Thought for the day. The luckiest person in the world right now must be the person who has had coronavirus Covid-19 – and is already better. 

I read on the BBC – an account of a British man who caught it on the Italian ski slopes weeks ago. His comments went like this – ‘Yeah, I had coronavirus. It was like the flu, but to be honest, I’ve had worse flu than this.’

Can you imagine? It’s got to be the equivalent of the first person who’s had chicken pox in class and is back at school while everyone else starts scratching. At the same time, I don’t know if his story has been downplayed into high-brow BBC propaganda, or whether he is a proper, mustn’t-grumble, we did the Blitz and came out heads held high. Coronavirus-shmirus.

Still, if anyone is going to be bored by the news headlines right now, it’s got to be this guy. Is he betting on the stock market in ways which are making the rest of the world reach for a face mask? I wonder if he does a spot of base-jumping before breakfast, rock-climbing after lunch… without a harness. Since he’s the guy who got the virus first. And he’s ok now. And he had flu before worse than this.

Meanwhile, we’re supposed to go on a walking tour of Speightstown today. I booked it over a week ago. We did this company’s walking tour before – the Bridgetown walking tour when we were last here in 2018. It was really good. I remembered the guide saying they had a Speightstown story too.

We’ve all woken up heavy-hearted though. It isn’t exactly high-octane, but none of us want to do the tour. Jack’s got a bit of a dry cough this morning, my mum a slight stuffy nose, me the slightest sore throat. Are we really poorly – or are we just reading and listening to the news too much? Is there a diagnosis for coronavirus psycho-somasis? A test kit? Accompanying sugar pills? Cause if there’s a fake diagnosis, I’m definitely positive.

In the meantime, Barbados doesn’t have any confirmed cases of Covid-19 – yet. I caught a glimpse at their national newspaper, The Nation, a few days ago. The headline reported that test kits were being imported to the island. In other words, if you have it now, don’t worry about it. I think for us travellers, this might be a good thing. 

I had the flu two years ago. It was the first time I had the flu where I couldn’t breathe properly. Still, I didn’t consider then it was pneumonia flu. Phew.

It’s definitely time to get the raw garlic out again. Sip hot fluids every fifteen minutes or so. And call the guy from the article. He had worse flu before this one. Not a big deal for him. He’ll know what to do. Make a quick call to his stockbroker. Put a bet on the horses. In the meantime, the rest of us can start scratching.