Jabbed

[sam]

Today we got the invitation we weren't expecting until sometime this spring, like the rest of our cohort: can we come in for jabs on the weekend? Why yes, we can. AFAIK nobody has turned into vampiric, zombie-like, cannibalistic mutants yet.


Now that's what I'm talking about

Slots must've suddenly become available. I'm curious what we'll be getting, but part of me doesn't want to know. Were I given a choice, it might well be a flip of the coin.

This at least opens up the possibility of a vaguely normalish summer, doing things we like to do such as visiting gardens and getting haircuts. Wild stuff like that.

The possibility of long Covid has been our main worry. Get that, and I may as well kiss cycling goodbye for a while.

[sam]

We arrived about 15 minutes early, which it turned out was far too early, as when we drove up (intending to wait in the car) one of the gentleman buzzing around in the now standard garb of authority


asked us to come back later. This we did, then proceeded to stand in line for a half hour reasonably socially distanced until the queue entered the building, at which point I would've liked to have a measuring tape because I think someone was playing a little fast and loose with what constitutes the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second. x2, obvs.

Even given that I may well be wrong, there was definitely a squeeze point at the entrance, where a woman was taking details and handing out slips. We then avoided claiming the first dot on the floor because we didn’t want someone coming in right behind us – a bit like a cyclist might take primary position to avoid getting pushed off the edge of the road. This misguided initiative was duly noted and we were bid budge up so the next person could indeed come in too close behind us.

If it sounds like I’m being anal about this, guilty as charged. When you've spent most of a year taking great care with distancing, to be asked by officialdom to ignore it near the finish line warrants a mention.

We were able to go through the entire process together. Which was nice. My wife's ethnicity was nailed down after a few attempts; I stuck with caucasian. "British caucasian?" Sure, why not.

The jab itself, AstraZeneca, was painless except for the social embarrassment of the doc administering it demurring to be in the shot:



I will admit to being somewhat relieved it wasn't the Pfizer. Nailed it, BBC:



We were then given a vaccination card, like our guinea pig rabbit.

Would we get side effects?


Ribbit

Would the jab affect us equally? Might the next one come early too? (“So much can happen in 12 weeks,” said the healthcare worker taking our details, a master of understatement.) Was this the beginning of the end of Covid’s rule over our lives, and assuming so, how much will we be able to reclaim, how soon?

We were released on our own recognizance, nobody in the waiting area clocking us in or out. We ended up spending the better part of the recommended 15 minutes outside, where the answer to so many questions was blowing in the wind.

36 hours later

Fever @ 20 hours for me, muscle aches for her, including *very* sore arm. I just got that lovely floaty feeling I always get when my body gets high. Both fine now.



Link to Rob Slane’s blog provided as a public service to paranoiabots looking for the mothership.

For properly sourced paranoia, try this – it's bloody convincing. At least I'm sold.

[close]

[sam]

starts @ .19

I like this:

[sam]

My immune system isn’t what it should be, so I’m off for another shot today, medical authorities having reckoned that third time’s a charm. This is to be distinguished from a booster only insofar as they’re not calling it a booster.



Normalcy still eludes me.

I bumped into Melanie & Anthony (last spotted in These are the voyages) yesterday as they were strolling in the lanes. They'd recently been to the British Museum. God I miss the British Museum.