A misty scene from a couple of days back. No morning walk today, otherwise engaged. Stood in a queue patiently waiting my booster covid shot. After two doses of AstraZeneca it was time to join the Moderna club. So stood in the queue about 50 deep. Three queues for three different group of needle waving awesome nurses. Everyone with masks on, carefully keeping 2 metres apart. Hundreds of people stopping their daily routine to get vaccinated. All this happening before 9am.

In the queue I stood pondering life. Does the young woman in front of me realise that she is still apparently wearing her pyjamas. I wonder what the chap in front of her has is his folder marked IMPORTANT. how life has changed since the start of 2020. Does the chap opposite me know that as he plays his game on his mobile he keeps making Mick Jagger facial pouts.

I wonder what people are thinking of me.

I pondered other things. How many of those stood patiently are struggling. How many secretly would love someone to strike up a conversation. Be social. This is a very changed world. A very more isolated and fractured society. As I watched those around me carefully maintain a sufficient personal gap, my mind wandered back just a couple of years. Remember birthday parties. Everyone tightly huddled round a cake with candles. A child or adult, probably with a streaming cold, desperately trying to blow out the candles. After failed 3 or 4 attempts, more people joining in, probably with a myriad of ailments, blowing until the candles were out. Then the much breathed on cake is quickly handed round, people sharing not enough cutlery, from person to person the cake is passed for immediate consumption. How alien does that concept sound now. Will we ever truly get back to those days. How long will we all be stuck in this endless cycle of variants and vaccinations.

Then remarkably quickly I’m back home. Back to the quiet, back to the isolation. Back to single parenting, cut off from much of this bonkers new world. It felt odd being amongst so many other people. Almost uncomfortable. Definitely not feeling like a normal experience. The world has changed. Have I changed?

40 thoughts on “Club”

  1. You and I would have had the best time if we were together getting our shots. Lol!! I do the same thing when I’m out and especially these days—looking at people and wondering what there thinking and how they live. And oh my! And that cake everyone blew on and are. How did we lol?

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  4. Pleased to hear you got the booster, Gary. I guess you haven’t got the ‘natural immunity’ that us folk in Africa have, according to some medical bod speaking on Sky News last night. Oh, really? Stay safe and wear your mask, social distance and wash your hands! – like we’ve been doing since March 2019. Now it looks weird to see anyone’s face 🙂

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  6. My son with similar as Hawklad went to a [Walk in] for those with mental anxieties. What a joke!! Even I’d have anxieties being in that queue!!! He had to stay in it outside in the rain for one hour and twenty four minutes, before even getting to the door. No official calling out “Keep your 2 metre distance please” and some poor souls just walked up and walked away again. For not only distancing crap, the queuees did not all wear masks (being outside I suppose). They seriously did not all distance the 2 metres, some were half a metre at best during the stand, stand, stand, stand, shuffle, stand… However, a clever soul had a golf umbrella over his shoulder and could keep his two metre space in front. Protected by the brolly behind, he was the star of the show (I parked up so as to keep an eye on my son). Someone (Dickhead) in the queue needed a cigarette while waiting to protect against a respiratory disease and apparently there was at one point “were on a college campus” smell. My son tried to keep his space, but it was hellish hard. Plus, he wer so masked up and hoody pulled up tight, he looked like an ewok, but he called the look ‘Poundshop ninja cosplay’. His text: “I may be screaming internally, but I’m also stubborn enough to continue… Magnus Magnusson.”
    I’m so glad he got through it, didn’t blow a fuse and as always was polite to those who deserve it, those that have volunteered to help make him safer from this plague.

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  7. I go for my booster today. Mine will be an hour earlier than previous two I booked. The plan by doing that is hoping it won’t be as busy as last time. (Fingers crossed,) to help with my anxiety. Not because of covid, but because of the noises, the business etc

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      1. I felt a little off by evening. A dull headache came back and stayed that I had earlier.
        This morning, feeling a little tired, with a slight dull head. I might have a walk to the shop, when up.

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  8. T’other day we had a PJ Day at work and I wore a Homer Simpson onesie over mine. Full PPE on I took the sauna off pretty darn quick and I probably lost a bit of weight during the first part of my shift!!
    So perhaps the young woman in front of you had come straight from work?

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      1. You’d think so, but I like everything in my fridge to be in order. All the sauces in the tray (just in case they drip or spill), salad in the little green basket, the shelf has Flora, Violife, vegetable Atora, Jus-Rol and alpro cherry. As you can see, it’s very specific.

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    2. I’ve realised that there never was a “Normal”. I know I’ve never been “Normal” at all. Sometimes I’ve been silly enough to give a rat’s arse about that. Nowadays I’m older and wiser, to know that “Normal” is indeed a myth, an unachievable goal and something that no one need to concern themselves about. Acceptable boundaries on t’other hand I know need to be maintained. Boundaries of what is acceptable behaviour towards the vulnerable. Throughout history, humans have had a propensity to “Normal”ise cruelty and unfairness, but thankfully each individual can buck the trend.

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      1. “We” you type the word “We” and yet you surely haven’t been asleep for 2 years BABASP, in fact you have almost been wide awake for most of the past 2 years. Sleep seems to have passed you by many times these last 2 years BABASP and yet you have coped, done a brilliant job of support for your boy.

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  12. Just yesterday, a salesperson reflexively reached his hand, apologizing for that. I thought it was wonderful that this reflex still exists.
    On a different note, I found myself too watching others, observing them, and ending up feeling close since I thought of them, having their families, their joys, their struggles, their lives, and all they all want is to be loved and enjoy life… we still have so much more in common than what divides us.

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  13. Hubby and I are not happy in large groups of people, be it a vaccination queue or at the supermarket. We have our booster, and are waiting to see if a fourth jab is on the cards. It would not surprise us. We were at the launderette today and one guy was in there. We loaded up a dryer and I went shopping. As I left a woman came in, no mask. Hubby said that after I’d gone, 6 more people came in, and of the 9 in there, only he and the original guy were masked. He went and sat in the car. We were not party goers or social mixers at the best of times, but now we prefer our own company and that of our neighbours on occasion. Home tests are waiting in the wings after today.
    You and Hawklad keep safe Gary.

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  14. So well written. Some things have definitely changed. The world has now experienced what some people were going through before the Pandemic. Poor Hawklad already had fears of germs. Many were already isolated and lonely. I hope the Pandemic has changed at least some people. I hope it’s opened eyes and minds and softened some hearts. I know it can do the opposite as well. But some people do find compassion when they experience these things for themselves.

    Stay awesome Superdad, and stay out of the rain. Trees work great for that unless there’s a storm a brewing. 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳❤

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