Travel News editor Kate Nathan was lucky enough to get vaxxed on Day One of the roll-out.
I left home at 11h30 to go get vaccinated with the old folks. It was day one of the vaccination programme for members of the public over 60.
So I joined the queue of over-60s slowly moving into the parking garage, (The driving! The parking!) and I soon found myself batched up with 14 other over-60s. I had somehow gotten grouped with the Olympic Complaining Team.
These old folks (several of them my own age) complained loudly about everything - how far it was to walk, how cold they were, how hot they were.
The Olympic Complaining Team were professionals, and they had ways of complaining that are more subtle than just complaining.
So they asked every passing person who happened to be wearing navy blue: “How long will it take?”
Then they asked the next passing person (a cleaner), "Why is it taking so long?"
The Team members took turns to wander around the place, mostly in the wrong direction, looking lost, and being in the wrong place at the right time.
There was still some loud complaining in the very last hall of waiting, where we sat for about 40 minutes right in front of the cubicles where the jabbing was taking place. “We’ve been here since 12 o’clock you know”. “Will we have to wait much longer?”
Once in the cubicle, the hurry was over. The Olympians took ages to take off all their jackets and scarves and coats and shawls, and then got up to hang them neatly on the back of their chair. Then they settled down comfortably into their chairs and tried to engage the extremely patient nurses in endless chit-chat – “Now, what is this vaccination?” "I dont want the Pfizer, I want the other one" “Will they let me into Mauritius with this vaccination?” "Why did we have to wait so long?" "It's very disorganised, you know" "Will it make me sick, nurse?" "I want to see the manager"
After we got jabbed in the cubicles, the batch of 15 was moved along into another sort of holding pen for 15 minutes, to be observed, just to make sure we didn’t faint or keel over dead. I was back with the members of the Olympic Complaining Team, and I started wishing I had keeled over dead. The last thing I heard as I left was an octogenarian granny scolding one of the attendants: “Why is there no smoking room, young man?”
