Positively annoying (and how to ruin Christmas)

Well, it happened. Almost two years of successfully dodging the modern day plague, ruined.

I have Covid.

On the 21st of December, I tested positive. I was double jabbed, and had just received my booster. But a few days afterwards, I started getting flu-like symptoms, so figured I’d test myself. I’m still waiting to hear the results from the PCR test, but I think it’s a given. Which means no Christmas eve drinks with friends, no Christmas day festivities with family, no boxing day drinks with friends, no secret santa gathering with friends and potentially no New Years eve party.

What a bummer.

But, as well as testing positive, I’m trying to keep positive. Hopefully for me, it’s more or less a bad cold. But spreading it to others is what concerns me. My nan and grandad, for example, can enjoy Christmas with my mum and dad. But it will definitely be a damp, boring end to the year.

I’d already made a pretty bad show this Christmas - no decorations, christmas cards written but not posted, only half my presents bought for other people. Now I’m stuck indoors for the next week or more. Those Christmas cards might as well be parcels of anthrax, so I’ve opened them on video and sent virtual ‘card opening experiences’ to my friends, and I’ll visit my elderly neighbours to explain once I’m no longer a biohazard.

Unfortunately, I was that terrible combination of sick, but not sick enough to avoid working… So in the run up to Christmas I’ve been working from home and generally feeling sorry for myself. Still, once Christmas festivities are out of the way, I should be able to get plenty of writing done. And plenty of people have had far worse situations over the past two years.

By some small (Christmas) miracle, I was able to book a supermarket delivery slot to order emergency supplies, so now I have enough pasta packets, soup tins and beer to survive a small nuclear winter. There are whispers of another lockdown happening early next year, which is a little disheartening. I hoped we were at the end of all this with the jabs, and boosters and everything else, but it looks like we’re not at the end of the tunnel just yet.

So, with emergency beers in my hand, I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and drink to as much health and happiness as my little beer can manage. I think I said this last year, but let’s hope 2022 gets a little better!