First Covid test is negative

A quick update: I just heard back from my doctor, and the COVID test that I took on Tuesday has come back negative.  Good news!  That confirms that Marie-Pierre (the dance director) definitely did not get COVID from me... Speaking of Marie-Pierre, we've heard that her condition is improving but she's not quite ready to come back to work any time soon.

Despite the advice that I received yesterday from the COVID contact centre, indicating that I might need to quarantine only seven days, I received different instructions from my doctor today.  She insists that if I was in extended contact (more than 15 minutes) with an infected person in a confined area (as was the case), then that is a situation of high risk for transmission.  She confirmed that a second negative COVID test needs to take place before I return to work, and that there have to be at least five days between tests.  So the earliest that I can take a test is Monday, and with a best-case processing time of 48 hours, the earliest that I can likely return to work would be Wednesday, but more likely Thursday next.  At this point I'm not sure if I want to go ahead and do some distance private voice lessons, but the creative team is going to get together in a few minutes over teleconference and make our plans for the next steps...

A bump up ahead

Before the run

and after

The Terry Fox run was great!  We managed to do a few different distances, although there was some confusion about routes.  I think next time I'm going to have to be a bit more organised and actually put up clear signs for the different distances.  In the end Lawrence and I ran the 15km, and Maggie did the 6-7km with Bryan, as he is nursing a sore ankle, but then there were people in the middle like Kiana who did I think a 10km... then there was the rest of the group, who don't regularly run here, and so they had no clue where they were going and got completely lost!  But in the end everyone found their way back to the house and we had a big bbq with chicken and ribs.  I was particularly happy because this was the first time that Malcolm and Duncan have actually participated in any kind of running activity with us; I hope that it won't be the last.  Duncan is already experienced at running, having trained up for his para-junior trials, but I'm happy that Malcolm is also interested.  Both boys are tall and slim and long-legged, so it makes sense that they would both be fast runners.

We've been having a very busy time rehearsing "Grease", four days a week, and I've also seen an increase in demand for private voice lessons: I am up to ten confirmed students and there are more asking, so I have had to expand my private teaching days from just Tuesday and Thursday, to include the days when I have "Grease" rehearsals.  It is tiring but it's good to have so many motivated students.

This has meant that I have had longer days, and more frequent days at the school... Last autumn we were able to use the scooter to supplement the car, but unfortunately someone stole it right out of our driveway a couple of weeks ago!  That really stinks, and what's more, our insurance covers liability and damage but not theft.  So unfortunately we have only one vehicle at the moment.  As I wrote last time, that means early mornings for me, driving Maggie to work and then returning home, before going back to do lunchtime lessons and/or after-school rehearsals.

That is a bit tiring but it's been going ok, until this past Monday...

Our dance director was feeling a bit off last Friday the 18th September, and she awoke with a fever on Saturday morning, so we told her to stay home.  She got tested and late on Monday we received the news that she was COVID-positive.  So that meant that we had to call a halt to both rehearsals and lessons this week.  I went to my doctor early on Tuesday and got a test prescription, and took a bus to the nearest testing centre, which is maybe 9 km from here.  I am still waiting for the results but so far I have no symptoms after six days since contact with the dance director.  Nevertheless my doctor suggested that I sleep in a different room from Maggie and try to avoid close contact with her and with Duncan for the next couple of weeks.  So I have been sleeping in the attic, which is actually very calm and quiet, with lovely light in the mornings.

It's been a bit frustrating because while I still am getting paid for my work as musical director, I am not able at this point to give private lessons... during the March-May confinement, I did so via teleconference, but that was when the students were at home.  The logistical issue now is that they are in the school, so the challenge is finding a place there that has a stable internet connection, external microphone, a speaker system, etc., and there are also some concerns about students being in a school room without some element of supervision.  We are having some meetings this evening to discuss how we might solve this problem, for the rehearsals and also for lessons.

There was an added wrinkle today: the Belgian test-trace contact centre called me this afternoon, and said that since I was considered low-risk, and had had no symptoms, that I would likely only have to quarantine for seven days instead of the usual fourteen!  So that's a question for my doctor... which is the proper duration of isolation?  I left her a text message so we'll see what she says. 

Our neighbour across the street rang the bell yesterday and said that the new windows have arrived, so he wants to take some final measurements this evening, and will start installation next week!  So that's great news.  Just in time for winter...

I have been a bit bored all by myself at home this week, so after getting a batch of sourdough bread going and tidying up the kitchen, I went out today for a run, and as it was not too hot (around 17 degrees) and I was well-rested, I managed a quite fast 10km at a 5:29 average pace, with my fastest ever 1km pace, at 4:26!  I'm not really training for anything in particular but it feels good to stretch my limits a bit.

That's it for now.  Stay healthy, everyone!

contract at St. John's is confirmed

Hi there, I realise that I haven't posted in over a month.

This will be a short catch up post... shortly after our wedding anniversary in mid-august I led a Grease themed musical theatre camp for a week at St. John's International School, along with Marie-Pierre the dance teacher.  Thom, the drama teacher and architect of the camp was unfortunately forced to stay in quarantine, as he had just attended his son's wedding in the USA, so while he did a lot of the planning and organisation, he had to leave it to us to teach the classes, so it was a tiring week.

In accordance with the Belgian Security Council guidelines, sports camps were allowed to resume that week as long as certain precautions were followed.  For example, parents were not allowed into the campus; students had their temperatures checked upon arrival; they agreed to self-isolate if they had a fever or symptoms consistent with COVID-19 infection; and masks were obligatory except when on the playing field.  So we used the same rules for our theatre camp... 

We made sure that the students were in large enough rooms that there was at least two metres between them while singing, and at least three metres between them and me.  We had a little less than twenty students, and got them going with some of the more complicated dance choreography, and taught them some of the songs from the musical.  They were masked whenever they weren't singing or dancing, and I made sure to stay masked as much as possible.  Maggie sewed some masks with extra pleats in them that I can actually open my mouth wide enough to sing in, which is great.

I admit that I disliked the film Grease when I saw it as a kid, and have never bothered to rewatch it, so I was skeptical about the stage version.  Happily it is far superior to the film, and the story is much more interesting, without the edits and changes made to accommodate Travola and Newton-John.  In fact it is a very feminist play, and amidst all of that doo-wop music, couped-up cars, leather jackets, and poodle skirts, there are very important examinations about gender roles, peer pressure, conformity, sexual consent, and so forth.  It's a good play for the kids to be doing right now.

We began the auditions on the week of August 25th, and then cast the show about a week and a half later... we've been doing rehearsals for a couple of weeks now, and it's coming along really nicely.  The cast is around forty kids, all grades 9-12, and pretty evenly split between boys and girls.  The music in this show is quite easy, actually; it's all doo-wop harmonies, and for those numbers which are multiple verses, the harmonies and rhythms aren't different for the subsequent verses, so once the kids have learned one set of harmonies, they are good to go for the later sections.  Hello, Dolly! was quite a bit more complicated, and so now I am finding that they are so solid on the harmonies already that there are places where I'm going to add some additional voice lines to the mix to make it more interesting.  The boys and girls have their little competition going on, and they enjoy showing off their songs to each other.  They're becoming real little harmony junkies.

Because of some delays in confirming the school budgets, I was working "on spec" since the 25th of August, but fortunately this week the approvals came through and I was able to sign my three-month contract to do the show.  As well, the private singing teaching has resumed, and happily for me, I have nine students now, with a couple more on the way.  A few of them are quite familiar with the classical repertoire, so I am looking forward to exploring some challenging repertoire with them.  The others are interested in a variety of styles, including Sinatra-esque crooning, modern musical theatre, and even some romantic french melodie which I am happy to help them unpack.  It's going to be an interesting year, I think, but always hanging over my head is the idea that we will have an outbreak and have to shut things down and return to online teaching.  Fingers are crossed that the masking and social distancing that we are trying to follow will reduce the likelihood of an outbreak but one needs to be constantly vigilant.

As well I have had some discussion recently with a private musical theatre school that runs classes on Saturdays... A friend of mine co-founded the school, but now has decided to move on from the musical director role after several years, mostly because her kids have reached an age where she needs to be more present for them during the weekends.  She was positive about the organisation, and we had a nice chat about the programme, which led me to go ahead and contact the other partners.

It seems like a promising lead.  Because of the Saturday Grease rehearsals I will only take the last two classes, with the oldest students (middle teen years), but it's nice to have a bit of diversification in my teaching work.  We have lots more renovations to do around the house, and the extra income will come in handy, especially since we are still in a cautious period where public performances are being gingerly resumed.  It's not clear yet when and if we will ever return to a "normal" kind of performance situation, so I plan to make hay while the sun shines, as the expression goes.

That's all I want to write for now, but in brief, the boys are back in classes (since early September) and all seems ok, and Maggie is also back in regular classes since late August.  So far we've had a few cases of COVID-positive parents, but for the moment no students have tested positive, so we are hoping that this trend continues...

So that I hope explains why I haven't written before now.... Sunday is usually my only day off.  The Grease rehearsals are Monday/Wednesday/Friday after school, and then again on Saturday; my private lessons are mostly on Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes and after school.  I've been driving Maggie to work in the morning at 7am, and then coming home, before going a second time to do my lessons/rehearsals, and then we come home together.  It's around 18km each way to get to her school, so the added trip increases the commuting time by an additional hour each day, but it's not a great hardship.

This Sunday will be a busy day, as we have six steres of firewood arriving at 8h, and then a few friends are coming here to do a Terry Fox run with us in Wavre.  It's the first time that we've organised our own little run in Belgium, and we've started very modestly.  But in case you are interested in supporting our run, here's our team page.  If you are interested in supporting us, the donations to the Terry Fox Foundation are secure and online, and your banking information is kept confidential.  It's forty years since Terry's Marathon of Hope, and we are really excited to do something symbolic to recognise his achievement.