It's with us again, that COVID-19 virus, once again after visiting the British Isles. Our youngest got it first, whilst we were in Ireland. I caught it there, too, but only started to develop symptoms during our return trip: super spreading? I hope not, hope bolstered by our eldest and my wife remaining stubbornly negative in testing.
What are my symptoms? This time nothing overblown, though in one sense I wish it was - a blitz and then done. Now, it's a full-body and -mind lethargy. Dizziness when I go for my usual lunchtime walk or help out in the kitchen (when the others are out of there, of course), and a sense of unchangingness, constant sameyness.
I worked for the two days we were back last week, but was careful to postpone all of my meetings to this coming week, hopeful that I'd be back to full fitness by then. That seems like a significant overestimate today, Sunday.
Reading: Black Gold, by Antony ("Tony") Wild, a 2005 history of the development of coffee as a global drink, gifted to me by my uncle Jack. It's another picture of the utter callousness of the Great Powers, the indifference to humanity, the blindness to the costs, that profit and pleasure can lead to. It's also, however, enlightening with regard to the discussions within Islam about the drink itself: is it intoxicating, dangerous, explicitly banned - or does it reek of jaziri ta’ assub, a fanatical non-textual conviction based on an exaggerated sense of piety? I'm about half way through - it's a light enough read that my COVID-19 haziness doesn't really matter - and I'll no doubt have the pleasure of re-reading it again a few years down the line. But not during v.2029 of COVID!
