Tim Dowling: I've got Covid, and my wife seems set on ruining the experience
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Loading... - Clarissa Gataki
- 26 May 2022
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During the last two years of the pandemic I felt pretty immersed in the collective experience: I suffered from anxiety, isolation, boredom and a lack of exercise. I was unable to visit relatives, and saw whole chunks of my calendar cancelled. I simultaneously complained about and helped to create shortages of common consumer goods. And I grew anxious all over again as restrictions were eased.
But I missed out on one bit of the saga: getting Covid-19. For most of last winter I never went out without coming home and thinking: I bet I’ve caught Covid from that. But I hadn’t.
Of course I knew others who had never had the virus. But then, one at a time, they all got it. My friend Pat was furious with himself because he was sure he’d caught it going to a Gail’s Bakery – two years of scrupulous precaution undone by a momentary, entitled craving for sourdough.
Spring came and I started finding that my mask wasn’t always in my coat pocket when I went to the shops. I spent time in crowded rooms where people recklessly shook hands. And still nothing. I began to think I was incapable of getting Covid.
My friend is sure he got the virus in a local bakery. Two years of caution undone by a craving for sourdough
Then, feeling rough after our holiday, my wife and I both tested positive. From the moment I saw the red line, I felt worse.
“Are you going to fix the toilet tank today?” my wife asks when I wake the next morning.
“I’ve got Covid,” I say. My eyes itch, and my muscles ache. I could go straight back to sleep.
“And the lawn really needs mowing,” she says.
“I’ve got Covid,” I say.
“Yes, so have I,” she says. She seems set on ruining this experience for me.
But I picked up Covid so late in the game that there are no rules left: no testing regime, no requirements for self-isolation, no restrictions on my behaviour to observe. Nowhere can I find any advice suggesting I shouldn’t mow the lawn.
The grass has not been cut all winter. The unruly lawn is damp, and the push mower I use slides over the top of it, or becomes clogged halfway along a row. After an hour I have made no discernible progress. My arms are weak; my breath is running short. My wife finds me sitting on the steps, head in hands.
“You haven’t got very far,” she says.
“I’m going to fix the toilet,” I say. “It’s easier.”
I’ve avoided trying to repair the toilet because it’s an old fashioned model with the tank high up on the wall near the ceiling. You need a ladder to get to it, and there’s not a lot of headroom to work in. Read More...
