Day 517 – Something to look forward to

Deliciously sunny day today. If you’re wondering how my recovery is going – using the internationally recognised Duvet Cover Hanging Scale – I hung a duvet cover on the washing line and then had to sit down for 10 minutes.
That’s only 5 minutes longer than my pre-Covid levels.

Things are clearly improving.

But you’d better get your washing done quick quick, because tomorrow, this:

Indeed. Winter is not quite over yet.

On the plus side, this will probably (definitely) be enough to top off our dams at 100% ahead of the drier weather which will definitely (probably) be on the way real soon now. We’re currently sitting at 98.8%, with just another 10,427,000,000 litres needed to break that all important 898,221,000,000 litre mark.

Easy.

Check your gutters and drains. Wrap up warmly. Stay safe.

Regional numbers for reporting emergencies in the Western Cape:

· City of Cape Town – 107 or 021 480 7700 and 080 911 4357

· Overberg – 028 425 1690

· West Coast – 022 433 8700

· Garden Route – 044 805 5071

· Central Karoo – 023 449 8000

· Cape Winelands – 021 886 9244 / 021 887 4446

Day 510 – Status update

It’s been seven days since I wrote this, so I thought I’d update it with all the latest news.

Things are definitely improving. A little more energy here, a little less breathlessness there. I can climb a flight of stairs (slowly) without stopping at the top to get my breath back, and I can stay up until 9pm without feeling like something has gone very wrong.

This is real progress.

I still can’t smell anything and while a bit of my taste has come back, sadly (and yes, weirdly, because this is a weird virus) it’s only the bitter taste. So everything tastes bitter. I’m guessing that a lot of things have a bitter taste to them, but it’s balanced or overwhelmed by other tastes (sweetness, saltiness etc.) or flavours. Those tastes and flavours aren’t working for me at the moment and so everything is really bitter. It’s not great, but I’m hoping that it might just be the gateway to other tastes opening up once again. Fingers crossed.

Despite this, I’m eating more. Probably (definitely) too much. I think there are some drug side-effects at play here as well as a desperate need to catch up on what I lost. But I need to eat all of the things at the moment, and all of the time. Rather that than an involuntary hunger strike, but I’m trying to keep it under control.

My brain…. comes and goes. Sometimes, things are almost “normal”, but concentration is still an issue and oddly (perhaps because this is a odd virus?), the more I try to think about something – like a word I want to use – the less I’m actually able to do it.

Otherwise, a few iffy side-effects and other symptoms that I don’t want to tell you about and you don’t want to hear about. But generally, I’m on the mend. Hoorah.

We’re not quite there yet though. I tried to have a normal day on Monday. I went to the supermarket and I dropped some stuff off that needed dropping off in Tokai and I did some washing and I cleaned the fireplace and… no. My body decided that enough was enough and let me know. Broken. And that meant that yesterday was crappy too. And so I’m back to taking things easy rather than pushing myself. A sensible regimen of doing the stuff I can do and not trying to do all of the rest of the stuff as well.

Second jab is just under two weeks away now and I just want it in me, so that I can – hopefully – not have to go through this sort of thing again.

Day 509 – Recent photos

OK. The first half of the photos from our recent (ok, not so recent now, but I have a decent excuse) trip away are now edited and up on Flickr. Truth be told, I’m a little disappointed with the overall quality. That said, it was a really hard job packing all the sheer scale of the landscape into a camera, and we were there for family time rather than photography time.

And there are one or two of them that I still quite like:

Moody stuff. Go full screen for more effect.

The second part of our trip was less landscape and more animal. But it also makes up about 80% of the photos I took. I’m on it, but with energy and concentration at a premium right now, it is going to take some time.

Please bear with me.

Day 506 – Thank You

I’ve been really touched with how many people have sent messages of support and offers of help over the last few weeks via every different social media and/or communication platform. Too many to individually mention (hence this post), but just amazing that people I know personally, people I “know” from the internet and people I have frankly never heard of before, have got in touch to wish us well and see if they could help, or just to let us know that they’re thinking of us. People from just about all over the world. (I’m a bit disappointed with the lack of effort from South America if I’m honest, but you can’t have everything.)

I’ve had offers of grocery deliveries, flung coffee (I can’t taste anything though!), meals, beer(?!?) and drugs (legal, pharmacy ones) (I think).

Thank you all.

Thanks also to my family who have – with the help of friends and various delivery services – managed to keep the household going through what has been a pretty crappy month or so. In writing this, I’m not saying that we’re completely done with Covid Chez 6000 – that’s going to take some time: I still had to have a sit down after my shower this morning – but I am bravely suggesting that we’re well past the worst and we can start to move back towards some sort of normality.

As normal as it ever gets around here, anyway.