Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to wed today…

The title of this week’s blog was originally chosen months back. Today should have been the first day of our marriage, and J, perhaps with shades of things to come, had laid down the law about my posting a Sunday morning blog at 05.00 of the morning after we got wed. I don’t like those pre-planned tweets, but agreed I would schedule one with a simple blog posting explaining why there was to be no proper blog today. 'Miss Otis regrets she is unable to lunch today', is one of my favourite songs to play on the guitar, and although the words tell a sad story, it felt like the perfect explanation for my blog readers.

But then the world changed.

We are in lockdown and having to learn new ways of doing most things, some of which are a challenge. Learning to effectively don PPE and then wearing the full kit for many hours for example. Other things are less arduous, and can actually be quite fun. Thanks to the help of my sister Ruth, my elderly father has become a convert to online grocery shopping, and declared the other day that he might give up going shopping to Waitrose ever again (there are, of course, other supermarkets). I have been able to get out and physically do my shopping once a week. I love Tesco, and the directional arrows on the floor - it’s given a whole new fun dimension to shopping, which I hope we don’t lose.  

I have started a new job as a Non-Executive Director at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. It’s of course not a great time to be joining a new organisation, but the welcome has been brilliant, and they have managed the ‘on-boarding’ processes completely using online and virtual communication. As part of this process, I have been having introductory conversations with the other NEDs. Whilst in the main these have helped me understand the approaches to quality, finance, people and so on, there has been a common thread in these conversations around enabling change in challenging times. All were able to cite examples of where things were now being done that previously were thought to be difficult or even not possible.

Teleconference consultations, Zoom meetings, working from home, integrated approaches to care provision, and developing new quality assurance and governance arrangements to name but a few of the things mentioned.

I can remember a time not so long ago where working from home was something very few people did or organisations allowed their staff to do. Now, I think it will be difficult to see organisations reverting back to a world where turning up to your office or flying across the world for a meeting is still the norm. If home working continues, many organisations will be able to divest themselves of expensive buildings and even relocate to less costly areas in the UK. Individuals will also be able to make savings too. Our cars have sat idle on our drives for the best part of a month, we have not had to fill up with petrol and have saved considerable sums of money and more importantly a great deal of time, by not commuting. I think in many people’s minds, there will be very little incentive to start all that again.   

I took part in a virtual PhD viva last week. It was for the last of my PhD students. It was successful in all senses of the word. My student was in Saudi Arabia, I was in Blackpool, one examiner was in Manchester, the other in Cumbria. Although at times the audio was a little temperamental, the whole event mirrored what an actual ‘viva in person’ should feel like. I was impressed with all the participants (mine was a silent part!). We have been using virtual supervision for a while, as our student was unable to leave Saudi. But again, I thought why couldn’t such an approach continue in the future? It would reduce fees, travel, pollution and so on. It might be the same for many undergraduate courses. Already some students are demanding a rebate on their fees, as face2face classroom teaching has stopped, and replaced by online learning. Of course, the consequence for universities might not be so wonderful, but I’m confident they will change and adapt to a brave, new world of higher education.

However, I think one casualty of the pandemic is that future ‘academic tourism’ is likely to have been completely quashed. Which is a shame, but totally understandable. Fortunately for me, my academic career spanned a period where travelling the world, to present at conferences, building international networks, links and student recruitment opportunities was fully supported. I was able to travel to over 35 different countries during my time as an academic, and some of which, I went to many times. Favourite countries will always be those in Eastern Europe, including, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, and the Ukraine. I have such wonderful memories of these places and the people I met and worked with.

And yesterday I was able to add to these memories. On Friday we made up brown paper ‘wedding bags’- in each were wine, gin, beer, a copy of our wedding order of service, a packet of seeds (of hope and love), packets of confetti, chocolate hearts, and paper butterflies – things that we had prepared for our wedding day. We enclosed a handwritten note saying we wanted to folk to have a drink with us to acknowledge the kindness they had shown us over the past few weeks. Saturday morning dawned, and the doorbell started ringing. One by one our wonderful neighbours left gifts for us. There were flowers, a cake, a beautiful flower arrangement in the shape of a chicken, champagne, cards, plants and a multitude of goodies.

One card asked us to stand on our drive at 13.00 to share a socially-distancing drink of celebration. When we got outside, all our neighbours were standing there along the verges, with their glasses, all dressed in their finest #Wedstock attire. They had each brought the Order of Service and sang the first hymn, raised their glasses and threw rose petal confetti. In a world that has changed, it was wonderful to see that random acts of kindness are still to be found. In the words of our First Dance, Hallelujah!