Category: London Calling

In which our heroes get COVID, recover, fly halfway around the world, visit Middle Earth, walk through Mirkwood, and spelunk into Moria. Sorta.

It seems both yesterday and an age ago that good friends from Seattle passed through London while moving to New Zealand. They moved before the pandemic got rolling, and their encouragement that we come visit quickly became academic, as countries restricted travel and New Zealand closed its borders.

In late March, when New Zealand set out a timeline for tourism without quarantine, we started planning a visit; aiming for the New Zealand winter school break. We picked dates, bought tickets, and crossed our fingers that the pandemic didn’t throw another spanner in the works.

We started by sorting out cat care for the two weeks we’d be gone, and learned our very-local cat sitter – who we and the cats really liked – was moving to the other side of London and hence out of consideration. Dawnise hit on the idea of asking my brother if he wanted to come stay at our place, take care of the cats, and explore London and the UK while we were away. It slotted reasonably well into his work schedule, he was able to find flights that worked with our dates, and so we had a plan.

And then I got COVID. I came back from a trip to Seattle two-and-a-bit weeks before our scheduled departure and what I thought (hoped?) were allergies developed into feeling generally crappy and a fever. I initially tested negative, but symptoms persisted and I rolled to disbelieve – sure enough the next test was positive. Dawnise tested positive a couple days after I did and the race was on.

New Zealand had dropped their pre-flight test requirement but still required day zero and day five rapid antigen (lateral flow) tests – with a follow up PCR test and isolation on a positive result. Regardless of the test requirement, flying while positive seemed at best irresponsible, so our tickets were in a game of chicken with the virus.

I started feeling better after a week or so, and tested negative a week before departure. Dawnise cut it a bit closer, but was negative a few days before our flights – though her energy levels were still ramping back toward normal.

My brother had arranged to arrive before we left, planning to spend a week traveling before settling in at our place. He landed in London while we were both still positive, so coming here seemed a questionable choice. Wary of the flight disruptions in and out of the UK, he elected to take the train up to Edinburgh for a few days, rather than risk complications getting to or back from the continent. We got occasional dispatches from him, and he seemed to be enjoying the city as much as I thought and hoped he would.

And then he got COVID. His last morning in Edinburgh what he thought (hoped?) were allergies had expanded to include a sore throat – and the COVID test quickly returned a positive result. He made his way to our place in London – masked-up and as distanced as possible – and basically quarantined in the guest room, only emerging masked and doing everything he could to not share whatever strain he had with us.

On our day of departure we made our way to Heathrow and boarded the first of two flights, heading to Los Angeles to connect to Auckland. Our layover was taken up by a delayed departure from LHR and by sitting on the tarmac in LAX waiting for a parking stand, so we ended up running through the airport – needing to clear customs, claim our bags, recheck our bags, and re-do security (don’t get me started). Fortunately for us there were a dozen of us making the connection, and they held the Auckland flight for us.

After a long but uneventful flight we arrived in Auckland bleary eyed two days after we left. We cleared customs and biosecurity (where they asked a surprising number of questions about my hiking shoes), and picked up our day zero and five lateral flow test kits on our way out of the airport.

Our friends picked us up, and after a quick greeting drove us to their place, just north of the city.

We spent a couple days hanging out, walking on the beach, getting over jet lag and reconnecting before we hired a car (British english for “renting” a car) and formed up a convoy destined to an Air B&B in Rotarua.

We spent a few days in and around Rotarua being tourists. We saw the volcanic mud and geothermal pools and geysers that made the town a tourist destination. Saw kiwis (the bird) and learned a bit about Māori carving and weaving traditions at Te Puia Māori cultural center and art school. Walked around the “buried village,” and read about the 1886 Mt Tarawera eruption, and the now-buried pink and white terraces, walked high in the canopy of a redwood forest, and went back to do it again at night, which was pretty magical.

And of course, if you’re us you don’t go all the way to New Zealand and not tour Hobbiton. The occasional rain burst didn’t stop us having a great time. The setting was literally fantastic and the attention to detail was mind boggling. The place felt real and lived in – and some part of me wouldn’t have been surprised if a door had opened and a Hobbit had poked its head out. We had booked the “Evening Banquet Tour” so our tour group was alone in the set – no group ahead or behind us. The late day lighting added to the magic of the place, and I’m happy to say I was plesantly surprised by the banquet bit. After dinner and several dessert courses (‘urp) we picked up appropriately themed lanterns and headed back into the set, taking a moment as a group to turn off the lights and gaze up at the stars through a cinematically timed break in the evening clouds.

On the morning we left the Air B&B we took separate paths. Dawnise and I headed off to visit the Waitomo limestone and glow worm caves taking the long way back to Auckland.

The following day we dropped off the hire car back in the city and wandered around Auckland a bit. We found very respectable Mexican food, good coffee and possibly the most pretentious ice cream ever before catching the bus back to their place.

And then Dawnise got… a cold. Nothing horrible, just some sinus congestion and fatigue, but most unwelcome.

We spent the last couple days hanging out with our friends – playing games, chatting, sharing meals. The day we left we played games basically right up to when we needed to leave for the airport.

Our flight from Auckland to San Francisco was slightly delayed, but a longer stop in SFO meant we just spent a bit more time waiting in AKL and a bit less time waiting in SFO. We departed for London on schedule – a couple hours before we’d left Auckland (timezones are weird).

The flights were long but basically uneventful, aside from the turbulence that seems nearly guaranteed to happen just as they’re serving drinks and dinner.

Dawnise even managed to get some sleep in transit.

When we got back to the flat we had missed my brother by an hour or so – he waited to know we were on the final flight home before heading out on an overnight trip to York – and the cats seemed to mostly not notice or care we were back.

We unpacked, showered off 30 hours of travel grime and went to get some groceries. With some help from a re-run of Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled we even managed to stay up to a mostly reasonable hour before surrendering to sleep.

It was our first “real” trip in three years – and all things considered went pretty well.

We spent Monday recovering from jet lag, and Tuesday I went back to work – but that’s a story for another time.

Oh, and with a little nudging my brother pushed out his flight home to spend a bit more time “over here,” and make up for the time he spent isolating and recovering from COVID. He’s off to Barcelona in a couple days. Fingers crossed he makes it back for his flight home.

Chatting about the trip through the haze of jet lag Dawnise poignantly observed that our time there felt completely normal.

It was probably the first time she’d said that in three years, and was a sharp and present reminder to us both of how much we miss having these people close, and in our lives.

Yesterday afternoon Dawnise helped me assemble the guest bed, which had been disassembled and stowed up against the wall since before we moved in to this flat 14 months ago.

I was surprised at how much seeing a bed in that bedroom made me smile.

Yesterday was my last day in the office, and assuming our pre-flight COVID tests tomorrow don’t surprise us (incredibly unlikely, since we’ve basically self-isolated for the past week), Tuesday morning we head to Heathrow to catch a flight to Seattle. We planned the trip before the Omicron wave, and after much consideration and debate, we decided to stick to the plan.

We’ve dialed down our social planning a bunch, so as not to catch anything and become super spreaders, so if you’re reading this in Seattle and would like to catch up while we’re there – we’d love to, but “not this time,” I’m sorry to say.

The bed building that started this all is for a friend of ours who’s coming to stay at the flat for the time we’re gone. It’s a change of scenery for her and care and company for the cats, who’ve not been separated from us for the better part of two years. She might even get to spend some time wandering around London, weather permitting.

One of the hardest bits of planning this trip – or any trip – was sorting out care for Oscar. A cat sitter willing to appear twice a day to feed and inject a cat has proven to be tricky.

I’m happy to report that our cat care needs got significantly easier a few days ago, when Oscar’s latest blood work showed continued normal fructosamie levels and glucose control. When his vet called to chat about the results, she said “it’s up to you, but if it were my cat, I’d stop giving the insulin; the risk of overdose at this point is higher than being underdosed.”

You don’t need to tell me twice.

Along with the need for daily insulin, so goes the need for a strict 12 hour feeding schedule. His (very low carbohydrate) wet-food diet, and needing to ensure Oscar doesn’t eat Ivan’s food, still pose challenges for once-daily pet care vists.

We bought Ivan a fancy feeder that only opens for him when we found one on significant reduction (who knew having the cat microchipped would be useful beyond reuniting us if we wandered off?), and a lower tech dual timed feeder for Oscar. We’ve been working on figuring out how to do all the days feeding at night. We haven’t quite cracked it, but it feels like we’re close.

So no insulin while we’re gone, and a week or so after we return we’ll bring him in for another test. Assuming the blood work continues to look good he’ll go to a six-month recheck schedule, and after that TBD.

Tuesday evening we’ll land at SEATAC, pick up the rental car, and switch back to driving on the right (hand) side of the road.

We’ll sort through a couple years of mail and clean out the pantry of stuff that’s two years out of date. Dawnise has an appointment at the Department of Licensing to get her driving licence renewed, and we’ll finally get to meet our nieces. After about a week in Seattle we head to visit my parents on the east coast for a few days before heading back to London.

I wish I could say I’m looking forward to the trip, but mostly I’m just trepidacious.

Oh, that guest bed? Once COVID sees fit to give us our lives back, reservations will be available…

As I type I’m sitting on a LNER train to York, Dawnise and our traveling companions scattered through the carriage behind me.

It’s the farthest I’ve been from Central London in nearly two years. It’s just for a few days – were back in London on Monday – but it feels..significant.

Foreign.

A feeling I remember from the before time.

The anticipation of a new place. The uncertainty of what we’ll find.

“I hope the hotel is as nice as it looked.”

“I hope there’s a place that makes drinkable coffee.”

Getting this far took a surprising amount of work – mostly to find someone to care for our diabetic and hence high maintenance cat(s). After several false starts we’ve left the boys and a set of keys to our flat in the hands of someone we’ve only just met, but who seems lovely.

Packing used to be a rote routine. I’m clearly out of practice. I’m pretty sure I packed only what I need, and didn’t forget anything. At least not anything I can’t obtain or do without for a couple days.

Fingers crossed.

It also reminds me that I really like train travel. Watching the scenery blurring past. The quiet of a not-crammed-full train carriage, people reading, chatting quietly.

And it reminds me of work trips from a past life.

Wandering around the UK and Europe visiting business partners with colleagues who were good travel companions and friends. The sinking feeling when a colleague realized she’d left her handbag on a train. The incredulity when the train operator confirmed that they had her bag and it would be back where we were via the first train the next morning. The utter shock when it actually appeared as promised, contents intact.

We’re approaching our penultimate stop.

Soon I’ll be somewhere I wasn’t this morning. That I’ve never been before.

I miss this.

I generally avoid writing about “work stuff.” This is an exception.

It’s early November as I type this, but it’ll sit unpublished for at least a couple weeks. A couple weeks ago, in late October, I “gave notice” that I intend to resign my role and part ways with my employer.

In the US it’d be all done and dusted by now. Not so in the UK.

Per my employment agreement (contract, even!) I owed the company (and the company owed me) three months notice if either side wanted to end the relationship. So notice in October translated to leaving in January. At the time of this writing, only a handful of my colleagues and leadership are aware of my decision. Communicating broadly this early seemed unnecessary and likely counter-productive, hence the delay in publication. As you’re reading this, it means the proverbial cat’s been let out of its bag.

The frequently asked questions from peers and leaders were “what’s next?” and “why?”

“What’s next?” is the easy one. Nothing, at least for a bit. I’m going to take a break. We’re planning to stay in the UK for a while, and hopefully (all appropriate digits crossed) eventually get the chance to do some of the traveling we moved “over here” to do, before Covid repeatedly dumped cold water on our plans. I figure I’ll start looking around for the next thing in the spring, and we’ll see where that ends us up.

Saying “easy” is maybe glossing over things a bit. That we can stick around, and don’t face a deadline to get ourselves and the cats out of the UK, comes from a healthy dose of good fortune, a bit of good planning, and help from some good friends*.

So that leaves “why?”

When someone decides to leave a group there are three sets of reasons. There are reasons they keep to themselves, reasons they share with the group, and reasons the group hears. To me, making the reasons I share and the reasons that are heard “the same” is important. And can be surprisingly difficult. I figure the best strategy is to pick one message you want to deliver, state the message as simply as you can, and deliver it consistently. Even then people, to a large extent, will hear what they want to hear. They’ll focus on the bits of the story that resonate with their world view, their experience, or their biases. And there’s not much you can do to prevent that.

The message I’m trying to consistently deliver is rougly “it’s not you, it’s me.” Over four years working in three different parts of the company under different leaders on different projects, I’ve proven to myself that I can be effective and impactful in this peculiar environment – something I wasn’t completely confident of, having been in my last role and company for over a decade. In that time I’ve also come to realize that I’m not having as much fun as our tagline suggests I should – especially given the energy and time the role demands.

At the end of the day I’m moving on because, as a friend (and soon-to-be-former colleague) likes to say, it feels like “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.”

I’ve learned a bunch over these four years. I’ve gained a deeper understanding of how this “really big tech company” does what it does. What it’s good at. What it struggles with. I’m leaving with no regrets and (hopefully) no bridges burned.

I’ve met some great folks who I’m happy to call friends, and who I’d happily choose to work with again. And who I’m definitely going to miss.

That reason is true, by the way. Which to me is really important. But it’s obviously not the whole truth. One could ask “why?” again and again, until there are no new answers. I’m not going to bore you with that exercise, but I did do it. It pointed me at root causes that I don’t have leverage or agency to fix. Indeed, “fixing” some of them would mean changing fundamental tenets the company culture holds close, and has been successful following.

So, it’s time for me to try something new.

All that’s left now is to figure out what that might be.

Europe and the UK are entering another holiday season with COVID hanging menacingly over the festivities like The Sword of Damocles.

Christmas events across the countries in Europe hardest hit by the current wave are being canceled. The trip to Belgium we failed to take in 2019 owing to a French rail strike is this time being scuttled by the near vertical case growth in Belgium and the restrictions that accompany it.

In a shocking first, the government here has taken quick action in response to the new “variant of concern.” England has reinstated mandatory masks on transit and in public indoor spaces (but not restaurants or pubs, the places people tend to gather close and trade exhalations), and as of today will require mandatory self-isolation pending a negative PCR test on (re)entry to the country.

Against this backdrop, Dawnise and I hosted two other expat couples to celebrate American Thanksgiving on Sunday. It was the first time we’d had six people around the table in the year we’ve lived in this flat.

We spent the morning prepping our contributions, and when guests arrived we spent the day cooking, laughing, and quaffing wine before eating good food with good friends.

After dinner, we each took a moment to share some of the things we were thankful for over the past year.

There were a few shared themes. Being healthy. Having friends to share moments of lightness. Of having been incredibly lucky to find a life partner who’s a good partner – even after two years in near constant close quarters.

We played a few games before parceling out the left-overs and saying goodnight. One couple caught a cab home to their place a few miles east, and the other covered the few blocks that separate us on foot.

After putting the ovens into self-clean mode, loading the dishwasher, and washing the handful of things that needed it we adjourned to the sofa and found something funny to watch before turning in for the evening.

It was a poignant reminder of the sort of thing we used to do fairly regularly, and the sort of thing I sincerely hope to do with increasing regularity in the future.

And something I will do my very best to not take for granted.