We have had around four hundred new cases of the Corona Virus in Victoria each day this week. This compares with the two or three new cases that we were having each day just a couple of months ago. As a result, not only are we, in Melbourne, back to being locked down at home again, but from today we are required to wear masks whenever we leave home or face a $200 fine. The police, with the help of the army, are seriously enforcing this.
Each morning, we have a discussion about a couple of plans for the day. The first is about what we will eat for dinner. That determines what we have to get out of the freezer. The second is about what we will do during the day. Inevitably, we silently toss a few ideas around and then conclude that we will just have another day at home. We can’t go out anyway, but it is always nice to fantasise about choices.
We have been working hard to try and find things to do to fill in our time. Jill has been busy sewing masks and working on her large jigsaw puzzle. We now have a number of masks for wearing on the few occasions that we leave the house to go to the supermarket.
During the week, we both read, and listened to, Mary Trump’s book about her Uncle Donald. By the end of the book one almost feels sorry for Donald Trump. The only person that I can think of who is less sensitive, more self centred and egotistical than him is his father! He hardly contributed anything positive to his son. Apart from the gossip about Trump and his family, the book seems to me to give a reasonable insight into Donald’s character and through the eye of his niece, a qualified clinical psychologist.
This week, I have spent a lot of time re-editing and sorting some of my photos. I have 68,000 of them on my computer , so I have plenty to do. I spent most of this week revising and updating the Australian images and galleries that I have in my public photo gallery site on Smugmug. You can see them here: https://brucewilson.smugmug.com/Australia.
I have been trying to get some better photos of the birds in the Camellia bush outside my study window. The flowers must now be right at their peak as the bush has been very popular with both the Rainbow Lorikeets and the Noisy Miners. Every time that I look up from my complete screen I can see bird movement out the window,. I have sat with my camera at the ready for a couple of days and I finally managed to get a couple of good shots through the glass od a Noisy Miner.
Many years ago, I had a lot of fun playing the Microsoft Flight Simulator game on my computer. I always thought that it was probably the best game ever made. I can’t get it to run on the Apple Mac that I am now using so I have had to find an alternative. So far, X-Plane 11 looks like a good option. At least, I have been able to get a plane off the ground and landed again. This may help me fill in a few hours!
The weather has been quite cool this week – mostly grey and wet although we did have a few sunny days over last weekend. Between wet periods, I was able to plant out some of the seedlings that we have raised and we are hoping for a good display of poppies in spring.
I have a bag of seed potatoes that I am waiting to sprout so that I can plant them in my vegetable garden. This is a process called ‘chitting’. Our veggie patch is rather full so I bought a few large pots and some potting mix in which to plant some extra spuds. I think I spent about $90 to be able to grow about $15 worth of potatoes. Never mind, I can use all this extra equipment for a few more years as well.
We have a few little pots of violas on our patio and they do very well in brightening up the wall outside our kitchen window. Jill has also planted some sweet pea seeds in anther large pot and the plants have now grown quite tall. I guess that we will get some flowers on them later in spring.
I get very envious of friends in other states who are now able to travel and live something of a normal life. Our Melbourne granddaughters are back at home school for a few more weeks but in Perth, David has been able to introduce young Orin to bushwalking They had a day out in the Perth Hills and walked a few kilometres to a waterfall. I guess that one day all this will be over although I did hear an epidemiologist say this morning, that it might take up to two years before our interstate borders are able to fully open again.
I joked in my previous blog post that I was having a Covid test every day by tasting and sniffing a glass of red wine. On Tuesday, I had a real test. I don’t have any symptoms or problems, but tomorrow I am going into hospital for a day procedure (Gastroscopy) and part of the hospital’s protocol is to ensure that all of their patients are clear of the virus. It was simple enough, I just had to drive into a drive-though testing location that they had set up, have my nose and throat swabbed and then isolate at home (more of not going anywhere) before I am admitted tomorrow morning. I got the test results (Negative) texted to my phone this morning and that was no surprise. So, you can really rely on a good glass of red wine to know that you are healthy.
