20,0000 dead and counting

More than 20,000 people have now died from Covid-19 in the UK (probably another 40-50% that when home and care home deaths are taken into consideration), We only get figures from those who have died in hospital and the health service will not admit some people to hospital. What’s the point in putting and 85-year-old on a ventilator?

There’s obviously lot more deaths caused by Covid-19 – people whose cancer treatment has been delayed and important operations postponed due to lack of capacity in hospitals.

This isn’t a good time to be old or ill.

The news on radio, TV and newspapers is universally depressing, so much so that I have turned the radio off this morning and I’m playing my “Driving Music” playlist on iTunes - Hetty and the Jazzato Band are cheering me up a little.

We have been in lockdown for a month, allowed out of the house only for an hour’s exercise each day or to buy essentials (such as food). It could be a lot tougher – I’m allowed to go to the allotment to work, we have a large garden and the weather has been pretty good. However, I can’t shake off a weird feeling about everything and a low-level anxiety which is always in the background.

Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse are staying with us at present. When France went into lockdown and we had to abandon our ski holiday in mid-March, they couldn’t get a ferry back to Jersey until later in the week, so they came back to Thorney. Sam flew to Jersey later in the week and then had to self-isolate at home while seeing patients by video or telephone consultation.

We don’t really know what is happening about anything in our lives from one day to another and it’s been even worse for Sam and Lucy. They were supposed to move back to the UK in the middle of April and have had to negotiate the stress that the crisis would prevent them selling their house, buying a new one or even getting off the island.

The sale was completed to schedule, but Lucy and Sam had to sign power-of-attorney documents for it to go ahead. Sam drove to the solicitor and they watch him sign through the window of his car. Lucy had arranged to go to Greenwood’s in Peterborough to get her document notarised, but then the government closed everything down with three hours’ notice from midnight the day before.

It seemed there was no alternative but for Lucy to fly back to Jersey, sign the documents and then fly back. We arranged an early-morning flight from Gatwick and a flight back on Friday evening. We’d look after the children. Then Sam discovered that if she flew back, she’d have to stay in Jersey for two weeks. What now? It looked as if she might have to go back with the children because she wouldn’t want to leave them with us for two weeks, but then a lawyer friend of Sam’s suggested that the document could be witnessed by a range of other people – a judge, a solicitor, JP, magistrate …

I called Ken Sheraton, a judge I know who lives in the village, but he was stranded in Wales at their holiday cottage. He did suggest a JP who lived in the village, so we managed to get it signed by handing it through the top window of his front room – very strange, but very welcome. It was sent to the solicitor yesterday and the courts in Jersey remained open for business and for the sale to go through.

We then heard that Condor had ceased all passenger services on its ferries, so Sam was not be able to leave Jersey with his car, which had been the plan. He flew back to Southampton (the only route left to get between Jersey and the UK) and the NHS paid for a taxi back to Thorney.

Their house purchase in Soham has been delayed by the lockdown and some feet dragging by the vendors. It’s a tough call, they would like somewhere settled to live, but it might be better to rent for a year and see what happens to house prices. If we get a 20 per cent hit to the economy (which some are predicting is the best we can hope for) then house prices are bound to fall … probably … maybe.

Anyway, they now have a completion date for the end of May, which will be something of an achievement considering the circumstances. Sam is due to start work the following Monday, so it will be a pretty frantic few days for them.

Living with Saoirse

With Sam, Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse living with us, we have quite a busy house.

It has been nice to be able to spend time with Saoirse at such a special age. She’s 16 months old but, because she’s a second child, she’s so much more competitive and so much more advanced.

She’s been walking since she was one and is now desperate to jump, run, go up and down stairs and to climb.

She escaped surveillance at Nirvana in Jersey before our no-ski ski holiday, climbed up the stairs and fell down them; then, while she was here (thankfully not on my watch) she climbed out of her high chair and fell onto the floor. We had to take her to a locked-down casualty department at Peterborough hospital, where she had a CT scan – no bleeding on the brain, but she did have concussion, which explained the vomiting and sudden crying.

That was a few weeks ago and she’s fine now.

She would love to climb our stairs, the high-chair has been taken out of service and used as a block to prevent her getting into the glasses cupboard.

Cupboards are a big attraction, especially the snacks cupboard, the one where the biscuit barrel is and the blocked off glasses. Holly’s water bowl had to be moved outside on the first day she arrived because it was great fun to splash in it.

One of her joys is going up and down steps. There are steps from the patio up to the lawn level and from the lawn up to the decking by the summerhouse. All of these are wonderful things and she will hold your hand and pad round and round her little circuit going up one lot of steps and then down another, saying “step” every time she comes to one. I’d reached the stage where I’m happy for her to go up on her own but, a couple of days ago, she made a dash to go down the steps from the lawn to the patio and (thankfully) managed to stay on her feet. She was so happy that she did it again, and again, and again.

She has been trying to jump for some time now. She will squat down and straighten herself up, convinced that she’s jumping. I remember Julia being desperate to learn to jump and Saoirse is the same. She’s now at the stage when she straightens up quickly, she also lifts one foot off the ground. So much effort goes in, it’s really funny to watch.

Her toddle speed has increased at an alarming rate. If you take your eyes off her for a minute, she can be at the other end of the garden about to do something hazardous. Sometimes, when you shout “no” she stops; at other times, she takes no notice.

Her two favourite games (apart from the steps) are to run round and round things. It could be your chair, the patio table, the playhouse, the slide – as long as she can toddle around something and have a little chuckle every time she passes you. The other favourite is to play with stones, Often, these are dropped into the watering can or Holly’s outside water bowl; or she just likes to pick them up and throw them. She isn’t very accurate or consistent with her throws, but she often gets one just right and chuckles with satisfaction.

When she’s particularly pleased with herself, she does her “happy dance” which is hard to describe. It involves head movements, arm movements and bouncing up and down. Her other happy signal is to put her arms behind her and lean forwards.

Saoirse will copy any sound and now has enough words for a conversation. She can let you know what she wants, and you can ask her questions. Being a toddler, she’s also more than happy to have the screaming abdabs if she gets porridge and she wanted an oaty bar. She attended baby signing classes in Jersey and she has a few sign-language messages. She can do “poo” and “dog”, although she prefers to talk rather than sign. Here are some of her words:

Uff-uff – that’s a dog. Often she’ll sign that as well.

Ess – yes

No – couldn’t be clearer.

Shnack – snack (also very clear).

Jump

Shtep – step (up or down, but generally down)

Shtone – generally when she’s found a good one for throwing.

Nana

Mama

Pretty – she’s quite self-aware and loves to be admired when she has a dress on.

Boo – another way to pass a few minutes. Boo from behind the curtain or through the windows of the playhouse.

1, 2, 3 – she counts to three, generally when going up the steps of the slide.

Wha dat – can mean “what’s that?” or “want that”. It’s normally pretty obvious in context.

Up – I want picking up

Wack wack – a duck or goose (she especially likes to see the wack-wacks at the goose paddock.

She loves books and her favourites are Chuffa, Chuffa, Choo-Choo or any lift-the-flap book. Where’s Spot? is a good one and anything in the “That’s No My …” series. 

That’s a quick report on Saoirse. It will be out of date in days, she’ll have new tricks and new words. Yesterday, she watched Arthur walk backwards and that’s been added to her list of things to do.

What strange times we're living in

These are strange times. I’m sitting at my desk in my study at home writing this piece. I’m not allowed to go out of the house except for daily exercise or to buy essential food items and the whole country is in lock-down due to Covid 19 – a virus no-one had heard of a few months ago, but which has now spread to almost every country in the world and is killing thousands of people.

This is the worst global pandemic since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1919-20. We’ve often been warned that sooner or later mankind would be faced with this type of challenge – well folks, here it is!

There have been other scares down the years. Polio spread fear into people in the 1940s and ‘50s; and, in recent years, we’ve has SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, Bird Flu and Ebola crises, although none has caused deaths on the scale of this.

Coronavirus, now renamed Covid 19, has an estimated mortality rate of around two per cent, although it’s higher in some countries and lower in others. It is most dangerous to old people or those with underlying health issues and it is having a profound effect on everyone in this country and beyond.

It started in China, in Wuhan Province (I’d never heard of Wuhan until February) when it jumped from animals – possible bats, possibly civets, kept in live animal markets in China – to humans.

Unlike other viral scares, Covid 19 has proven to be extremely virulent. It spreads like wildfire and it does so partly because infected and infectious victims don’t show symptoms at first but can still pass on the virus. It kills by attacking the lungs, causing pneumonia, although many people suffer mild flu-like symptoms and may not even realise they have it.

Our government response has, of course been woeful. The administration that sent soldiers to face roadside bombs in canvas-sided Land Rovers, hasn’t even been able to deliver face masks to hospital staff, let alone plan an effective strategy to prevent the virus spreading.

Initial advice was to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds as often as possible. The borders were open, people were told to go about their business, go on holiday – keep the economy going. The government strategy was to allow “herd immunity” to develop, which means 80 per cent of the population need to get the disease. At some point, a couple of weeks ago, someone realised this meant 500,000 deaths and the National Health Service being overwhelmed.

They changed tack and started issuing stricter advice. Much of this was contradictory, all of it was muddled, so no-one did much except start panic buying so supermarket shelves were stripped of toilet paper, tinned food and pasta. Folk have also been bulk buying bread, milk and cheese. I guess we’ll reach a point where their freezers and store cupboards are full.

The country is now in complete lock-down. Pubs, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, museums, galleries and cafes are shut; football and sports events are cancelled (including the Olympics); all shops except food stores and pharmacies and most businesses (from hairdressers to notary publics).

Max and Inna are in Syston. Max is writing up his PhD and Inna is working from home. Tom, Lucia, Julia, Aureliano and Florencia are in Ecuador. They should have come back to the UK this week, but Ecuador is in lock-down and their flights were cancelled.

Sam is in Jersey, but Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse are here with us. They are due to move to the UK in April (in three weeks) but have to sell their home in Jersey and buy one in Soham while all the country is shut for business.

I have no idea what will happen. I expect to be alive this time next year, but I am in that danger area of over-65, so I shouldn’t be complacent. In a week’s time, the NHS will run out of intensive-care beds and ventilators, so if you develop severe pneumonia, it’s curtains!

I can go out to walk the dog and to shop, but I’m not supposed to get closer than two metres to anyone. I’ve been to the allotment today (that’s allowed) and I’ll go shopping on Friday. I just hope there’s something on the shelves.

Books Read in 2019

These are the books I have read during 2019

The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane

This was a 65^th birthday present from Max and I found it quite a hard book to read (which is why it took me almost six months). I kept reading it and putting it down for a month until I finally finished it in early January.

Macfarlane poses the question: are there any truly wild places left in the British Isles? I guess that depends upon your definition of “wild”. There are some wild places in Thorney – my allotment until I took it over and the patch of land next door hasn’t been disturbed for 15 years.

So my definition of wild is probably much less rigorous than Macfarlane’s. He sets off to visit a list of places he has identified as fitting his definition and they include remote islands, coastal strips, bogs and mountains. The usual suspects are there – Rannoch Moor gets a chapter – and I found his writing in the first part of the book a little unconvincing. There didn’t seem to be a connection, he didn’t seem comfortable or happy in the places he wanted to experience.

He did seem to visit them during periods of extreme weather and there was a piece about spending the night on the summit of Ben Hope in the middle of winter, which sounded quite reckless (unless he was exaggerating his predicament). In the latter part of the book, he seemed more at ease with the “wild” environment he was visiting, but it was a lot less wild Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex coasts, lost holloways in the south-west … These were the more interesting bits, but then he’s off again trying to find an arctic hare in Derbyshire in the middle of a November storm.

I’m going to pass the book on to Sam who has been watching and enjoying the YouTube channel of a chap in North America who goes wild camping in the woods.

The Spanish Civil War by Antony Beevor

I knew very little about the Spanish Civil War, except that when I was little Franco was still something of a bogeyman. Spain (and Portugal too) was a place you didn’t want to visit – run by a fascist dictator, backward, dominated by the Catholic Church (and don’t forget what they did in 1588). My knowledge of Spain was limited to what we read in the Daily Herald – they killed bulls for fun, they threw donkeys off church towers, you could be arrested for wearing a bikini.

Later, I read Ernest Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and then Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War. Later still, I read a little about the Anarchist movement in Catalonia and I have been referring to events in the civil war during my Spanish lessons. Poets, composers and artists we may look at during lessons (such as Manuel de Falla) were greatly affected by the war. Falla, the greatest Spanish composer of the 20^th century, lived in exile after the war and refused to return to Spain despite being offered a generous pension by Franco. The Gipsy Kings were descendants of Basque gipsies, who were forced to flee to France after the Republicans lost the war.

Beevor’s writing is pretty much a factual, chronological narrative, and is easy to read; although the complicated pre-war politics and multitude of unfamiliar names do make you pause quite often and say: “who the heck is he and what side was he on?”

The background to the war is one of immense poverty in Spain, with industry (generally) and land (absolutely) in the ownership of a small, wealthy class. There was dissatisfaction with the monarchy, including a dispute over rightful succession, and dissatisfaction among the poorer classes with the Catholic church. A strong left-wing movement - including socialists, communists and anarchists – had arisen (especially in the Basque and Catalan industrial areas) and to complicate things further, there was a desire for Catalan independence, while the Basque country largely was a semi-independent entity.

The Spanish ‘left’ was an unhappy coalition. The communists (some way from Stalinism) were the smaller party and not happy bedfellows with the socialists, while the anarchists, by definition, were not going to fit in anywhere. They wanted collectivism, no government, no money, no army … The fear of anarchy (it’s still a loaded word) led to a campaign of fake news against the movement across Europe. Catalonia in Spain was its strongest place and when allowed to, during the civil war, anarchists did run factories and farming in a pragmatic, efficient way. The RNLI, rightly held up as a shining example by many, is (you could argue) an anarchist organisation.

The war started when the left won democratic elections in 1936. Leaders of the armed forces led a coup, which was only partly successful. The navy remained largely loyal and parts of the army also remained loyal. Franco emerged as the leader of the Nationalists and, helped by German and Italian military support, he finally won a bloody war that lasted three years.

Russia supported the Republicans, but did them no favours. Stalin basically took all the country’s gold reserves and gave them a few (no enough) weapons, but lots of communist advisors. His aim was to make the relatively small Spanish communist party the leader in government.

The role of Britain, France and the USA was shameful. The British maintained neutrality, while providing Franco with considerable support; France wished to be more helpful but deferred to British policy for fear of upsetting its ally and the USA, led by a strong Catholic pressure group (including the Kennedy dynasty) also thwarted democratic government.

Had we supported the Republicans, some argue Hitler may have thought twice about launching the Second World War. At least, we would have had an ally against Fascism had WW2 still started.

The most shocking thing about the Spanish Civil War was its brutality. Franco said he’d reunite Spain even if he had to shoot half the Spaniards (and that’s pretty much what happened). His Moroccan mercenaries were ruthless murderers, rapists and pillagers of conquered territory, while Hitler and Mussolini used the war as a testing ground for weapons and tactics that would be employed during WW2 against France and Britain.

The bombing of Guernica is well documented, but Madrid and Barcelona (and many other cities) were carpet-bombed against the Geneva convention, civilian refugees were machine gunned by aeroplanes and weapons such a napalm were developed by the Germans. The causes of Basque and Catalan separatism were ruthlessly supressed, the ‘national’’ language, Castellano, was imposed across Spain and church attendance made more or less compulsory.

It’s extraordinary that all this happened only 80 years ago – one lifetime. What a mess Europe was in so recently and what a blessing that Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany are now democratic governments working together within the EU. What a shame that some elements, especially within the UK, have now pulled us out of this movement for peace, co-operation and unity.

Welcome to Florencia - grandchild no 5

Florencia Azucena Rayner Rojas arrived at just after 8am this morning, weighing in at 2.8kg, which is a bit over 6lbs in old money.

This hasn’t been an easy pregnancy for Lucy. I was surprised how large she was when I got to Ecuador at the beginning of August and there were some scares along the way – one scan suggested the placenta may have detached, then there were some bad days travelling around Ecuador (to Santo Domingo and to the coast and back).

We were so worried that we upgraded Lucy to first class on the flight from Mexico City back to London so she could have a bed and lie down.

That was just six weeks ago, so I think we were right to be worried. I didn’t want my granddaughter to be born in Mexico, or on a flight over the north Atlantic.

Florencia was born in Peterborough Maternity Hospital and we knew it was happening around 6pm last night when Lucy’s waters broke. Contractions were not very strong and the advice from the hospital was to stay at home until contractions were coming every three minutes.

We all went to bed. Around 4am, things seemed to be happening, so Tom and Lucy drove to the hospital only to be sent home again. At 6am, they went back and things happened fairly quickly from there.

Margaret and I were looking after Julia and Aureliano and they were very good. We watched tractor videos first thing, went to Sainsbury’s and then on to Van Hage to buy presents for the baby. While we were there, Tom messaged to say they were leaving hospital and so they were home just after us at about 2pm.

Julia and Aureliano have been calling the baby Treeapple and that looks as if it will be her name for the immediate future. I held her briefly this afternoon. She is tiny and has a lot of dark hair. Things seem to be fine, she’s feeding and pooing and I guess we’ll be hearing a lot from her in the coming months.

Tomorrow, I’m going to try to buy a new car – a seven seater – to accommodate the growing family.

You can see a video of Julia and Aureliano meeting their sister here.

A magnificent panorama of volcanoes

A rare sight of El Tungurahua - normally it's shrouded
in mist. Auray has found a flower. © Tom Rayner

The day was bright and clear – a great day for admiring the panorama of dramatic mountain scenery. Tom drove Aureliano and I to Parque de la Familia which offers great views, and also has a variety of animals in a sort of children’s farm.

The park is very well cared for with good paths and well-tended flower borders plus lots of interesting trees and plants. It’s on the edge of the steep valley which holds Ambato and, to get there from La Joya (where the hospital is) you have to go through La Miraflores and Ficoa, the posh parts of Ambato, and up a very steep road.

From Parque de la Familia, provided it’s clear like today, there are great views of Tungurahua and Chimborazo, which feel almost close enough to touch; also Cotopaxi, El Altar and Sangay. It was a volcano-spotters’ paradise and the higher peaks were all covered with fresh snow shining in the clear air.

I'm getting a little blase about El Chimborazo, but what
a sight it is on a clear day. © Tom Rayner

I’m getting a bit blasé about El Chimborazo. It’s an awesome sight, but isn’t it strange how awe fades into familiarity so quickly? I guess people who live here just look at it as I’d view a familiar landmark in the Cambridgeshire Fens (although a 20,000 ft volcano would take some getting used to).

El Tungurahua is less familiar. Although it’s relatively close to Ambato, it seems to be hidden in cloud more often than not, so when it does appear like a giant out of the mist, the effect is shocking. This morning it was there as clear as day, snow capped and with its top crater tilted ominously towards us.

We could also see some other clear peaks, which were confirmed by a park warden who passed by and was happy to stop for a chat. There was El Altar or Capac Urcu (possibly from the Kichwa “kapak” meaning great and “urku” mountain. It is an extinct volcano on the western side of Sangay National Park, with a highest point of 5,319 m (17,451 ft). Wikipedia says the Spanish colonists named it so because it resembled two nuns and four friars listening to a bishop around a church altar.

I always like to know how easy it is to get to the summit and Wikipedia says El Altar is the most technically demanding climb in Ecuador. Apparently, December to February are the best months to attempt an ascent. There’s also a more accessible hike to the lake within the caldera of the mountain. From Riobamba, travel to Candelaria and then check-in at the ranger station to enter the national park.

Wikipedia says a walk of 4–7 hours on an extremely muddy trail (knee-high rubber boots are recommended) leaves one at the refuge belonging to Hacienda Releche, which has many beds, and a kitchen. The hike to the lake is another two hours from the refuge across a valley and up a steep hill. If that’s “accessible” heaven knows what the peak ascent is like!

Capac Urcu (I’m still on Wikipedia) consists of a large stratovolcano of Pliocene-Pleistocene age (so between 2 and 5 million years old) with a caldera breached to the west. Inca legends report that the top of Altar collapsed after seven years of activity in about 1460, but the caldera is considered to be much older than this (you can’t trust those Incas – they’ll tell you anything). Nine major peaks over 5,000 metres (16,400 ft) form a horseshoe-shaped ridge about two miles across, surrounding a crater lake at about 4,200 m (13,800 ft), known as Laguna Collanes or Laguna Amarilla.

In the far distance, we could also see Sangay (5300m, 17,400ft). This is another classic stratovolcano (like Cotopaxi). I wish I had my binoculars because this volcano, although clearly visible, was too far away to pick out any detail, apart from its general shape.

Sangay - photo from Smithsonian Institution

It is the most active volcano in Ecuador, despite erupting only three times in recorded history, because the eruption that started in 1934 is still ongoing. Wikipedia says Sangay marks the southern boundary of the Northern Volcanic Zone, and its position straddling two major pieces of crust accounts for its high level of activity. Sangay's 500,000-year-old history is one of instability; two previous versions of the mountain were destroyed in massive flank collapses, evidence of which still litters its surroundings today.

Due to its remoteness, Sangay hosts a significant biological community with fauna such as the mountain tapir, giant otter, Andean cock-of-the-rock and king vulture. Since 1983, its ecological community has been protected as part of the Sangay National Park. Although climbing the mountain is hampered by its remoteness, poor weather conditions, river flooding, and the danger of falling ejecta, the volcano is regularly climbed, a feat first achieved by Robert T. Moore in 1929.

I was interested to read about the cock-of-the-rock. When I was a little boy, I had a book about the natural word, which I loved reading. There was a picture of an erupting African volcano with all the local animals running away, also pictures of the Amazon river and a picture of a cock-of-the-rock. When they asked in primary school what we wanted to do when we were older, I said I was going to go up the Amazon. Well, I did cross the Rio Napa in a canoe a few years back and that’s a tributary of the Amazon! I haven’t seen a cock-of-the-rock though (perhaps there’s still time).

It was a wonderful couple of hours and a lucky break in the weather. Thanks also to Aureliano for being so patient (all he wanted to do was to see the turkey in the farm park).

My pocket is picked

 Tom’s quest for Ecuadorian citizenship continues today with another trip to Riobamba. I wasn’t going – it was my job to look after Aureliano – and I was sorry to be missing the rendition of the national anthem. It’s strange that every country’s national anthem (with the exception of Japan’s) sounds more cheerful than ours. God save the Queen is such a dirge … few people believe in God any longer and fewer care about the Queen. It would be nice to have a jolly tune (like Italy’s) or something we could all get behind. Good luck with that: following Brexit, I have never known the country to be so divided.

Anyway, it was my job to look after The Quacker and he was much better as the day wore on. After lunch, Carlos asked me if I wanted to go to one of Ambato’s markets with him (he needed a few provisions), so we piled into the pick-up and set off. There are a few markets in Ambato (three I think) and I’ve been to a couple with Tom already, but not this one.

The markets sell different things (or specialise in different things) and they are like old-fashioned market halls in Britain, the ones we’ve mostly knocked down. Northwich used to have an amazing old half-timbered market with an upstairs gallery. I can remember vividly the smells of the place when I was a small boy going there with my mother. One corner smelled strongly of cheese and another of fish (I hated that bit). The hall was all wonky and bent, probably due to mining subsidence, but it had real character. The council knocked it down and built the most awful 1970s shopping arcade and open market. It was never the same.

Ambato’s market halls are newer than the old Northwich one, and bigger, but the layout is the same. Perhaps the originals had been destroyed in the great earthquake, but they’d had the good sense to keep the same design. Carlos bought some meat from downstairs and then we went upstairs to buy a food treat that Aureliano particularly likes. Obviously, my height, pale skin and clothes make me stand out as a foreigner and, although it was not as marked as Tom and I in Simiatug, I’m still easy to spot. This day, I was spotted by criminals. I’d had many lectures about being careful of pickpockets (and heeded them) but I was still robbed. I was carrying Aureliano, with my phone (a fairly old iPhone 6) in my zipped-up side-pocket. As we reached the top of the stairs, following Carlos, some people walked in front and across me, causing me to stop and step back. I was trying not to be pushed on the stairs, but I was conscious of a slight shove behind me. In two steps I realised my phone had gone. They’d successfully distracted me, unzipped my pocket and lifted my phone. It was a pretty well-organised and slick operation and I have to admire their skill.

It was a bit annoying, but I felt bad for Carlos who had taken me for a treat but thought he’d not looked after me properly. I’d been robbed on his watch. It was clearly just one of those things – expect to be robbed in a poor country when you’re wandering around with a sticker in your hat saying: “rich foreign tourist”. I felt a bit naked without my phone, it was a link home and also my camera, so I’m glad it hadn’t happened earlier in the holiday.

About an hour later, Tom and Lucy phoned. They’d had a WhatsApp message from someone claiming to have found my phone. What was my Apple ID? If we told them they’d unlock the Find My Phone feature and return it to me. We were so relieved but, of course, I couldn’t remember my ID or password. Just as well because it was a scam. They’d got into my phone and found my WhatsApp contacts, but couldn’t access other things. Had I remembered my log-in credentials, they’d have got into my account and could have used Apple Pay, unlocked the phone and locked me out.

We realised it was a scam after looking on the internet. Google “stolen iPhone scams” and it’s full of victims who gave their details to people who had “found” their phone and wanted to return it. For once, my senior memory lapse had been a help.

I had to go onto my laptop to block the phone (my laptop remembers my Apple ID, fortunately), also phone the UK to get my SIM card blocked and order a new one for when I got home. That evening, I filled in a police report online and got a PDF of an incident report and crime number immediately. Some things work so much better than they do in the UK! Of course, my insurance was useless – I’d dropped “valuables out of the home” from my house insurance to save money and my travel insurance had a £200 excess. When I got back to the UK, I used my old iPhone 5 and then bought a second-hand 6 on the internet for £100. A year later, I’m still using it.

On the plane home, I sat next to a young woman, a student doctor who had been doing her elective in Peru and she’d had her phone robbed on the first day, so perhaps I got away lightly. The good news of the day – apart from escaping a potentially more damaging scam – was that Tom passed his citizenship test with flying colours.

After around six months, he can apply for citizenship and get an Ecuadorian passport. Little did we realise in August 2019, that the next time he was going to be in Ecuador would be in the middle of Covid-19 pandemic!