My Quarantine Diary - Days 2 and 3

Day 2

I woke up with a headache and a sore throat – not what you want after travelling halfway around the world in a pandemic!  Once the doom and gloom thoughts had melted away and common sense took over, I realised that the headache is probably from jet lag and the sore throat from the dry air on the plane.  Besides, I’m going to continue with the assumption I am contaminated until I know otherwise.  

 

After a cup of tea, some breakfast and an ibuprofen, both the headache and the sore throat went away, so all is well.

 

It`s my birthday today and my parents have given me a corona virus testing kit!  A bottle of whisky and some British chocolate – if you can smell and taste the whisky, then you’re ok for the moment and don’t have corona virus symptoms!  (I’m obviously being facetious…)  It turns out I didn’t need it (yet!) the dog farted and it was enough for me to leave the room!  Sense of smell clearly intact!

 

It’s been a strange birthday.  While I want to spend time with my family, I have to limit the time I spend near them, so I’ve spent most of the day in my room, listening to music and reading.  Feels like I’m a teenager again!  I go downstairs for meals, but I wear my mask until it’s time to eat, then sit across the room from them to make sure we are adequately distanced.  Never mind 1.5m or 2m, I’m not taking chances.

 

Tomorrow, it’s back to work.  The first time since 2011 that I’ve been employed by the British entity of my company, though I’ll be doing the exact same job as I was doing last week; same colleagues, same manager, different time zone!  It all feels a but surreal.

 

Day 3

I’m a UK employee again!  It feels weird not to have all the extra bureaucracy of working in Brazil bearing down on me; I guess I’ve been institutionalised!

 

I’m settling into the routine of wiping down surfaces of things I’ve touched (I don’t think the taps and door handle of the bathroom have ever been so clean!) and making sure I thoroughly wash my hands before touching anything else.  While extra handwashing and using alcohol gel has become second nature throughout the pandemic, it’s weird getting used to the extra steps in the house.  Generally, I’ve treated the outside world as potentially COVID-y and myself as potentially infected when outside, but in the house with the family, I could always lower my guard a little.  Here I have to be extra vigilant.  I caught myself (or rather dad caught me) putting on my mask to talk on the phone yesterday!  Considering I wipe it down afterwards anyway, that was a bit excessive.  I can’t help but wonder how neurotic about cleanliness I’ll be once this all blows over!

 

I found a way to get some exercise while I’m here; there’s a mini exercise bike – I guess – in the room I now call my office, basically just the pedals, so I ‘cycled’ a bit while I worked!  Then a kick-about in the garden with Tess (the dog) who, it turns out, is quite good at football!

 

On the news, there’s talk about the number of cases of COVID rising in some areas; hardly surprising when you see pictures of pubs an people without masks and no social distancing.  I can’t understand this; it’s all well and good thinking ‘I’m young, I’ll probably be fine’, but do these people not have families to think of?  Elderly relatives?  Hopefully this is just a blip and can eventually controlled.