Damn the heat

Overnight I slept with the large bedroom windows open and took my chances with possible athletic and agile robbers who may have chanced upon our house last night.  

I tossed and turned in the dead heat waking frequently and listening for movement. Our house is like an old wood boat, random timbers creaking at all hours for no apparent reason. I’m a light sleeper and if my ears detect a creak I’m alert within seconds. Immediately I turn up the ears detection levels to the “hear a pin drop” setting and they stay that way until I drift off again.

The lack of a breeze allowed the heat in the room to smother me last night. I awoke several times gasping for breath. I  repeatedly tossed my pillow over seeking a cooler side I knew to be there. I threw off the duvet, then the blanket and finally all the sheets. I just lay there in my crappy pyjama’s.

I kept them on because they absorbed sweat and kept the chill from me when eventually, the evening air would cool.  The pyjamas were a cheap cotton pair from Pennys I’d been given as a Christmas present many years ago. It was one of their one-size-fits-all products. It made me wonder what species of customer they had in mind for the sleeves were certainly not made for a human being. Perhaps for a gorilla or a baboon? They encompassed my arms and extended far beyond my fingers.  I was constantly rolling them up.  

The matching dull grey and blue striped trousers completed the look.  They trailed on the floor about my feet. I’d tripped over them so often they had holes in the material around my toes and heels. The uncared-for look I was hoping to achieve was achieved when after years of tripping over them, I’d taken a pair of scissors to the legs and chopped off the last eighteen inches. I admit not having cared much about the look at the time. So vicious was the scissor attack that it left two unevenly cut leg-ends that both now end just below the knee.

This morning when I saw myself in the mirror, bare of foot, unshaven, wild untamed hair and the lacerated crappy pyjamas I realised that I had at last achieved my Robinson Crusoe look. It only took record temperature levels and a pandemic to achieve it.

SLOWLY PIECING TOGETHER — George Blamey-Steeden

George creates great music and I’ve promised him when I write my book and get it turned into a movie I will ask him to complete the soundtrack. Take a listen and see what you think.

https://open.spotify.com/embed/artist/0UpOhoFZHya9suTtWg71nc?si=g9GyS4G6QKyPqtIDslcDUg&dl_branch=1&nd=1

Hi everyone, just letting you know I don’t have a usual WordPress blog post schedule at the moment. I’m currently in the middle of producing a brand new album which is slowly but surely piecing together. A screenshot of one of the tracks I’ve been working on. The most important thing that has been put […]

SLOWLY PIECING TOGETHER — George Blamey-Steeden

Getting a second vaccination in Ireland

For me and hopefully 470,000 others in the Republic of Ireland, this week saw the finishing line for vaccination of the over-sixties when we got our second vaccination of the AstraZeneca inoculation on Thursday. It was an occasion worthy of celebration for I’m sure many of us felt there had been incidences of near contact with the virus over the last nine weeks. Nine weeks when the younger, middle-aged cohort had been fully vaccinated and many of them had even been offered a choice of vaccines.

From the latest medical reports, it seems clear the double dose of AstraZeneca will only offer 63.09% protection against the latest Delta variant whereas a mix of vaccines is more effective. It is rumoured that our Government decided to persist with the double dose of AstraZeneca for financial reasons as it was the cheapest vaccine of the ones on offer and they had pre-ordered so many doses of it. Again there is a suggestion that a winter booster may help protect us better when it is distributed later in the year.

The roll-out of the vaccinations have been painfully slow and though it began to ramp up in July it’s been hampered by a persistent shortage of supply of vaccines and the very slow drawing in of the GP and pharmacies into the inoculation process.

I feel for the youth of the country. They should now be offered vaccination and protection from this dreadful virus. It’s intrinsically unfair to throw open the country and have our young people allowed to work unprotected while serving the needs of their protected elders. Sure, they are unlikely to die from the infection but Long Covid can wreak terrible damage to multiple organs so best avoided.

Here is a quick Q&A on the process of actually getting the second vaccination based on my experience.

Notification of the appointment? It came by text but six days before the appointment day, much earlier than with the first vaccination. It also came for my wife on the same day and we were vaccinated together even though the appointments were separated by an hour.

Where was the Vaccination Centre? Kilanerin Centre – Eircode Y25 P954 – just outside Gorey Co. Wexford. This was a much-improved location for us as the first time we had to drive to Greystones almost 90 kilometres away.

Experience on the day?

Parking The location is well signposted from the moment you come off the N11 at junction 22 Gorey. Parking is provided was good with plenty of room. Do not drive to the centre, unless you have mobility issues. Use the overflow car park which you encounter first which is 50 metres away from the centre. The spaces around the centre itself were full. There is a cafe open in the complex.

The Jab – No queue and walked in, registered and had to show proof of identity and answered questions asked. The nurse asked further questions, sought permission to give the vaccine and it was over and done in minutes.

Any reaction to Vaccination? My wife experienced no side effects at all and twenty fours hours later is still feeling good. I felt the injection and immediately my arm started to throb and was tender to touch. I took two Paractemol tablets that evening, as advised at the centre and two more this morning. I feel fine and don’t expect to need further medication.

So fully vaccinated means safe? No, not all. No vaccine is guarenteed to keep you 100% safe againts the virus and this second vaccination won’t be fully operative for a fortnight so we all must keep our guard up.

Please attend for your second vaccination if the vaccine you have been given requires it. If you encounter the Covid Delta variant with just the one vaccination you will certainly not have a 63.09% chance of resisting it.

I attach a link to a Financial Times article that asks How effective are coronavirus vaccines against Delta variant? An interesting read if you have the time. Real-world studies show Pfizer and AstraZeneca still offer strong protection against severe disease.

Music that lifts your soul

I stumbled across this musician Pat Coldrick and his wonderful guitar playing and arrangment of this song “CityJam” when I was listening to RTE1’s lunchtime noon to one o’clock slots. Play and slip away. It reminds me of Mason William’s “Classical Gas” in the way it shifts through the gears, the phases of the song but I’ll be honest with you, this is my favourite! Enjoy and let me know if it lifts your spirits they way it does mine.

Chasing down a vaccination? Tips

Are you anxiously waiting for your vaccination? I am and I have some useful information about how to find out where you are in the rollout and how you can or cannot get a vaccination. In my case I have had the first vaccination of AstraZeneca (AZ) eight weeks ago and was hoping to find out when I might get the second.

I started my hunt after I read that pharmacies who were dispensing vaccinations were forced to throw some vaccinations away because of a number of no-show persons. As the vaccines come in a single bottle that holds five or seven vaccinations once the bottle has been opened the pharmacist needs to use all its contents within a set period of time. I searched on the HSE site for the list of pharmacists who are dispensing the vaccines – click here for list. You can search by county

I decided to ring a few in Wexford and volunteer that I could be with them in twenty minutes whenever they called. I found that some of the smaller chemists on the list have not been given a supply of the vaccines to dispense. The larger ones like Boots had the Janssen vaccine but were not allowed to register me for it. Try your GP I was told so I did. No, we have stopped vaccinating some weeks ago. If you got your first at a vaccination centre then you must ring the HSE, here is the number 1850 24 1850.

Before I rang the HSE I loggined into my HSE account that I’d created when I registered for my first jab

and found that my status had changed for the better. I’d moved on from the Awaiting Appointment Two to Appointment Two Scheduled.

I then rang the HSE helpline 1850 24 1850 and got through to a nice customer service person who was able to give me my second vaccination day, date and location. I put her own to my wife and after a few security/ permission questions she was told hers. We are at the same vaccination centre next Thursday morning and its not ninty kilometres away either.

The moral of this story is to check your HSE account first and see if you have been moved on to the Vaccination Scheduled stage. If so you will be notified by text about two days before the appointment. If you can’t wait and want to know sooner please ring the HSE on 1850 24 1850 and they should be able to tell you.