Positive Songs For Negative Times #58: My Covid Diary (Part 1)

Sam had two birthday parties to go to that Sunday, but he also had a really bad cold.

Or at least, we thought it was just a cold. I feel like a very bad parent now that when, earlier that weekend, he'd woken me up in the middle of the night saying he felt really hot, my response was "you're wearing your winter pyjamas: take them off and you'll be fine".   

Anyway, we were wary of sending him to the party if he was infectious, so we decided to each do a lateral flow test. I've been doing them twice weekly for the past year and a half anyway, so I'm pretty used to them. For Louise and Sam, it was a different experience...

Ten minutes later, the results all looked negative. Louise texted various parents to say that we'd all done tests, everything looked fine, we'd be OK for the parties. As we started to get ready, Louise went to throw the tests in the bin... which is when we noticed the second lines.

Two lines, one on C and one on T, means a positive result. Sam and I both had two lines. Louise only had one. She did a second test and still only had one. But it was clear the parties were off.

I booked myself a PCR test at a walk through test site. I didn't initially want to take Sam along since he'd freaked out enough about doing the lateral flow test. I figured I'd pick up a home PCR test pack and bring that back for him to do. But when I got there, they were all out of home test kits, so we all ended up going back that afternoon.

(Test sites appear to be largely staffed by teenagers. Apparently the catering and hospitality industry is really struggling to hire teenage waiters and bar staff this year, because they're all working for the NHS.)

My PCR test came back positive at 7am the following morning.

Louise and Sam had to wait quite a while longer...

Rick Anthony is the lead singer of The Phantom Band. He also releases solo material under the pseudonym Rick Redbeard. I've been listening to his 2016 album Awake Unto quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. Very mellow and chilled, with shades of Richard Hawley, particularly on the track below...