I’d forgotten what it was like to have a cold.
That was one of the plus sides of being locked up for months – the absence of picked-up bugs.
But it had to end – and for anyone with school-aged kids, that end has come crashing in as they return to class and mix with their fellow snotty-nosed pals, resulting in a tsunami of running noses and chesty coughs.
The sniffing children themselves seem fine – it’s the parents (and no doubt soon grandparents, friends and associates) that are knocked for six.
Every mum or dad I’ve spoken to is a wee bit under the weather, combined with the glaikit glass-eyed look of someone learning once more to get out the house with packed lunch, completed homework and teeth brushed before the bell.
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No one likes being ill but now, there’s an added sense of panic at the mildest of symptoms.
“Oh no… here we go… what is this groggy, sluggish feeling?” I thought after week one of school.
“I’d best do the responsible thing and keep them off. Self-isolate. Lock the doors. Be safe.”
And then I got control of my senses and remembered that a blocked nose is not and never has been, a symptom of coronavirus.
Of course we all have to be mindful of actual symptoms but we also have to dose up on common sense and get on with things because it was only a blinking cold.
One friend kept her son off school in Edinburgh because he coughed a bit in his sleep (not the continuous cough we’re warned of, more of a tickle) and had a runny nose, picked up – you guessed it – from other kids now he’s back in the mix.
She decided to keep him off for the day, not because she thought for a moment it was Covid, but she was working from home anyway and it would give him a chill day with kids’ medicine and cartoons.
By teatime he was back to normal.
But the school insisted – because he’d been off – that he take a test.
At first, it looked like the closest test centre being offered up was here in Dundee (she’d have to take a day off work to drive there and back with him then wait for the results) but then she found one on the outskirts of Edinburgh and after taking an age to apply online, she was then told there were no places left.
She’s unsure what to do next – keep him off in isolation because he sneezed twice?
Guess what, I bet she wanted to shout, he has a cold. A blinking common cold. He sniffed three times and blew his nose once.
It’s normal, it’s natural, it’s necessary. So can we all please, respectfully, get a wee bit of a grip?
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