A few weeks ago I went on a little road trip down South, partly to see the parents & partly to pick up my 4WD which had some essential work done… While staying with my Dad we also did a trip down to Wanaka to pick up his new car:
Its a 1927 Chev Roadster in mint condition, and my Dad is only the fourth owner since new. We transported it home on a trailer, and had a strange coincidence. We stopped for lunch at a cafe in Tarras, which is a fairly remote location. We hadn’t been there long and a man came wandering in talking on his phone, and he sat not far from us. Turns out he was talking to the previous owner of the Chev & asked if he’d sold it. I made eye contact & pointed at my Dad, so he came & joined us for lunch… Turned out he knew the entire history of the Chev, as had sourced it for the previous owner! What a small world…
The Chev has such a cute exhaust note, of the ‘putt putt’ variety. So next time I am down South I’ll take all my mics and record it, maybe to re-appear in future as an EV sound set!
We carried on our way home, but a few days later I started feeling strange & sure enough:
Dagnammit!
After being so careful for 2+ years avoiding it, the first time I go anywhere I catch covid! I hadn’t been to a bar or cafe in 2 years, but as we were travelling we had no other choice. And mask mandates have been dropped in NZ, and almost overnight it went from 80% masked to less than 10%.
So I isolated at my Dads for 7 days. Thankfully he didn’t catch it – he has had it before & also recently had his second booster, so it was great verification immunity works as he was definitely exposed to it… And after ten days I headed home to Plimmerton.
My only remaining symptoms are a bit of a cough, a bit of brain fog and I have to avoid much exertion as I sure don’t want long covid…
I think the NZ Health system really missed an opportunity when removing mask mandates, to drive home the fact that masks are very useful ongoing. It’s an admirable aspect of Japanese society that they care about their fellow citizens enough to wear a mask any time they feel unwell, regardless of whether its covid, a cold, flu or anything at all. Such a small thing to ask, and yet it seems entirely beyond the empathy of many. You can lead a horse to water etc etc
Such is life.
