corona-ed?

“You shouldn’t be out here!” Her voice high pitched, angry, loud.

Five people chatting in the car park swivelled round to look. I asked why.

Again that rasping, “You should be self-isolating!”

“Why?”

“Your builder’s tested positive for covid!”

The people quickly got in their cars and as they drove away, our confronter explained that their friends, who also used the same builder this week, had given the news upon a park walk that morning. I pointed out that if I ought to self-isolate, the friends should not have gone out and certainly not walking with others.

The uneasy scene was repeated this morning when the same people had a go at another builder working for us who has tested negative. Hearing the loud voice and his ignored measured responses, I went out and calmly explained that he had a note from the testing station saying he was safe to work. A cool atmosphere settled between us. A short while later, her friends came over and impelled our builder to work for them immediately, they did this twice; he said he’d do so when our job was complete. Astoundingly, they wandered around town as if they were not possible carriers; we, concerned about infecting people, will continue self-isolating, although it is a pain.

Lockdown is tough enough, but when you’re self-isolating, it really is imprisonment. You aren’t allowed to move outside your property. We the victims of a careless guy are not allowed a test because we aren’t workers. Mad or what. And even more of an imprisonment when our phone lines were knocked out by a storm five days ago, the day all this started.

Making matters a little dodgy, we’ve not been at well. Flu-like symptoms, exhausted, sleeping a lot. Is that the start of the coronavirus? We looked up the list of symptoms and discovered we’ve none of them, but a dear friend who nearly died of the virus had none of them either….

My wife always gets some sort of bug every few weeks during winter, so that might explain her situation. I’d hate her to suffer…. I, who you’d think would, almost never gets the flu, colds or bugs, but throughout the year, in common with many who’ve suffered deadly tropical diseases and the sort of viral things which have afflicted me, I get resurgent symptoms which knock me out, particularly recently as several serious conditions pollute my every day.

It’s interesting what happens to the mind when you are in a situation which could turn covid-deadly. Fortunately, neither of us suffers from anxiety, nor are we hypochondriacs, we are resigned, though fully aware that a close contact was killed by this dreadful disease. How we will feel if it does kick in is another matter. All we can do is enjoy our imprisonment.