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    |   My first COVID vaccination, Wednesday December 16 2020    |
    |   at the RiverLodge Health Centre, Lewes.                   |
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    My appointment for my first COVID vaccination was at 12.25 at the
    RiverLodge Health Centre, a building that was originally a playcentre
    for children and later a centre for old folk. I arrived at 12.05
    to see a marquee erected outside it and a queue of about fifty or
    sixty old people outside it, some in wheel chairs, some on zimmer
    frames, some sitting on a low peripheral wall, snaking out of the
    tent and round two sides of a neighbouring building. A young lady
    in a gilet jaune gave me a brochure about COVID and asked whether
    I had an appointment. On hearing that I had she pointed out the queue
    apologetically and waved me to stand at the end. It was a cold blustery
    day, thankfully not raining at that point, and the marquee was flapping.
    One or two of the queue I recognized as neighbours. They explained
    that the appointment system had broken down, that it was likely we had
    many hours to wait, and that there was nothing we could do about it.
    Apparently the phials of vaccine had to be handled extremely gingerly,
    and though detailed plans and regulations had been formulated, the weather
    and reality had contrived to nullify them. Hot water bottles, bottles of
    water, rugs and silvery anti-hypothermia wraps were dispensed to those
    in wheel chairs. I shared a bar of chocolate with a lady I recognized
    from our village, who used to play bowls. The gilets jaunes were all
    young and very apologetic about the omnishambles. Some folk remarked
    that even if the COVID did not get them, pneumonia brought on by waiting
    for the vaccination in the biting wind would do for them just as surely.
    
    On every level this was a very English occasion. I must have been the youngest
    there. There were hunched figures in wheelchairs being pushed by a relative,
    some old ladies on the borders of dementia shouting obscenities, but mostly
    the queue was patient and resigned. A man escorting a lady nearby reported
    that his son's bicycle had picked up a puncture in Barcombe. He departed to
    deal with that crisis. An hour later he returned; the queue had hardly moved.
    Occasionally journalists with cameras arrived, took pictures and departed.
    When rain began to threaten, the head of the queue was moved from the marquee
    to the building of the centre itself. It was my turn to enter it, two hours
    after I had first arrived, just as the first drops fell. Inside I found two
    giggling young ladies, screened off within the reception desk, discussing my
    email address. I was given two documents, one a consent form for the initial
    vaccination, the other a ticket for the second, to take place on January 6-th.
    The vaccination itself was done by a young doctor very efficiently. He had a
    formal litany of questions to ask me, which we both recognized as a dull but
    necessary preamble. After the injection, which I hardly noticed amidst all
    that was going on, my vest was adorned with two stickers: one to say that I had
    been vaccinated, the other to mark the precise time, 14.09. I was then sent to
    wait fifteen minutes in the marquee, in case I should have an adverse reaction.
    It was now raining quite hard, and the marquee was as full as safely possible
    with those queueing, but the remainder of the queue still snaked round two sides
    of the neighbouring building. Some in the queue were sheltering under umbrellas.
    From the safety of the marquee I rang for a taxi, which arrived fifteen minutes
    later.
    
    Trite though it is, I cannot help comparing this experience to what I imagine war
    to be like. Long periods of boredom. A complete shambles left in the hands of
    young and inexperienced persons. Patience and stoic good humour. A sturdy belief
    in muddling through. Very English. Lessons will no doubt be learned.
    
    I am grateful to have been vaccinated.

    06/01/2021

    My second vaccination. Lessons had been learned. All over in twenty five minutes,
    no waiting out of doors. Morale high. Also, kindly treatment for dotty oldies
    who turned up in the wrong place with no papers. Instead of being told to get in
    the queue to register in the next building, they were settled in a chair in the
    warm while a young person was despatched to fetch the papers for them. What a
    difference.