Pinged

There was a point this week when I feared I might have gained more than just fresh air, exercise and good chat on Sunday’s ride. Typically, the very first time we had returned to having an indoor lunch stop since the start of the pandemic, we had a message the next morning from one of the participants that they had tested positive for Covid. As I was sharing a table – indeed sat opposite to them for the whole of lunch – that put me in the front line for a possible infection.

Obviously the first thing I did was to instantly contract a galloping case of imaginary Covid. I was pretty sure it was nothing other than a combination of a mild cold, slight allergies and a dose of hypochondria, but none of these things show up on a lateral flow test. Fortunately neither (so far) has any actual real Covid and, having had a grim bout of it in the summer, I’m pretty sure I would have known if I was really infected (I will keep testing to be sure though). Hopefully my immune system – fortified by 4 jags and July’s infection – has done the job and fought it off. I’ve suffered no long-term effects from our first round but I’m not keen to keep rolling the dice on Long Covid.

Nor am I keen to pass it, or anything else, to anyone else, particularly not the Pepperpots. So I’ve had an unexpectedly quiet week instead of the busy one I had anticipated. There are, it seems, no real rules about Covid any more but cancelling my indoor meetings and staying well away from most people seemed like the responsible thing to do. In the end it was probably unnecessary, but on the whole a little inconvenience is better than a lot of regret. And it’s no bad thing to discover that the world does keep on turning without you after all.

I have been out on the bike though (it’s the best boost to the immune system I know – if you’re a real doctor, you can fight me on this) and we have exciting road mending news. Not sure how long it will take to restore my link to the quiet route in town but even the most entitled local drivers aren’t going to get past the massive digger they’ve parked across the road (although I’ve no doubt some of them have tried):

Also we are (to channel Margaret Thatcher) a great-aunt.

Knitting has commenced.

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