Boosted

[davidgillon]

I had my Covid booster booked for 7:25PM this evening, so popped out of the house at 7PM, to find my neighbour had parked on my drive, blocking me in.

Cue panic.

So I had to go bang on his door, fortunately he was in, and apologetic - he'd moved his van to let his wife get her car out and not moved it back.

And because it's only a five minute drive to my GP's surgery I was still there at 7:11PM and had to sit around in the car for five minutes.

I rolled in and the process was much the same as before*, though if you'd had AZ first two times you were getting Pfizer this time for the optimal combination. And there was the added bonus that I got asked if I wanted the flu jab as well. Which was weird as when I spoke to the surgery about the flu jab on Monday and asked if I could have it with my booster they offered me a slot on Saturday morning instead. Get it done now, or make an extra journey on Saturday? Tough call, not.

There was one slight misunderstanding with the volunteer  who was convinced that if I said I'm 58 that meant she should tick the 'over 65' box on her form. We eventually worked out that every time I said 58, she heard 68. I really don't think I look remotely 68! Not even with a mask on!

And so I got both jabs done at once by a lovely Irish nurse, and both in the same arm, which is probably going to add up to one very sore arm in the morning. I was pretty much the last patient of their day, so I was chatting with her and one or two of the other staff  while I waited the 15 minutes you're supposed to wait. I asked how many patients they get through in a day, and she said on a 12 hour shift like today it would probably be around a thousand people, they did 1100 on one last week, and she'd probably have done about 100 people herself. Which considering it's not one of the humongous walk-in clinics isn't bad.

They were also pleased that the walk-in who'd turned up at the same time as me (even though it's more a booked clinic than a walk-in one) meant they'd used up the last dose in the vial and absolutely nothing was going to waste.

* Despite the NHS email confirming my booking insisting that you have to take your booking reference number along I was never asked for it. Colour me unsurprized.