THE text came at 6.30am in the morning. Positive. Not the best start to the day.
The night before I’d taken my daughter to a walk-in Covid-19 testing centre in Cumbernauld town centre. She’d lost her sense of taste, so, we’d thought, better safe than sorry. It had been so long since I’d driven anywhere that I was quite happy to see Cumbernauld’s roundabouts. I wasn’t thinking that 12 hours later, right enough. The following morning we all were facing up to the prospect of 10 days of self-isolating.
The good news … No, the great news, is that my daughter’s symptoms never developed into anything more. She has spent 10 days in her bedroom and has emerged thankfully none the worse for it.
I’ve spent that time washing my hands repeatedly, swabbing everything – door handles, taps, the cat (I don’t have to tell you I didn’t really, do I?) – with alcohol wipes and worrying about every headache, cough or sneeze. That and fretting about whether we could get a delivery slot from one of the local supermarkets. (Morrisons came through for us at 10pm on Saturday night.)
Read More: Grief in a time of pandemic
I bought a thermometer but haven’t had to use it. I also sent away for one of those things that measures your blood oxygen saturation levels (I have no idea what those last four words even mean), but that hasn’t arrived yet. Rubbish and recycling have piled up in the living room because I didn’t want to risk taking the virus outside.
The only good thing is that the weather has been so bad I haven’t really missed going for my daily walk along the canal and a stretch of the Antonine Wall. To be honest, there were days I didn’t even bother looking out of the window. I wasn’t going anywhere after all.
Read More: Covid trauma can silence us
The three of us in the Jamieson household have spent our self-isolation in our respective rooms and online. The advanced version of lockdown, you could call it. No human contact that didn’t involve technology. I could only say hello to the postie through the door.
My main – my only – achievement has been working my way through a box set of the first three series of the US sitcom Arrested Development from the early noughties (I am never knowingly up to date on such matters). But that has been the story of my lockdown. What did you do during the pandemic, Grandad? I watched a few DVDs.
This last week-and-a-half has felt like a concentrated version of the last year we’ve all lived through. A distillation of all its fear and boredom.
Which, of course, makes us the lucky ones. We are not waiting to hear about a loved one in ITU. We are not grieving a grandparent, a father, mother, sister, brother, friend.
We are all rightly concerned about the long tail of Covid, but those who have lost someone will suffer the longest tail of all.
Now excuse me, it’s raining but I’m going outside anyway. Because it’s allowed again.
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