Covid jab day

To my surprise, a good night's sleep, more relaxed, benefiting from getting to bed earlier. I remembered to drink more water at breakfast time, to replace the amount I pee out at night. Though the cloud cover broke up yesterday afternoon to give us a beautiful mackerel sky for a while before sunset, it was overcast again and grey this morning. As my medication regime is now less complex than it was a couple of weeks ago I set about editing my daily medication tick sheet file, made for me by Owain. It was in pdf format. It took a while to remember what I had to do with the version stored in Google Docs, which was uncooperative to say the least. I had to convert the pdf to docx using an online conversion app in Adobe Acrobat, and edit it using Open Office and then upload it to Google Docs ready to print off later. 

After an early lunch, I did a circuit of Llandaff Fields before taking a taxi with Clare to arrive at the Bay Scout Den, Grangetown's vaccination centre, for our covid jabs at two thirty. It didn't seem very busy, mostly people in our age group. Fifteen minutes later we were on our way to a bus stop nearby for a number 7 bus that toured around parts of Grangetown I didn't know, taking half an hour to return to the City Centre. When we got on, Clare took  out her expired bus card, causing the ticket machine to issue an embarrassing loud noise, but the driver issued her a ticket anyway. Meanwhile she retrieved the renewed card, but the driver didn't ask to see it. Drivers are probably used to old people muddling up cards.

At the City Centre bus Hub a number 61 was waiting to leave and we were back home again eating choc ices by four. A couple of teenagers got on. One of them said he'd lost his phone and travel card and didn't have the means to pay, or convince the driver he was genuine. He and his mate started to get belligerent so the driver pressed a panic button which emitted a loud alarm call. The boys got off and made themselves scarce. No benefit of the doubt for them. Did they not appear to be of school age in the driver's eyes? Was the story he was told true or not? Will it teach the lads a lesson about being careful with your bus pass and your phone, maybe keeping them separate, however inconvenient? An hour's walk home won't do the lad any harm and may reinforce the lesson learnt. I'll never know.

After returning home and taking my tea time meds, I did another circuit of Llandaff Fields to complete my current daily step goal of 10,500 around 8km. I may do more but I'm not going to increase the goal to 10km as it has been for several years, until I can do so comfortably. My legs and joints are stiffer and take longer to warm up, so the walk is taking me longer but I'm not in a hurry and must avoid tiring myself out. Fitness will return as long as I keep going at a steady modest pace every day.

After supper I watched a couple of episodes of Rocco Schiavone. He's with his Roman childhood mates in Latin America, searching for one of their number who betrayed Rocco and got the love of his life murdered. His mates are out for revenge on the traitor. They follow a trail which goes from Buenos Aires to Mexico City and then to Costa Rica across two episodes in which Italian and Spanish exchanges of dialogue take place, making this an interesting exercise in comprehension, not over reliant on subtitles as I'm familiar enough with both languages to enjoy following. It turned out to be a moving finale with the discovery that the traitor had a wife and two teenage children none of his Roman mates knew about. The desire to express anger and the hunt for revenge dissipated. They left the traitor alone with an indication that his old friends had found him. There would be no question of punishing his family for his betrayal. Enough suffering had come from his failure to protect his childhood friends, and he was forever separated from them as a result. A sad ending, but in many ways a noble spirited one. Time for bed already.