Wanted to take advantage of having the flat to myself to stay in and get some work done. I’ve fallen way behind on everything. Barcelona has been hectic. Also, I’ve convinced myself to have a go at negative (aka analogue) photography. So, as well as getting some work done, my plan is to spend some time on eBay looking for a good quality Olympus Trip. Seeing as my attempts to buy one at Lomography came to naught.

I tried to phone Ricki to tell him that, should I find one, I’ll have it sent to his address and that I’ll need him to test it as soon as it arrives.

After trying three or four times to get through and him not picking up, I was getting a bit paranoid. So, I phoned Danila. She told me that he was asleep because he was unwell, very bad sore throat and cough. All of them have been poorly with the same symptoms but that Ricki had got the worst of it. And then she said something which chilled me to my core.

“Because his symptoms are Coronavirus-like and because he’s been to Singapore recently, the GP won’t see us. We have to self-isolate for fourteen days. It’s probably just a bacterial infection of some kind but, we can’t see a doctor unless it gets really bad.”

My first thoughts were to cancel everything and fly back home ASAP. I immediately phoned Florian. We both agreed that the best first step was to get Ricki tested without delay. As we talked, we were both looking online for testing centres in the UK.

There followed a few frantic hours of phone calls to and from the UK until I had it confirmed that he was booked for a test at Lister Hospital in Stevenage at 10:00am on Sunday morning. It’s now Friday. He should get his results by Wednesday the latest.