Monday 13 March 2023
I have finally found a place to read in the house. While the central heating was off, I set up one of our small blower-heaters on a small table directed at the charpai in what is now “the Indian area”. There is a small skylight and a fairly big window in that little annex and the light was perfect for reading. The charpai is comfortable and the big round pillow is a good height. Really, that discovery made me very content. The addition of coffee and cake (such a good recipe, cardamom and blood orange), which I baked on Saturday, first cake of the year, made the whole experience even more enjoyable.
Last week, I was poised to make coffee but couldn’t find the filter cap and aluminium disc filter of our Aeropress coffee maker. I looked and looked, nothing. I had a suspicion that, as has happened at least twice before (I actually think four times as two have never been found), Chris had accidentally thrown it out. He won’t wear rubber gloves – not a fan – so rummaged around the bin. Ta-da, he found the most important bit, the screw-on filter case. I then had a rummage through the rest with gloves. I didn’t find the aluminium filter sheet, but I did come across the Covid test Chris had taken a few days earlier.
From about a week and a half ago, Chris has been out of sorts, a weird headache at the back of his head, a weird headache at the side, bit of earache, he fell asleep for over four hours one morning/afternoon while I was out, a night of dizziness, shin splints and his bad knee (and the less bad knee) was significantly worse than usual, so much so he’d had to get up in the night and take more pain killers (which didn’t really help). And other odd symptoms. His Covid test was negative. In fact, all three Covid tests he did were negative. We still thought it must be Covid.
Last November, I had a very strange headache, low at the back of my head, for a week. All Covid tests were negative. I took a Covid test on day seven, still negative, so I made a GP appointment. A GP called back maybe two hours later. Prior to her calling, I had gone to clear away my Covid test. By that point, a couple of hours later, there was a faint second line. Covid.
When I saw Chris’s Covid test in the bin, there was a second, fainter line. We have actually taken it as a good thing that that probably confirms he did have Covid, particularly as he’d been really worried that his knee could be that bad again overnight. Covid works in very, very strange and mysterious ways. Nasty. Seeing as we haven’t been out much, we think he most likely caught it the day we went to Edinburgh, two weeks ago yesterday, or Glasgow, two weeks ago last Friday. I am yet to display obvious symptoms, and I hope it stays that way, obviously.
This is of almost no relevance to a blog about moving from city to countryside, but we have considered how much easier it is to pinpoint when/where we caught Covid when we go out so rarely. It is also significantly easier not to spread it around and to be able to walk around outdoors without encountering anyone or having opportunities to spread it around as you walk, sneeze, cough, touch. I can see that this would have been an easier place to live in the early pandemic months than London; fewer changes to everyday life.
Over the weekend, we had a flurry of moving things around and putting up a few hangy things. The hipster street food market disused train station has now moved to the living room window, which was a stroke of genius on Chris’s part.
Contrary to the weather forecast last week, it would appear that we now have a week of mild weather and rain ahead. It has been raining all night and is ongoing, as will probably be noticeable from the photo I am about to take of the hipster street food area in its new window sill. The pile of bodies (to the right) will be dealt with at some point; they’re part of the pack of dreadful, cheap figures that Chris bought for something like £2.68 including P&P, many of whom look like (male and female) prostitutes/inflatable sex dolls.
