Current COVID situation

Social restrictions have eased recently in Canberra, where there has been no COVID cases for weeks now. Canberra feels like a safe place to be and we all need to maintain social distancing practices so it stays that way. But our state to the south hasn’t fared so well.

As I write this in early July, more than 300,000 people from “hot spot” areas in Melbourne’s northern and western suburbs are in lockdown again. The outbreaks began in Melbourne’s flawed hotel quarantine system and spread rapidly. Now to add to the worry, 3000 people across 9 public housing towers have just gone into a hard lockdown due to a growing number of cases in the buildings. Because of all this, the NSW/Victoria border will shut from midnight tonight, for the first time since the Spanish Flu outbreak 100 years ago.

Clothes maketh the man pre-teen

In personal news, George wanted some new clothes for school, not long after school had gone back after isolation. “I want to look fresh, Mum” he said. So I found myself in a queue to get into the Nike store and Tommy Hilfiger at the Canberra Outlet Centre.

A friend who went to the same high school that George now goes to said, “Tommy Hilfiger? Is that what the kids are wearing?” Well, I don’t know what the kids are wearing but it’s what George is wearing. “No more clothes from Big W, Mum. Never again.” he told me. Maybe a school with no school uniform is going to work out to be more expensive than I thought.

Days of cake and roses

I had a lovely friend over for afternoon tea, she brought lemon cake and yellow roses and we had a lovely in-person chat about work, thwarted 2020 plans and alternative plans.

My brother-in-law and his lovely new wife visited from Sydney. We had our first dinner out since George’s birthday in March. It was at a club that normally is a sea of tables, but is now limited to 20 people in each area of the venue. We were greeted at the door and instructed to use the hand sanitiser at the sign-in desk.

More shopping

We went back to IKEA where we normally sit down in the cafe and have some meatballs. But after hearing we had to register for a 30 minute wait to sit down, we opted for takeaway. We were allowed to stand in the cafeteria at a table for exactly 5 minutes. George ate his meatballs out of a takeaway coffee cup and I drank my takeaway coffee and then we shopped.

It’s great to see businesses adapting so well to a new safe way of operating.

End of Term 2, 2020

“I’m already halfway through Year 7” George said proudly at the end of Term last Friday. The Year 7 semester awards were streamed live on You Tube. The Year co-ordinator acknowledged that it hasn’t been easy for them, starting a new stage in their school career, a new school, then 7 weeks later having to stay home for nearly two months before coming back again. I can’t even imagine how parents (and everyone else) in the Melbourne towers must feel about the fact that they/their children are locked in again in small apartments with no balcony.

I’m very proud of George and how he’s rolled with things this year. His Junior Performing Arts class did a performance at the awards and George played the Bongos. Bless his teacher for finding him a role on stage that didn’t involve singing, acting, acrobatics or playing the clarinet. Despite his talents in all of the above, George has confessed he doesn’t want to actually perform anything and will be dropping his performing arts class next Semester. He’s happy to do all of the above around the house. Well, apart from the Clarinet.

We’ve had some Winter walks…

And some guinea pig dates now that the boys Pumpkin and Peanut have been de-sexed.

The Winter flowers in our townhouse complex are in bloom, the fragrance of yellow and white jonquils on the breeze.

And no matter what is going on in the world, the sky just does its own amazing thing day after day…thank goodness for the sky.

Bye Bye first half of 2020. I wonder what’s next?