The lady in the pink top and floral apron stands outside the sweet smelling bakery with a cigarette and an energy drink.
As I pass her, in my headphones James Dean Bradfield screams the word despair.
Covid 2, a review
The first time I had covid it kicked my arse. I really didn’t want to get it again. A trip on a cruise ship always came with the possibility of catching covid again, a fairly small space and umpteen thousand people from all over the world makes for a nice vial breeding ground. We did well to avoid and infection for the first week or so, but judging from the increasing coughing after the first week, it was clear something was certainly going through the cruise ship. We reverted to using serious masks and staying in a state room or on open decks as much as possible. It’s quite likely we were infected on an excursion towards the end of the trip.
The 11th hour flight home was awful, really do not fly with Air Europa – just don’t – but we didn’t realise at this point we had covid. I blamed my tiredness on the horrible flight, slept like the dead on Sunday and work up feeling not quite right on Monday 4th March – a bit of a sore throat and a sort of body weariness. I did a covid test, more to discount the possibility rather than because I thought I had it – the test appeared even before the buffer fluid made it to the control line. I’m not sure how quantitate these tests are, but I think that’s pretty indicative of a high viral load.
Monday I just felt increasingly crap, as if I was coming down with a bad cold. Next morning I slept until after mid-day and ached, I started coughing too. Wednesday was similar to Tuesday and I only started to feel like I was recovering by Thursday, but the test still showed a bold line. It wasn’t until Friday that the positive line took some time to develop, and this morning for the line to not show at all (I confirmed it with a second test from another batch).
All in all, the second visit from covid didn’t wipe me out as the first did – I attribute this to an increased number of vaccinations, and a much more recent booster I had towards the end of last year, there’s probably also some remembered immunity from the first infection. I did not lose my sense of smell or taste, and I don’t seem to have lost any lung capacity, but I’ll find out once I get back on the bike. I did completely lose my appetite, consequently, I lost about 3 kg in four days.
I definitely don’t recommend catching covid.
COVID – 2
I was going to write up a very enjoyable trip to Argentina, Antarctica and Uruguay, but instead I’ve woken up feeling a bit crap and tested positive for COVID. Arse.
BEEF!
Beef sommeliers exist. Now I know.
Vegetarians and vegans look away.
Breeds of cow now eaten:
- Limousin
- Angus
- Holstein
- Wagyu
Cuts of beef now eaten:
- Rib eye
- Striploin
- Flat iron
- Bone in
What I learnt:
- Wagyu is good but I won’t yearn for it
- I could have eaten the entire plate of empanadas
- I would have eaten an entire plate of toasted homemade sourdough with grated tomato, salt, pepper.
If in Buenos Aires, please spend time with Pablo and his partner in their kitchen and backyard. Phenomenal hosts, good company and a delicious day: beefsommelier.com
Guest author: Meagen
Liverpool 2024
The first few days of 2024 saw me in Liverpool for the Anatomical Society winter meeting. I had a presentation in with Alan Boyde on the topic of developmental collisions in teeth.
I’d heard on the news of floods, but the train journey north really highlighted the flooding, either side of the train line was pretty much just a duckpond, stretching from somewhere north of London to just north of Birmingham. Canals, rivers, and fields, all just merged into one shimmery, grey, wet mess.
The conference was good slightly out of my field with lots more information on how to peel faces off than I was expecting. Luckily the face peelers seem to be fully well-adjusted very nice humans.
All in all a good excuse to meet up with some old friends make some new ones and explore Liverpool, place I’ve not been too for far too long.
