Day 6 - Still hunkering, Oosterland

"I understand now why people can die of Covid," I say in the small gap between an intense coughing spell. Johan laughs, one of those chuckles he delivers when he suspects I'm exaggerating again. But I don't think I'm going to die, at least not yet. It's just that this cough is relentless, starting with a tiny tickle in the throat that grows and grows until there's no stopping the cascade of hacking coughs, deep in the chest, spinning out of control until you feel like you can't get your breath any longer. I have a fairly robust immune system and I know how to mentally calm the anxiety that goes along with such intense physical trauma. I resist and resist, let-go and let-go -- and eventually it subsides and I can lean back and relax again, try to sleep. A mantra I learned during a meditation retreat -- Recognize, Relax (let go), Smile, Rest -- helps enormously with this current challenge to my health.

Riet, our Vrienden op de Fiets host, is an angel in human disguise. She rings mid-morning and asks if we'd like some hot food delivered for lunch. The body sort of melts with gratitude. Yes please! The small apartment has a kitchenette but no cooking facilities so it's either survive on bread and cheese or cycle into Den Oever to get a hot meal. Right on noon she knocks on the door and calls out that she'll leave the food on the table just outside our door. Two bowls of hot and hearty vegetable soup and a pot of rice casserole. We happily consume the soup for lunch and wrap up the casserole to keep warm until dinner time.

Our second Covid tests this morning deliver the same results as yesterday: Sui positive, Johan negative. Still, his 'flu is pretty bad and we both hang out in bed for the bulk of the day.

Sick Sui on the left, Sick but no Covid Johan on the right.

Late in the afternoon, just as the weather is turning a darker grey, we don our rain gear and go for a walk. Be good to get some fresh air. The farmhouse is on the edge of a tiny village, Oosterland, a km west of Den Oever.

The Poortmann family farmhouse in the background. Our accommodation is in the squat red-roofed building on the right.

Oosterland from atop the dike.

After wandering through the few streets that surround an imposing church, we hike up the dike to see the vast shallow Wadden Zee. It's raining lightly and the distant horizon is a thin line between the heavy sky and the grey morass of the wild sea.

On the walk back, two lugubrious-looking donkeys mimic how we feel.

We spend another quiet evening, reading and internetting. Near 8 o'clock our guardian angel is on the phone again: she made an apple cake this afternoon. Would we like a couple of slices? It's still warm. Again, the body melts.

Well-cared-for but still sick Sui.