On and ON

 We spent a pleasant weekend in Bristol after our brush with the COVIDs to regroup and take the opportunity of some more beer before we return to the south coast.

 Wednesday was the Barleymow, Thursday Moor Tap.

We went to Newtown Park brewery tap on Friday afternoon - which was great.  It was quiet, the tables in the sun were fab and the beer very good.  The cask stout we had was a pleasant change in a tap room but we could only buy pints and halves so we bought two pints -  and it was a tiny bit sweet.  We found oursleves thinking that it would have been more to our taste as a keg beer (how times have changed, huh?).

 Saturday afternoon we managed a short (but tiring) stroll along the Feeder and past the Propyard (which needs to be visited but I doubt it'll be a regular haunt) over the bridge (which we noted has had the deck replaced) and onto the Cider Box.  It was relatively quiet and we found a nice seat in the semi-sun.  Cider offering was a little bit depleted but we found a few things to our liking and had a couple of pint.  We mused again that it's an odd little place to have a bar.  Quite a run-down street which is a mix of derelict buildings and railway arches but somehow has the power to make us smile and relax.

After a couple of pints I needed beer so we went around the corner to Martha's which was pleasantly quiet.  A couple of drinks and then stroll back to the flat - seriously tired but content.

Sunday we decided that LHG might be an option - Google maps had been monitoring it and said it was very busy so we built in other options...when we arrived it was just about perfect in terms of numbers of people.  We even had a pizza (Shroom, since you ask) which went down very well especially given our appetites had not yet returned to normal.

It makes us smile that there are such a plethora of options near the flat.  Some places we might take friends and family, other places that most folk wouldn't get so we keep them for ourselves. I think, if we ever move again, we'd be a lot more demanding in the proximity of good places to go...

Now we're back in Eastbourne.  Because it was warm, the boy wasn't keen on going to Ninkasi after the train so we walked up to the Crown. We had been missed.

On Tuesday we went to Beerarama, Saturday to Bottle Grove - once again our absence had been noted.  This made us smile.

This week we were mostly working at home so Wednesday, we took a little stroll up to the Hurst.  Sitting in the garden, next to a main road, in the sun, drinking really good Armada - Made me renew my resolution to try and work at HQ less and leave the rest of the staff to get on with it.

I'm hopeful that Eastbourne might creep into the beer scene a little more because it would be lovely to ring the changes like we can in Bristol...fingers crossed

Back in the Pub

 Well, 10 days after our first symptoms we decided to venture back to the pub.

We're still both quite fatigued and struggling with concentration but we thought that a return to normality as much as we could would definitely be a good way to ease back into things.

Naturally, we strolled around to the Barley Mow.

It was nice and quiet, initially, and we settled into the corner with a couple of cask pints.

For me, my tastebuds haven't quite returned to normal yet - so things taste much more bitter than usual but nevertheless, it was such a lovely feeling to be drinking beer in the pub again.

Highlight was our first taste of the output from a new brewery -  OnPoint - definitely one we'll hope to try again.

It's so good to be out of the flat for a few hours - and it's so good to be back in the pub!

Dratted Red Line

 So we're resigned to staying in the flat for a good chunk of this week.  This morning the boy took a test - still positive. (we are at Symptoms+9days).

I've ordered some more so that we can take daily tests if we feel we need to.

I've also done an Ocado order to replenish the essentials (milk, biscuits, veg, beer...)

When we first moved here neither Ocado nor Waitrose delivered here.  The nearest place to buy anything was the newsagent/convenience shop or the awful Tesco near the Cornubia.

Now both of our chosen grocery vendors comfortably deliver, there's a Sainsbury's directly across Avon Street and just around the corner is the weird and inefficient but, as is turned out, quite useful Deliveroo Hop.

So we're reaping the benefits of being an early adopter in our chosen place to live -  of course, the downside of a place with more amenities...is more people.

Actually, even though we still can't go to the pub, there's a lot of benefit to living here.  The whole area is starting to mature a little bit.  The "street" trees have filled out a lot and provide a lovely avenue of shade over there, on the other side of the water.  There's more street furniture around so when we managed a short walk because we were craving the outdoors, we could find a pleasant place to sit when I was too tired to walk any further.

We've watched the gull and peregrine families going about their business and right now with the windows open I can hear a robin singing its heart out.

This is is definitely not our idea of an "only" home (for lots of reasons) but there have definitely been worse places to be unwell (so much easier to get up in the middle of the night to top up your water glass when you don't have to manage the stairs) so, once again, we're counting our blessings.

Gagging for a Beer

 Still tested strongly positive yesterday so had to arrange for a drop of emergency groceries from Deliveroo despite the fact that I could have walked across the road and bought them far more quickly (and with much less irritation as it happens).

The boy set up the new little shredder (of which he approves) and shredded all the confidential waste that was lurking in a pile.  This wiped him out.

I half-heartedly picked at some work but concentration really isn't great.

We decided to attack the fridge beer - what remains. Moor PMA stood up well to  post-COVID tastebuds, the Wildbeer NZ pale was pretty good too.

For me, wine isn't great - it's really interesting what viruses do to your taste.

Today we've taken out all the rubbish and read the electric meter.  Only one trip in the lift but by the time we had done the deed, we were both knackered again.

This is the most frustrating time of these sorts of bugs - a bit like, many years ago, when the boy had flu that lasted for weeks.

For quite a lot of the day you feel not too bad - no gross symptoms of anything in particular - your appetite returns and you feel like you ought to be able to do things.

In fact, you really can't.

We're at that point now - we've managed a 10 minute amble around the block and now I'm done-for.

What I want - what I really, really want is to GO TO THE PUB.

Thankfully there are still a couple of cans left in the fridge so I'm going to have to make do with this can of Porter for now.

And then maybe have a bit of a lie-down

Keeping Positive

 Yesterday we decided that we needed to go and pick up our parcels from the Amazon locker.

We were both feeling a bit better and given the Locker is in a large hotel foyer we thought that it would make sense to get some fresh air whilst avoiding as many people as possible.

It felt strange to mask-up to get in the list again (and in the hotel foyer) - but obviously entirely necessary and appropriate.

Thankfully we saw relatively few people and we were grateful to be out in the sunshine.

When we got back we felt better for having stretched legs, and having collected a themometer (horse very much bolted, admittedly but there will be a next time) and a paper shredder (ordered before we felt unwell) to do a job we've been planning to do for ages.

I also actually started to feel like eating a real meal for the first time since Monday.

The boy had come back to a glass of red of an evening and offered one to me.  I realised I just didn't fancy it...maybe it was the sore throat, I don't know.  I did however think that a cool beer would be nice - as much to relieve the boredom of drinking fizzy water.

Unfortunately, the only beer in the fridge was some quite strong IPA, ESB or a porter or...a Big Drop Citra beer.

I declined the Big Drop and anything stronger or blacker so...another glass of water.

Once I'd cooked dinner I looked again at the beer offer and decided maybe I'd try the Big Drop after all. I know some people really like some of the 0% offerings out there but this is my fourth try (Harveys, Becks Blue, Nanny State precede it) but the best things I can say is that it does taste less sweet than others and so a bit more "grown up" but other than that, it is better than the others.

Ah well, it's hardly a serious problem - but I guess it's just a shame. I genuinely think that maybe you can't get an authentic brewed taste unless there's enough alcohol in there to produce it.

One of the very best things about where we live in Bristol is our immediate proximity to some of the best breweries and pubs you can imagine.  They're all even closer than the Amazon locker but it's just not appropriate to venture there.

More tea, vicar?

Inevitability

 We've been saying it was inevitable - whist also being concerned we were uniquely rubbish at taking lateral flow tests.

Apart from a nasty virus when the pandemic first hit, just before the initial lockdown, for which there were no test, we've been pretty healthy.

Yeah, the usual quota of sniffly "not feeling very well" spells notwithstanding we seemed to have escaped getting the C-bug.

When the boy succumbed on Sunday we had a slight suspicion.  He was shivery, headachy and under the weather - he also willingly took paracetamol.

The tests we had in the flat didn't seem to be working so I had planned to pop out to the chemist to buy some new ones.  Before I had a chance to do that, I started with similar symptons.  Instead, I bought some for next-day delivery.

By the time they arrived I was in full flat-out mode.

Test results confirmed.  We had finally caught it.

It's Thursday now and we're both just starting to recover.  He's about 36 hours further along the journey than me.  We're both gutted that we haven't been able to do our usual ambling and beering here but we've been feeling so unwell, that we're not exactly gagging for beer right now - and we know that from all viruses you need to give yourself a bit of recovery time.

Mostly, I'm grateful for our genes which seem to have to delivered us relatively robust defence of the disease, more so for the vaccination programme which has almost certainly made our symptoms more manageable - and the personal circumstances which mean we felt confident that taking to our bed for a few days wouldn't affect our ability to pay our bills.

Also firmly remining myself that it's not the same for everyone...but it should be.