Good Morning, Good Morning: The foreshadowing resolves itself

Sunday, October 16, 2022

The foreshadowing resolves itself

16 Oct - Christchurch

I woke up on the plane in the dark and ate my carry-on pret Super Club Sandwich and Pret Pot thinking we must be only halfway. But as I was quietly munching the lights came up and the breakfast service started. I'd slept the whole way! What a great flight and what a great sleep.

Immigration was a breeze, MPI liked my clean boots and didn't ask many questions. I ubered into Riccarton and met Toby for coffee. My plan was to hang out with him in Christchurch for the day and then take my late flight home to Wellington.

So good to see Toby

After coffee at Toby's local cafe, I thought I should do the routine RAT test that the MPI officer had given me. "You don't have to anymore, but here's one anyway," he'd said.

The remnants of that weird cold made sticking the probe up my nose even more unpleasant than usual and I sneezed and coughed all over Toby's couch.

And, of course, I had a big fat covid positive line within about 90 seconds.

Give it some time! The T line might fade!

Gah! What to do now?!

I cleaned down where I'd been and moved out to the front porch. I had the van at least, so I headed out to do a PCR test (in case I had some weird new strain). The man taking the test gave me some detailed information, mainly about how the Annapurna Circuit was when he did it in the 1970s, but also that if I'd had COVID symptoms for seven days and had no 'worsening or new symptoms' - I could consider myself officially cured. Luckily I had this journal and could read back to 9 Oct - "Slept all afternoon (maskless = coughs and colds)" which was the requisite seven days ago. He also gave me some super thick KN95 masks that I kept on from then on.

So I ubered back to the airport and spent the rest of the day outside the terminal on a very nice patch of grass, reading my book and writing my diary.