Day Three - again

Thursday morning, on a day I was planning to go into the office and pick up the cake for Christmas at lunch time, then meet my brother (down from Runcorn way) and drop the cake at my cousin's ready for Christmas Day, I tested positive for Covid-19. Cue scrambled arrangements over WhatsApp to get that cake and the main (ready 5pm Friday) picked up, divert my brother (my Dad is testing negative so met him elsewhere) and some cough sweets and more lfts dropped. 

It's come in off the back of a severe cold - which feels like a pattern as the first bout came in on the back of a very severe hayfever, for which I took antihistamines. But two incidents isn't enough for a pattern. It's also come in about seven months after the first lot (I was nine months too young for the last booster) which suggests waning immunity to me. 

It's true that last weekend - when I was still testing negative - was a very busy and crowded weekend. I saw a Beatles tribute band in Carshalton on Thursday and did Christmas shopping on Saturday (Tooting, Clapham, Central London) and went up the shard on Sunday and then Trafalgar Square. Everywhere felt emptier than it should be for Christmas in London, except Liberty's and Foyles, which were chaos. Trafalgar Square had mulled wine and celebrating Argentinians (world cup). 

What I mean is, I could have caught it anywhere. 

So now I'm stuck at home again. I did go for a socially distanced walk over the park yesterday, and I ordered contactless pizza because if I'm missing Christmas I'm blowing my usual grocery budget. It was a Napoli - anchovy and capers and tomato sauce and mozzarella - and incredibly (to me deliciously) salty. Mixed olives and Nutella covered strawberries were ordered as well, but I sampled but didn't finish those. They're in the fridge. 

So here I sit. My symptoms so far are a cough (especially when I lay down), mild sore throat, a slight dip in energy levels - and possibly a dip in mood, although it's tricky to know if that's the virus or disappointment about missing Christmas. This is the third weird Christmas - last year my cousin and her son came down with it, and stopped with the ex and the ex's grandparents who all had it too, while we had Christmas at her home without them, which just felt wrong. The year before we were all locked down of course (being in London, I'm afraid my London-centric brain now can't remember if the rest of the country was locked down before Christmas as well or it was just after. I know we weren't as hard up as Leicester though, which seemed to be locked down for months and months after the rest of us were allowed out). 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a mild dose - the worst thing last time was it triggered my eczema, which seems to be behaving itself right now, and the exhaustion, which lingered from a month to six weeks I think. 

Anyway it's Christmas Eve, so Merry Christmas, if anyone's reading this, hope you're well and where you need to be, and I should be free by the New Year.