I was tested for Covid today. I missed yoga, I missed meditation, I started wfh early so as to leave the house before eleven in the morning. D and I had requested to be tested, as part of an industry screening process to allow restaurant employees to return back to work. Our test takes place at Health City, the hospital in East End. D and I enter the new facility with apprehension, there are a lot of people around, and we haven’t seen people in a while. The transition back into the world after 75 days feels awkward at best.
The long probe that is prortuded up both nostrils tickles the back of my head, and I feel like I desperately need to sneeze, until it’s over, and then I no longer need to sneeze. As if the whole sensation was an unpleasant tease. D comes out, tears streaming down his face. “You ok?” I ask. “It made my eyes water” he says.
We leave without ceremony, and will be contacted tomorrow with the results, a nurse tells us.
Next up, is the family orthodontist visit. We have to wait in the car outside the dentists, until I receive a text saying the interior is sanitized, and we may enter. The four of us go inside, wearing face masks, the only customers at this time slot, and enjoy the undivided attention and privacy. This must be how celebrity families get dental treatment I think. The dentists attend to our teeth, clad in coats, masks, shields, gloves, all of us being checked and polished at the same time. Everyone is done in under an hour, a new record.
We swing by the pharmacy, and collect a package delivered to the car. I have purchased an infrared thermometer to point and shoot employees and customers on Saturday.
B has requested a MasterClass from D to make proper cocktails, and make them really well. We stop at Chisholm’s Store and our masked men go inside empty handed, to return ten minutes later with brown paper bags of concealed bottles. “What’s the first cocktail on the course?” I ask. “Rum Punch” The most classic Caribbean cocktail there is. D pulls out his bottle of Havana Club Anejo 7 year old Cuban rum, mixes juices of mango, pineapple and orange, B squeezes several fresh limes, and takes a bottle of bitters. D then quotes one of the oldest recipes, in the form of an easily memorisable rhyme – that apparently appeared in the New York Times in 1908 – “Two [measures] of sour, one and a half of sweet, three of strong and four of weak”. D oversees B mix and squeeze and pour and taste. I am presented with the final product, poured over a full glass of ice, garnished with a fat lime and a dusting of nutmeg. It’s not too sweet, not too sour, packs a punch, but still easy drinking. This cocktail says take me to the hammock, savour the flavour, sip me slowly as the sun goes down. I would, but we were still outside Chisholms Store when the sun set today, and now it is dark, but for the moon. That’s what happens when you leave lockdown behind, you miss the best part of the day.
B’s friend comes over to assess the newly acquired skills. The lads sit outside on the deck, and enjoy that curfew is now extended until 10pm. After his friend has left, B gives me a huge hug goodnight, tells me he loves me loads. I savour the moment the rum punch has given us.
🍹
