Monday morning, and it’s a nice clean day. The weekend’s rain has washed the streets, the standing water has had time to disperse and there is very little traffic about, as the schools, and the associated parents and teachers, are on holiday. I’ve never understood how school holidays manage to empty the roads so completely, but there’s no point agonising about it – just enjoy it. I left home ten minutes late today but still got to work on time.
The lateness was due to my COVID test. I’d started sneezing over the weekend and had a runny nose, watery eyes, bad throat, fatigue and even a headache. I’m normally tired but it’s very unusual for me to have a headache. I just passed it off as a summer cold and left it at that yesterday. However, in the evening, after seeing there is a new variant, and these are the exact symptoms, I decided I’d better do a test. Then I forgot. This morning, I remembered. It was negative, so it was a summer cold. Magnified by thoughts of COVID, it was, for a short while, important. Now that the result was negative it’s just a summer cold aggravated by a touch of cyberchondria.
However, although I don’t have COVID, and can’t pass it on, which is good, I have killed the planet a little bit more. One swab, one plastic bottle, a plastic pouch of liquid, one plastic testing kit, a plastic ziploc bag for disposal and a bit of packaging, including a desiccant sachet. I don’t know the exact carbon footprint of all that, but it’s come all the way from China by the look of the packaging slip. It’s so easy to use plastic, particularly when, like this, you get sent a pack by the NHS. They sent it before one of my hospital appointments, so I took it as a hint they wanted me to test before I went. On the other hand, I might be wrong, as they didn’t actually send me any information with it.
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I am glad you haven’t got Covid, too. We had it for the first time this year in May and it took us three weeks to test negative. We’ve recently had a virus (not Covid) that was much worse than Covid, really horrible in fact but because it wasn’t Covid I was allowed to spread it among friends and family with impunity. Not that I did, I hasten to add.
I’m sorry to hear that Clare. I had 12 days off work with COVID as Julia tested positive a couple of days later and they dded to days. Mostly I slept so it wasn’t too bad. However, it took a long time to get back to having my brain work properly (though I did have cellulitis/sepsis a month before, which didn’t help).
Hope you are all well and recovered now.
Thank you, Simon. All fine now except a lingering cough. I remember how unwell you were with the cellulitis. I hope that doesn’t return. 😊
Me too. 🙂
Good to hear things are getting back to normal. Coughs can be tricky.
We have had a case of covid in a very near neighbour so we have had to start to think about it again. I see that we are going to get another booster which is good.
I am fully boosted, have had my pneumonia (I as allowed it early because of my immune system) and am eagerly awaiting my shingles vaccine. By that time it will be flu and Covid booster time, I expect. 🙂
I find the NHS is very good with vaccines and for once) have no complaints.
It’s true we have all forgotten about COVID, I would have had to look up what to do if I had been positive.
Glad you don’t have COVID! Hope that when you retire you are not so tired all the time.
I hve so much planned for retirement that I won’t have time for naps! 🙂
I, too, am pleased you tested negative
Thank you.
That reminds me I’ve got to have a covert test soon. I actually meant covid-19 but predictive texting doesn’t always hear what I’m saying
Predictive text used to amuse me, but the joke is wearing off. Good luck with the test.
I am glad you do not have covid, Simon. Over here, the annual wheat, oats and grass seed harvests have been in progress over the last month around the valley and all the associated large scale agricultural activities is sending soil skyward and dropping dust everywhere. Hot days spawn dust devils. They abound on large farms where the land has been plowed and pulverized after harvest and the blue sky is stained to a light tan. Add smoke from fires to that and… 🙂
The problem with your beautiful writing style is that you even make the end of the world seem attractive Lavinia. 🙂
When I lived in the Fens (areas of drained peat bog) the soil used to blow regularly and the sky would turn red or black depending on where the soil was from.
https://www.greatfen.org.uk/about-great-fen/heritage/holme-fen-posts
That is a good site. I have bookmarked it. Thank you!
No problem. I’ve just been listening to a radio programme – they are running out of water in Cambridgeshire and are planning two reservoirs and a pipeline to support al the new people they want to move there.