V-day

After breakfast this morning we walked in good time over to Cardiff City Football Stadium for our covid vaccines. We had a shock when we arrived at the the check-in booth to be told that we couldn't proceed to the vaccination point because we weren't in a car. That was how we discovered that the vaccination centre is 'drive-in only'. 

When we were contacted and given an appointment I said that I was pleased it was near enough for us to walk there together for our vaccination. The practice receptionist said was we wouldn't be able to go in together, and I said that waiting ten minutes outside wouldn't be a problem. It didn't occur to me that this centre was exclusively for recipients on wheels. 

Truth to tell, I know nothing about drive-in facilities anywhere. The only one I can identify in Cardiff is an add-on to a fast food joint. The idea of a drive-in food outlet appals me, an offence against food, un-necessarily adding to pollution and carbon footprint.. Yes, I am deeply prejudiced against the concept, and had difficulty conceiving of a stand alone drive-in outlet without a separate pedestrian facility.

They checked and confirmed that we were listed, and reassured us that the schedule had plenty of slack in it, as people were arriving early and being dealt with speedily. I called a taxi, which arrived in ten minutes and drove us through the facility and then took us home. On schedule!

I've had no reaction, Clare isn't sure if she had a reaction from the vaccine or whether it was just the shock of the unexpected. We wait not until 23rd April for jab number two. Next time we're go by car for sure.

It's may be just an odd coincidence, but when I spoke to Ashley later in the day, he interrogated me in detail after I told him the story. He too had initially been offered a vaccination booking at the stadium by someone who didn't mention to him that it was drive-in only. He declined as the date didn't suit him, and will got to his GP surgery for his next week. I knew it was drive-in, but the decisive word here everyone needs to know is 'only'. I would have been happy to drive there if I'd known, although I walk everywhere or use public transport to get around town as a matter of principle.

Vaccination centres are portrayed in the news all the time. It's presumed that what's self evident to some is obvious to everyone. The dominant news image of such a centre in my mind is of a big sports centre with scores of walk-in vaccination points. If there has been footage of people being vaccinated in their cars I haven't seen it. In may be written down somewhere in the various sheets of A4 bilingual information churned out by the health authority, too much to read without losing attention, too many words for a small but precise piece of information. What about people with poor literacy skills, whose first language is neither English nor Welsh, as poor at processing information as I am, but for different reasons?

Anyway, disaster was avoided. We're somewhat less vulnerable to covid now, but are still obliged to keep the safety rules as strictly as ever, as there is a one in twenty chance of the vaccine not being effective and a one in three chance of being contagious if infected accidentally, especially over the next three weeks in which immunity gradually develops. For now the vaccine takes the edge of the inevitable anxiety which is the shared experience of so many at this time.

I cooked lunch and walked around the park down to Blackweir bridge. The vandalised barrier has been repaired, but how long will it stay like that? After supper we started to watch a classic comedy movie 'No Sex Please We're British' It's a fast moving 1960s farce translated from stage to film, but the humour in it is so dated it became broing to watch, so we gave up. Clare decided to read, I watched 'New Amsterdam' and 'Rebecka Martinson, one after the other, and that was it for a thought provoking day.