A long Covid, or Over the Wall — Wednesday 31st March 2021

It’s been a weird Birthday day.

As always, it was lovely to get messages from people wishing me a Happy Birthday. I always feel very grateful for those messages.

I’ve spent much of the day at home with my cats, doing odd bits of work and resting when I’ve needed to. I feel mostly over the worst of the Covid symptoms I’ve experienced in the past few days and just have a lingering cough and no sense of taste or smell. Both of those are a real bummer, but not the end of the world.

Max came over earlier with Amy to give me my gift — a little figurine made by someone in Salford. Max made me a card, too. I love it.

But it’s also been a bit of a lonely day, in truth. Anna was supposed to be here and would have been had I not have had a house full of Covid. But I do. And so it’s just me and the cats this evening.

I have a cake in the cupboard but I think I’ll save it until I can taste it.

It’s almost 5:30 and Woody is asleep next to me on the couch and Nina is sleeping next to the window. They both look very satisfied as they sleep.

I think I’ll play some Fallout 4 now and I might write some letters later. That feels like what I want to do, in these four walls and on this Covidy birthday.

I am 38 today.

Below is a picture of me, aged 38, and below that is an entry from my diary written this time last year.

Wednesday 31st April 2021

I got the vaccine! In under a year from me starting to write this, I got it.

And it was a complete surprise at that.

I’d spent the morning working at home, jumping between video calls and catching up on some letter writing and went into the office in the afternoon for a meeting and to chat to Fiona about work — and also get some birthday prezzies from the squad. At around four-ish, a friend of Fiona’s messaged her to say that they had spare doses of the vaccine at one of the centres and were accepting walk-ups and so we did.

The process was straightforward and we queued for 15-minutes in the warmth of the afternoon and then we were inside and being vaccinated — in and out in five minutes and I have the first part of my covid shield from the AstraZeneca vaccine.

I feel no different than I did yesterday but I am pleased to have had the first dose and be on my way to some immunity.

I’ve been warned about mild flu symptoms, headaches and shivers but so far I have a mild sniffle which I suspect is from the spicy pretzel pieces I’ve just eaten.

It’s almost 10 pm now and I’m at the end of a long day, where I’ve worked hard and sorted the house out after birthday celebrations, put my bins out and made my bed. I also got my copy of the Ethos 14 today with the cover story I wrote about Ikea and the article I wrote about a hackathon in Berlin. It went straight on the shelf and into the collection when I arrived back at home.

Tomorrow it’s Anna’s Birthday and the last day of my working week. I’m mostly excited for the first of those, but the four-day weekend, with mild and sunny weather is a thrilling prospect.

And now I’m going to put my feet up and wait for Anna’s message to say that she’s finished work and is ready to chat.

What a good week this has been.

This is part of a series of diary entries I wrote from April 2020 to April 2021. I’m posting them a year out from when I first wrote them. You can read the other ones I’ve posted here