government. 

Bob with Lino, Werner and Sabine, Cardiff, December 2019

Doreen and Werner have great regard for Britain which they know well. Werner's grandson Lino, who has been studying music at Wells cathedral school, had to return due to the pandemic.

They have many happy memories of Britain going back sixty years and are glad our long standing friendship continues, by email, now we cannot meet.