A Dose a Day…

I had my first dose of the Corona vaccine this week. Here in the UK, they seem to be romping through the age groups at quite a giddy pace. Last week the 55 to 60 age group were all done. This week it was the turn of the 50- to 55-year-olds. Tuesday evening my mother texted Miss F asking if I had booked my jab as my brother – three years younger than me – had already got an appointment booked for the coming Saturday. I hadn’t heard anything, but went to check my mobile, and, sure enough, there was a text from the NHS telling me it was “my turn” and that I needed to book my appointment now.

Wednesday morning, we went onto the website and put in my details to book an appointment. Now, I knew my GP surgery was giving the vaccine, so I fully expected to go there and was a bit surprised to be told my nearest vaccine centre was in a former school on the other side of town. But, whatever, perhaps my surgery was fully booked, and this was an overspill unit or something. Or maybe, because I hadn’t ticked any of the boxes stating I had any kind of special needs, they had figured I could get to this slightly more out of the way location more easily. Perhaps my GP, being a town centre location, was reserved for people living more locally who had stated they would have issues going elsewhere.

Whatever the reason, I have my car back, so it wasn’t a problem, and we booked me in for the first appointment Thursday morning which was 8:55am. I planned to make a list, take my bags, and pop to Waitrose afterwards which was on the drive back, thus killing two birds with one stone.

I wasn’t too sure where the centre was located but bombing down the ring road there were socking great yellow signs saying Vaccine Centre, so I simply followed those. I have to say, it was all very well organised. Men in yellow vests directed me where to park. I followed the arrows and gave my booking number to various people in yellow vests and masks on the way before ending up inside the centre, where a very nice lady took my details, medical history, and checked I was all okay health-wise before having the jab.

Then I followed yet more arrows through the building and socially distanced queued to wait my turn to be stabbed. Going to the indicated cubicle, I was a bit taken aback to discover the doctor overseeing my jab was my neighbour from across the road. Regular readers of my blog will know him already. He was the person the Yodel delivery driver was delivering to. The same driver who then drove into the side of me. We exclaimed how it was a small world, he ticked a box, and they stuck the needle in.

It didn’t hurt, I only felt a small scratch on my arm. I’ve had worse from the rose bush in my garden. Then I was told to go and sit in my car for ten minutes, leave my doors unlocked, and if I got into difficulties, summon help my sounding my horn. Or, I guess, if I passed out, I would sound the horn as my head hit the steering wheel.

I sat for ten minutes, a bit bored. I was going to listen to the radio but seemed to be parked in a bad reception area so only got static. After ten minutes, I went to do my shopping then went home and assumed that was that. I’d heard that the side effects from the jab could be quite nasty, so I made sure I’d cleaned out and laid the fire, lugged in all the coal and wood for the evening, and prepped dinner – just in case. The day wore on and I still felt fine, until about mid-evening, when my arm began to ache like billy ho.

If you went to the kind of school I did, then on the first day of every month, the sadistic bullies – of which there were quite a few – would go around nipping all the other kids and then punching them hard in the shoulder shouting “pinch, punch, first of the month, or tell us your sweethearts name” and then running away. It was years until I discovered that they were supposed to give you a choice in the matter – whether you wanted a pinch or a punch, or would offer up the name of the person you were sweet on – no, these little sods just delivered the pain and then left. For the rest of the day, you would walk around with a dead arm wondering if the feeling would ever return to it.

Anyway, the point of my ramble is that this was how my arm was beginning to feel, plus a nagging headache was spreading across my forehead and I was suddenly incredibly tired. I went to bed at ten, which is early for me, hoping that a good night’s sleep would sort me out.

It didn’t. I woke the next morning to a world of pain. I ached all over, especially in my knee and hip joints, my arm felt like a whole class of ten-year-old bullies had been pummelling on it, I was drained, and my stomach couldn’t make up its mind if it was empty or about to void itself, and I was freezing cold. I mean seriously cold. I could not get warm.

It got worse as the day went on and by that evening, I felt rough. Too rough to even think about dinner so I asked Miss F to do the honours. She disappeared into the kitchen and thirty minutes later emerged with chicken nuggets, fries, and baked beans. It was fine. It was hot, comfort food and did make me feel a lot better. Another early night, and then Saturday morning I felt much better. My arm still felt stiff, but not as bad as it had been.

But the odd thing is since I had the jab, I have received three texts and a letter from my GP’s surgery and the NHS telling me that I’m entitled to my vaccine, and not to forget to book my appointment. Umm, hello? Kind of thought I already had. I’m beginning to wonder now exactly what was injected into my arm Thursday morning if it wasn’t the corona vaccine? Or, more, likely, it’s the NHS not knowing its arse from its elbow as usual.

It’s my parent’s wedding anniversary today. 57 years. I mean, 57 years!! That’s like three life sentences each! I always think buying gifts for people gets harder the older they get. I mean, people reach a point where they have everything they need or want and simply don’t want any more stuff! As we’re all still in lockdown, buying them vouchers to have a nice meal out somewhere isn’t possible, so instead I put together a dine-in hamper for them.

My parents are very plain eaters, and a shop-bought hamper would probably contain things they didn’t like, so I simply bought two sirloin steaks, a pack of button mushrooms, beer-battered onion rings, hand-cut chunky chips, a big cherry pie, a pot of custard, and a bottle of rosé wine, together with a nice card and a small bunch of tulips to have on the table. A lockdown anniversary dinner on us. We went over Saturday afternoon and had a very socially distanced visit in their garden to give them their hamper.

Other than that, it’s been a very quiet week. We had a virtual presentation from Miss F’s future university about student accommodation and facilities which was very interesting. There is a student village on campus with three-storey townhouses. The student gets a very nice room with a small double bed, a huge desk and lots of storage. They share a large shower room with one other room and can even request whom they share with – so if Miss F’s best friend does decide to go to university with her, they can share a bathroom, which is lovely.

There were a couple of things we found out in this talk that made me very happy and reassured me a lot. One is that there are plenty of jobs on campus for the students should they wish to supplement their student finance. It is nice to think Miss F can work on campus and not be trying to get back to her university after a late shift in one of the local towns. In this day and age, the thought of my teenage daughter on public transport or even having to walk on dark roads late at night is scary.

Secondly, the university lay on minibuses several evenings a week to transport students to various local towns and amenities, including a shopping special one on a Monday evening for any student who wishes to go to the nearest supermarket and do their weekly shop. I don’t know of any other university that looks after its students so much. It shows the perks of her attending a small university that can offer so much to its students, as opposed to a massive one that has thousands of students so can’t cater for them in quite the same way.

I’ve been asked by a few people what Miss F bought me for Mother’s Day. Well, it was three pairs of pyjamas because she said, and I quote, “your pyjamas are so threadbare and faded mum, they’re not going to survive many more washes, and they are too embarrassing to hang out to dry.” She’s not wrong, I’ve been thinking for ages that all my PJ’s needed replacing, and now I have three lovely new pairs coming tomorrow.

And that is all my news for the week. My latest book has been edited through the new editing software I downloaded, and I made use of the read-aloud facility on Word to have the whole thing read out loud to me. It was like being read a bedtime story by Robbie the Robert and it didn’t exactly do it with feeling, but it was a good way of picking up those niggly errors that my eyes had missed because your brain reads what it expects to be there. Robbie, of course, read exactly what was there, which was handy. The book has now gone off to my beta reader, and, hopefully, she won’t find too much wrong with it.

I’ve also been busy completely overhauling my website, so that has kept me occupied. As I’m incapable of doing it myself, I have a lovely man called Andrew who’s doing it for me. Although, I think he’s getting a bit cheesed off with how much I keep changing my mind.

Sorry, it’s a shorter blog this week, but lockdown life just jogs along with not a lot happening. If the roadmap out of lockdown is adhered to, I will be back to work mid-April, so I need to try and make the most of these last three weeks at home and get stuff done.

Hope you’re all well and taking care of yourself and I look forward to chatting with you all next week.

Julia Blake