What I Got For My Birthday

It was my birthday at the beginning of the month- not that I celebrated it this year. I spent the day in bed sick with Covid, self-isolating from my family, and feeling too upset to celebrate after missing a trip to Brighton and a concert I'd been dying to see the day before.

It barely even registered that it was my birthday, except for the birthday cake, and presents from my family that got left outside my bedroom door, which did actually help to cheer me up a little. How can cake and presents not make you smile?!

I might do something fun to make up for my ruined birthday plans once we've all fully recovered from Covid, but for now I thought I'd keep with tradition, and give you a peek at the lovely presents I was gifted this year.

My parents gave me a couple of pairs of earrings and a set of cardi clips from Erstwilder. The cardi clips are a pair of gorgeous pink and white cockatoos (galahs?) called Pinky Promise from last year's Erstwilder x Jocelyn Proust collection. They're made from the prettiest pearlescent, bubble, and textured resins, and the best part is they're so versatile. They can be worn as cardi or collar clips, but also pinned closer together as a double brooch. I love them! I think the glittery cream opalescent flower earrings were from the same collection, but I can't remember which the plain black bubble resin cat earrings belonged to. Maybe one of the Halloween ranges? Doesn't really matter; they're cute, and will be perfect for spooky season.

I also got some money from my parents so I could choose something I wanted, so I pooled my birthday money, and put it towards this beautiful Bumblebee and Small Polka Dot Monty radio from Emma Bridgewater. I've been looking for a new bluetooth speaker for a while, as I've had nothing to play music on- except for straight off my phone or laptop- since my last speaker broke a couple of years ago. I've been tempted by the heart print Emma Bridgewater radio for ages, but just as I was thinking about buying it with my birthday money, I stumbled across this one and fell in love with it there and then. It's so unique, and I love the colourful bee and polka dot print so much. I've never seen a gadget quite like it. I haven't set up the radio or alarm clock features yet, but it's so easy to connect your phone or iPod to it to play music, and the bass on it is impressive. The sound quality is amazing. It even has a USB port at the back so you can charge your phone from it! It isn't cheap at £100, but if you sign up to the newsletter on the Emma Bridgewater website, you get 15% off your order, making it a much more reasonable £85. Trust me, it's worth every penny.

My younger sister bought me the Robin Hood Loungefly Wallet that I've been lusting over for the best part of a year, and it is amazing. It's blue and green with silhouettes of trees and bushes in the background, and a pattern of characters from the film in the foreground. There's Robin Hood and Little John (not running through the forest), Maid Marian and Clucky, her lady-in-waiting, Prince John and Sir Hiss, and even the little bunnies and turtle. It's so cute! The inside is petrol-blue with a pale blue lining printed with items associated with the film, like Robin Hood's hat, quivers, gems, and arrows and targets. It has space for notes and several cards, but annoyingly doesn't have a place for coins. You can kind of make a pocket out of the space behind the cards, but it's not ideal. Luckily, I don't often have much cash on me, so I'm sure I can make it work.

Along with the wallet, my sister gave me the coolest pair of Truffle Shuffle socks with the worm from Labyrinth on them. They're bright blue and red, and lovely and thick. I've always loved the worm from Labyrinth, so they're the best socks ever!

On my birthday, my other sister dropped a gift bag of presents off on the doorstep for me, not wanting to risk coming in and getting infected. She and my brother-in-law gifted me four books, and a lovely selection of treats from Marks and Spencer's. I sense she was trying to cheer me up after I got sick and our plans fell apart. The sugar definitely helped. I was given Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (which I've wanted to try after enjoying the Shadow and Bone books), The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, Jade City by Fonda Lee, and Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. I've only read Every Heart a Doorway so far, and it was a weirdly good but morbid little read. I can't wait to read all the others. As for the sweet treats, I was given some cookie dough bites, a couple of bags of chocolate peanuts (my fave M&S treats), some chocolate covered popcorn, and a couple of cakes in a jar. The Trillionaire one was particularly delicious. Would definitely recommend.

And one of my lovely friends sent me a gorgeous parcel of goodies wrapped in peach-coloured polka dot tissue paper. She sent me the sweetest selection of items, including a llama keyring, a set of cute wooden animal photo pegs, a bookish pin, a mint-green scrunchie featuring black and white dogs with patches that remind me of Rosie, a birthday candle and flower seeds in a little matchbox, some flower stickers, and a map-print pill box, that will be so handy for carrying my painkillers in my bag.

I'm really grateful for all I was given this year, so thank you to everyone who gave me a present. You're the best!

What's the best birthday present you've ever been given?

How I Caught Covid-19

Well, it finally happened. After two and a half years of trying to avoid it, the ol' Corona Virus finally caught me.

And, would you believe, I got infected the first time I let my guard down, and went without a mask in public?! It's like a storyline from a teen soap opera to scare kids in to being sensible, except it really did happen. 

I came down with cold symptoms two days after I got home from seeing Ronan Keating live in Bournemouth at the end of June. It was my first concert in almost three years, and my first time in a large crowd since before the pandemic. I haven't been anywhere else in ages, so there's no doubt where I caught it. I went in intending to wear a mask to try to stay safe, but it was so hot in the venue that I felt faint, and had to remove it before I'd even made it in to my seat. I felt anxious about it at first, but it felt just like old times, and I soon forgot about it and let myself relax. That was definitely a stupid move on my part, but I only saw a handful of mask-wearers in a crowd of thousands, so I doubt wearing a mask would've made much of a difference, anyway. With everyone singing and screaming along to the show, the virus must've been a thick smog in the air. I didn't get too close to anyone, but there was someone coughing nearby, which I can hear in most of the videos I took of the gig, so I'm totally going to blame that person for going to the gig sick and infecting me. (Although, there were probably loads of people there who were Covid-positive, whether they knew it or not). 

I tried to wear a mask as much as possible for the rest of our trip to Bournemouth, including in taxis and shops, but I also made the mistake of not keeping my mask on on the bus because, again, I was uncomfortably hot from the heatwave. I just popped it on whenever people were boarding or disembarking the bus, so if I didn't catch Covid at the concert, it will have been on the journey there or back.

I feel so stupid for being so complacent because I've been so careful since the pandemic began. I haven't been near people in public without wearing a mask, I regularly anti-bac my hands, and I still disinfect any parcels that come in to the house just to be on the safe side. I've tried to be extra careful to keep my family safe, and because my immune system isn't as strong as it used to be, and what do I do? I undo two and a half years of caution by trying to enjoy one of my favourite pastimes without overheating, and get so distracted by a singing Irish man that I catch it anyway. Oh, well, at least I caught it doing something I love. It was worth it.

We stayed over night and got home the next afternoon. I felt fine at first, but two days later, on the Sunday, I woke up with a sore throat, and a temperature, and started getting the sniffles. I did a test right away, but I didn't test positive until another two days later, five days after the gig. (It's definitely important to keep testing if you get cold symptoms, because it can take five days or more to show).

Fortunately, Covid hasn't been much worse than a bad cold for me, except that most of the symptoms have stayed much longer than with a normal cold. The first couple of days I was positive were awful. I had such a high temperature, I was sweating through my clothes; my whole body felt like it was on fire. I felt fatigued, I got sharp pains in my abdomen (not cramps, stabbing pain), and my whole body ached, with all of my joints and usual pain points hurting much worse than usual. I almost completely lost my voice, I got a terrible dry cough that I just couldn't clear as there was so much mucus on my chest, and my poor nose ran like a tap. There was also a day at the beginning where my breathing was a bit laboured, and I felt like I couldn't breathe properly when I laid down, which was all I wanted to do as I felt like crap. It was like there was a crushing weight pushing my organs in from the sides. Luckily, the laboured breathing only lasted a day, and once my temperature broke and the cough began to loosen, I didn't feel too bad. It didn't linger too long in my head and sinuses the way a cold can, so that made it a lot easier to deal with. It's mostly been a lot of sneezing, a raw throat, and burning up with a temperature, with a dry wheezing cough on and off. In all honesty, I think I've had worse colds, so I've been very lucky.

I began to feel more like myself after a week or so, but the symptoms persisted, and I kept testing positive until day thirteen (day fifteen with symptoms), when I finally tested negative again. I'm still a little wheezy almost three weeks on, and still have a cough, although, it's thankfully not persistent, and mostly just gets irritated when I eat or talk. Hopefully I'll be able to shake it off really soon. I'm so over it now.

I've spent the last three weeks isolating in my bedroom, missing another concert I'd been looking forward to for two and a half years (I'm still devastated), and spending my birthday in bed on my own, in the hopes of not spreading Covid to anyone else. I only left my room to use the bathroom while I had Covid, but despite isolating, wearing a mask, and disinfecting anything I touched, everyone in the house (except the dog) caught it, anyway. My Mum was the first to catch it a few days after I did, but she had been around me before I tested positive. My younger sister got it a few days after that, and my Dad several days later, and while I feel incredibly guilty (and have been blamed daily for them catching it), I refuse to take full responsibility since neither of them stayed away from either myself or my Mum while we were infected. I'm not being blamed for their recklessness. I at least tried to contain it, and even stayed away from Rosie, in case she got sick, too- even when she was breaking my heart scratching at and howling outside my bedroom door, not understanding why I couldn't let her in. 

My family catching Covid has been one of my biggest fears since the pandemic began, particularly because of health conditions and with my parents getting older, but thankfully, nobody's had any complications, and we've all had quite mild cases. Even my Dad, who has chronic asthma, got through it easily. I'm just grateful we caught it now and not two years ago, when the virus was stronger and much more serious. My parents were lucky and were both negative again after just 4-5 days, and are recovering well. My sister still has it, but is definitely doing a lot better.

Miraculously, my other sister, who came with me to the gig, came away unscathed. I was beginning to wonder if she was immune, and was thinking of sacrificing her to Big Pharma as a cure for mankind, but now she and my brother-in-law have got it, too. Though, thankfully I can't be blamed for that; it sounds like she caught it from a colleague at work. 

Covid is definitely rife in the UK again at the moment. So many people are catching it after avoiding it all this time. I don't think there's a lot we can do to avoid it now that so few are wearing masks in public. It's clearly still very contagious, and we're just going to keep catching it like colds and the flu unless masks are made a legal requirement again. (Which I don't see happening). I don't think most people need to fear it anymore, but it's still better to try to keep vulnerable people safe, and avoid getting sick yourself. I'm going to keep wearing masks in public and anti-bac-ing my hands to avoid catching it again too soon, and next time I go to a gig, I'm going to try to keep a mask on. If only to avoid another three weeks of blame from my family. Their scorn was worse than the virus!

If you're going to a gig or a festival this summer, or are going to be in any kind of crowd, I'd definitely advise against going maskless, or you might come home with more than a band t-shirt and a heart full of good memories. Learn from my mistakes!

Have you caught the dreaded Corona Virus yet?

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