Booster

Without much fanfare, I got an email from work letting me know I can get a booster vaccine for Covid when I am six months post my second vaccine. I’m not quite there yet. There’s a bit of fuss about this approach (is it required?, does it work?, is it just for the UK to be boosting when other countries are trying to get their first?). I think it probably is a good thing and am looking forward to getting mine. The days are closing in, crisp and cool at the edges, with curling yellow leaves dumping on the path after rain and squirrels furiously stamping nuts into the ground.

I feel like I’ve been in an adventure/night shift/adventure sandwich… it’s certainly quite a few weeks since I’ve been on a normal roster. I’m all out of sync and time is passing rapidly. I think I’m also feeling a bit, the Auckland lockdown situation: it feels strange getting out and about here knowing my sister is training for a marathon by going round in circles in her suburb.

I was super well looked after by friends and strangers in the north last week, visiting the mighty wee city of Lancaster before cycling through and stomping about the lakes district. It’s not wilderness, (we humans crawl over the ridge lines like conspicuous ants) but it is beautiful, and the weather remains to be a force to respect. 

The flat wide sea from Lancashire is really beautiful and the ice cream at Knott End is the best I’ve had I  the UK so far. I learned from my friends Dad that the UK has quite a wild tide pattern, with powerful currents associated with it, pulling and sucking and curling around the island in a way that just doesn’t happen in NZ. As the tide comes around the north of the UK and meets the tide again at the channel it almost neutralises itself. It was really cool learning about this kind of stuff. https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/william-thomson-the-book-of-tides-understanding-the-sea-27219

I went to church for the first time in ages. I find it embarrassing that I find it hard - churches are much stricter than pubs and shops and masks are still worn while singing. No handshakes. No hugs. Cups of tea, yes, but sit 2m apart. Communion, at a distance, furtively taking the bread away to tuck under our masks when we are back in our seats. No wine. This they do out of love; most churches are attended exclusively by elderly and precious vulnerable people. I get it. I respect it. I encourage it. But I still find myself sitting there wondering how long this will last for. This is what living with covid looks like.

Staffing at work has been dire. It’s hard to pin down the exact malaise but I guess the best I can think of is it feels like coming down a ladder backwards fast and occasionally finding a step missing or sawn through. There’s not been any disasters yet but it feels unsafe and uneasy. People pull together to cover the gaps in the cheese; especially midwives, but the fatigue is building.

And now; a petrol crisis. I’m not up to speed with the details - but there is a supply chain issue. As I write, many petrol stations in Exeter are empty and closed, others are rationing. Like everything; it’s being blamed on Covid. Or brexit. Or coxit. Or Brevid. The charge midwife I worked with last night has enough diesel to get home and halfway back to work tonight. 

Management has advised people to car share or take public transport which is pretty insulting to the staff that live out rurally and would if they could. 

However, with all this trouble, I feel like we are only just now reaching the strain that I’ve noted working in some hospitals in NZ. It grieves me that NZ normal times match UK crazy times. 

And so, as I amble round Ambleside; make a beeline for St Bees; sit for hours on trains reading books and emptying brains: I still think of home and hope for the time we are buying for peoples immune systems to convert vaccine into protection for themselves and others.