Trying to book my second shot has been incredibly frustrating.

The provincial online booking portal initially seemed to be fairly well managed, barring the curious notion that everyone has a most up-to-date browser. Vaccine delivery was relatively slow; so we were cohorted by age, starting with the frailest of the elderly. As Flo gave me a new computer for my birthday last year, I had no trouble booking my first shot when my age-group came up, i.e. back at the beginning of April. The shortage of vaccines meant, though, that the emphasis was on getting as many people as possible at least one shot; so second shots were vastly delayed. My second appointment was prebooked for the 24th of July,

However, once the vaccines started rolling in regularly, things changed. With the threat of the Delta variant, it became important to move up the timing of second shots; so the Premier kept announcing larger and larger cohorts of people eligible to rebook for an earlier date. As a result, when I went on line, there could be over a hundred thousand people ahead of me in the booking queue, meaning a wait of an hour or so just to input my data. Then, when I'd finally get into the system, there'd be no slots in any of the mass clinics in Toronto. Instead, I'd be told that the nearest clinics I could book at were in Brampton.

Let's just say that Brampton is not near downtown Toronto. Not even remotely. It's nearly thirty miles away. And I don't have a car. I might as well have been told I could book my vaccination for the far side of the moon.

After trying several times, I just gave up for a few days, and decided that I'd have to stick with the prebooked date, even if it did mean waiting for a month. However, early Wednesday morning I decided to try one more time. And lo and behold! up popped the ScotiaBank Arena, with slots available for the coming Sunday, i.e. today. It's a big sports arena down near the lake, not far from the convention centre where I got my first shot. This puzzled me: I had no memory of there ever being a second mass clinic downtown.

Still, I wasn't about to cavil. I quickly booked a slot.

Only when I was reading the paper over breakfast did I learn that this was, in fact, a one-day clinic set up as a special event. "Toronto Vaccine Day" they're calling it. They hope to vaccinate 25,000 people today. When I was there, they announced that they'd just got over 17,000 people jabbed already; and that was only at five p.m.

Edited to add: at the close of the clinic, they'd actually administered 26,771 doses.

What is more, the TTC was offering free rides down to the arena for everyone with a confirmed time slot, and free rides home for everyone with their vaccination certificate!

It was all very well organized. From which I conclude that our much unloved Premier had nothing whatever to do with it.

So I was there. I even have a little souvenir "towel" to prove it. Also (and rather more important) I got my second shot.

:D