Covid Pays A Visit
There isn't an image to head off September, 2022. There aren't many images at all for that month, which can be blamed on a tiny thread of RNA which gets into the human body and wreaks bloody havoc. Covid-19. SARS Cov-2. The plague. Call it what you want. I called it the nuisance to end them all ... and that was before one learned of the long-term effects of the virus. Hmm.
We were fully vaccinated. The second booster, we'd had three weeks earlier, in August; and that made me ill too. It was like having a nasty case of flu for about a week, but to be fair, I did throw off the effects, and we went into September believing we were covered, protected --
Uh huh. Protected against serious illness. Protected against death. Being under 70 and in reasonable health, we were protected against the probability of needing to head for the emergency room. Which was a good thing, because this was the height of the third (or fourth?) wave of the pandemic, when people were dying in car parks, waiting to see the inside of the emergency department.
But as we discovered, the vaccine doesn't prevent you from getting pretty bloody ill ... the kind of ill where you're still struggling to recover a month later, and three months later, the fatigue and brain fog remain major obstacles. Oh, joy. Dave threw is off fast; Mike, almost as fast. Me?
In typical fashion, it took me about a month to say that the worst of it was over, and in the first week, I was very close indeed to going to the ER. Breathing difficulties, chest pain ... similar to the pain of pneumonia and pleurisy, which I've had several times. The only problem was, the ER facilities were stretched to the limit; you had 90-year-olds lying on the ground for two hours in freezing conditions. Sooo...
I toughed it out, and (knock on wood), I'm still young and strong enough to get over it, and be here to tell the tale -- it's January 28, 2023, as I write this.
But, but, but ... I've read a great deal about this, enough to know that repeated Covid infections will "eat your heart and destroy your brain." (Quoting an epidemiologist there, from a recent article on ABC News.) So, for us, it's masks every time we go anywhere near people, and social distancing; never go into a café or stay in a motel; take no risks.
Which makes it all the more odd when you go (masked) to the shops and see no one, no one at all, wearing a mask in the supermarket, even though the statistics suggest that 20% of them have the virus.
In the long run -- if you listen to the scientists; and I do -- the general population is soon going to be halfway brain dead, and sudden death due to cardiac and pulmonary issues before the age of 60 will be commonplace. We don't want to be part of that picture! I suspect that the population is being thoroughly culled, as surely as if the Wraith were hitting this planet: lifespan will be starting to shorten noticeably if this goes on much longer, and the fact is, there's nothing to stop it at this time. Our current vaccines only, basically, insulate people who still have a modicum of youth and/or strength on their side.
However, I've read that research is underway to produce a vaccine that will finish Covid-19 off completely, amputate it at the knees. Those developments are maybe three to five years away, so we just need to sit tight and be patient ... and careful. Don't get it again --
Which is a tough ask, when the way it got into this house in the first place was via Dave, who brought it home from work. As I write this, there's a couple of cases in a unit close to the one(s) where he works. Carers and nurses are in full PPE again, to contain it, and we can hope.
So life really has changed. For us, September was about home and garden, and getting well; and since then, we've been ultra-careful. Outdoor café settings, on the few occasions when we've gone for coffee; national parks, gardens ... don't even think about the cinema, although Avatar is on the big screen, and I'd really wanted to see that. Sigh.
To quote the Irishman in the tall iron helmet, such is life.
~~ooOOooOOoo~~
But to be fair -- Covid didn't come along till a wee while into the month, and there were good times then. Dave and I went up to Lyndoch, and the birding was amazing. We took a walk through the gardens in the evening light, and literally as we were on out way back to the car for the long drive home, the Musk Lorikeets appeared! They were feasting on something on the rose bushes -- aphids, perhaps? -- not at all troubled by human visitors, and the performed circus tricks not two meters in front of us! With the sun at the right angle and not too much of a zoom needed, I got some lovely photos...
In fact, I came home with so many great Musk Lorikeet images, I'd need to upload about twenty to even halfway cover the experience ... so I'll settle for five, which are representational. Because there's more.
We also returned to Nangawooka, that botanic garden outside Victor Harbour, which is a joy in any season other than high summer, when everything shuts down for the heat. Once again, I took about 500 frames, and upwards of 100 are astonishing, so I'll settle for uploading a few that are representational of the lot...
...there was also a trip to Mout Lofty Gardens, to photograph Magnolias, and more. But this post is long enough for now, so let me close this and begin a fresh one.
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