This Lockdown Continues

I wrote my last blog post about three weeks ago. Not a lot has happened since then but I thought it was worth posting another blog as part of the history of this period of lockdown. Sometime in the future I,
or maybe others, will then have a more complete record of this time in our lives.

On the last weekend in September, we were due to have an announcement from the state government about the future of our lockdown. By then our movement had been restricted for six weeks. Expecting a considerable relaxation of the lockdown regulations, we ordered another nice home delivered celebratory meal from Providoor.com.au and thought we were going to enjoy some increased freedoms. Well, the virus numbers were still too high for that to happen and the reduction in restrictions was very minor. I am very pleased that more people are now are able to go back to work. The economy, sure as hell, needs to be opened. As far as we, personally,  are concerned nothing much has changed. The curfew was removed and we can now leave home for three hours of relaxation per day rather than two. This means we can go for a walk in the park at midnight and we can also go to the laundromat. Big Deal!

We are expecting another review on October 19 but we are not very confident of much of a change. The government has set a very severe threshold for the restrictions to be reduced. There has to be a rolling average (over a two week period) of less than five new virus cases per day. After eight weeks, we are still only down to around 10. It seems that this target is going to be impossible to achieve. Victorians are frustrated and running out of patience and I can’t believe that they will respect these very severe lockdown provisions for much longer. The State of Emergency in Victoria has just been extended to November 8.

Frustrating as it is, Australia is doing much better than most countries around the world. In April, I started observing our standing in the world’s rankings of number of virus cases. At that time we were ranked fiftieth in the world. Forty nine countries had more cases of the virus than Australia. This morning, I see that we are now ranked 79th. Using the measure of number of cases per million of population, we have les incidence of the virus than 139 other countries.

Retail stores and services businesses are still not open. The most common thing that people say when I meet them is “I can’t wait for the barber / hairdresser to open” Everyone is screaming out for a haircut. My hair was certainly getting a bit shaggy and I found some old hair clippers in the bathroom cabinet and Jill gave me a ‘zoom- zoom’ once over. I’ve had haircuts like this around the world so it wasn’t too much to have Jill cut my hair and make me look respectable again. I offered to reciprocate but she declined immediately.

This lockdown has now gone on for so long that some of the seeds we planted in the early days have now burst into flower. We pick a good bunch of Sweet Peas each day and our Flanders Poppies have flowers on them as well.

We began our daylight saving time (summer time) last weekend and it’s very nice to have an extra hour of daylight in the evenings. I wasn’t really sure whether I really wanted daylight saving to start this year. It’s been a miserable enough year as it is, without adding any more time to it – even an hour.

We have found that we are now living our lives to a fairly predictable routine. After waking, I lie in bed and read the news on my iPad. I especially look for what stupid things Donald Trump has said or done since yesterday.  Then it’s up for a shower and breakfast. I spend an hour or so on my computer doing emails and then have time in the garden to find any weeds and see what’s new. By then it’s lunchtime and after that on most days I will head down to the park for a walk. The weather has been nice enough on a few days to take a picnic lunch to the local park. Afternoons are for working on my computer or calling friends. In the late afternoon, it’s time to get dinner and watch a couple of videos. By then it’s become boring so I go to bed. I’m sleeping more than ever during this lockdown. On Monday and Wednesday mornings I go to the gym for half an hour and on Thursday mornings I have a routine zoom session with my Probus club. This routine goes on for week after week but one day I hope I can change it by getting out some more.

Jill has done a super job in finishing another 1000 piece jigsaw of a village market.

The only interruption we had to our routine was the other night when we must’ve had a bit of a power surge. Our lights flickered on and off and the next morning I found that all of my Wi-Fi connections had been disconnected. Everything still works, but it was a pain in the proverbial to have to reset everything that I have connected to my Wi-Fi — printers, weather station, lights and doorbell.

I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that Donald Trump had contracted the virus. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, but for him I’m prepared to make an exception. He seems to ignore all medical advice and his infection protocols are simply non-existent. He deserved what he got.

I’ll let you know how our restrictions stand next weekend after they are reviewed. I did hear a federal government minister announce today that without a vaccine, Australians will probably not be allowed to travel to Europe or the USA until 2022. There goes some more of my travel plans. I think I will just have to be happy with local travel although I expect it to be very heavily booked with everyone else doing the same thing.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on some more ‘Dad Jokes’