Day 12
Friday 20th March
Darkness. Silence. No morning plane passing overhead.
Overwhelming sadness. Amotivated. Body feels leaden.
But there is an affectionate cat gently asking me to rise.
I make the effort. Morning routine. Coffee, cat soup, read the news, shower and dress and make the bed. Have keto toast with vegemite.
P on the daily phone call says he was pleased with last night. Much talking about awfulness. Post mortem of Fringe season. A triumph.
But my ensuing day is fiddle faddle aimlessly in a general state of agitation. I chat to step-daughter C in Maryland. Oh, how we loved her video of A, her son and B’s grandson, walking on their deck with a phone having an imaginary conversation. What was a classic, gorgeous mimic of how adults behave these days, pacing while talking on their phones.
C has deep anxieties about the way the US is reacting to Corona, noting that the kids’ grandparents are totally defiant about social distancing, continuing to go to their church activities. And the custodial kids are shunting to and fro from a mother who was in the workforce and childcare, which is still functioning. And how A has woken with a fever and is sick and miserable. She sends a selfie of them, poor little toddler hunched into his mum. I recall such times when my bubs were sick.
B sits in his chair reading the horrors flooding in from the world. I don't know how he does it.
My phone keeps me up to date with it. No escape.
I start taking apart a big storage drawer just because it is there and because it has been annoying me for ages.
I make an almighty mess.
Get B to help me take down the bathroom shower curtain and wash it. Another thing I’ve been meaning to do for ages.
Freeze some milk.
Worry about the food supply. The fridge looks unusually empty.
S has taken my car because his has broken down and he has to have a nose scan for a persistent problem. He sends pix of the Sports Med corona temp-taking precautions etc. Smiling nurse holding out a temp thing.
I send money for him to buy a laptop for R1 as she starts homeschooling at “Hackney Heights”. She has only ever had a phone and that is no good for schoolwork.
Have blackberries and yoghurt and vegemite crackers for lunch. Make jelly.
Ring an old friend to check on her world. She is just going along as usual, Shopping and looking after failing hubs.
Then make a cup of tea and go to the desk to write a piece for Barefoot.
It is going fine until S brings the car back. I collect the keys and am sterilising them when I think to peek out the gate and see where he had left the car. Oh, no. It is in the neighbour’s parking permit spot. The only permit place in the street. Oh, no. The car will have to be moved. S has gone. I have actually been stressing out about the car and how long I would leave it to sanitise it before we used it. 24 hours at least. And now I have to get into it immediately. I go out with Glen 20 and start spraying in it when the neighbour comes to her gate and starts calling out that her husband would be wanting to park there. I know. I know. I stop and explain how Sam had borrowed the car and I am just cleaning to move it. She starts repeating herself angrily. I am incredulous. Have you not heard a word I just said, I ask. She repeats her recrimination. I repeat that I am just trying to spray out the car. She then says she could not hear me but her husband would be coming and wanting to park there. I am totally freaked out. Against my better judgement, I get into the car and backed it into the next parking space trying not to breathe. And then I had a total panic attack. My cocoon was broken. I was out of the house and in a dangerous zone. I melt down, I am a total mess. And my resentment of my neighbour is monumental. I am bewildered by her lack of patience, especially since I note that the husband does not come home for hours. She could have let me finished spraying. Bruce tries to reassure me but I am utterly discombobulated by this popping of my safety bubble. I am pretty upset with S, too. What was he thinking parking there? He wasn’t thinking.
After sending him a series of angry texts, I phone and tell him not to be too upset. I was overreacting and hysterical We all need him to be strong. He has responsibilities.
I take myself off for a long hot shower.
Jim drops off the next pile of painting pix and calls on the phone to explain them.
I try to get into the swing but can't. I nag for a drink. Finally, I get my frazzled way.
It helps.
Tell M all about it on second drink.
Chicken dinner, turnips and red cabbage, Jelly and yoghurt.
House of Cards on TV.
Day 13
Saturday
21st March
It is pitch dark at 6am when I awaken. There is a crescent moon shining hopefully out the window. A proper “lucky moon”.
The cat comes in from the courtyard the moment he hears movement and twirls around my legs as I have a pee. Why do cats do that?
I don’t much want to get up but what else is there to do? Dexter is ravenous for his “cat soup” breakfast. He never eats the solids in it but laps up the soup with relish. I make coffee, not too strong, to ensure the supplies are eked out.
It is a still, lovely, hot, new day. I listen for the morning planes. None, of course. Dark and silent. Dexter cries loudly by the cat door. Asking for treats, it seems. This is a new behaviour. He seems to love having us around all the time and is usually close to one or both of us although he spends a lot of his nights on black-eyed vigil out in the courtyard. There are possums to watch and geckos to hunt.
I still feel soiled and traumatised by the episode with the car yesterday. I feel I am starting the whole isolation thing again. Anxiety level is heightened. No amount of reassurance can seem to wipe it away. I read an article on anxiety sent on a link from the Yale chancellor. He sent out a very impressive letter to all the Yale alumni, albeit there has still been no official cancellation/rescheduling of B’s 50th reunion event around which our now-cancelled US trip was planned.
When you feel anxious, here are steps you can take to put those feelings in perspective:
Information is useful—but too much information can be unhelpful.
Limit news intake to what is actually providing new information, and stick to reliable news sources. There’s no benefit to watching the same news over and over.
Take the necessary and recommended precautions, but don’t try to “innovate” new ones.
As with all dangers, the trick is to be ‘careful enough.’ When we try to ensure 100% safety, we get caught up in unhelpful behaviours.
Keep up daily routines, and make changes only when necessary. Maintaining regular schedules and routines is a good way to keep anxiety at bay and feel normal. Even if some changes need to be made, maintaining the overall routine is helpful.
Don’t completely isolate yourself from other people. Fear of contagion can cause some people to withdraw socially, but maintaining relationships and social support are good ways to combat anxiety. Even if you are in self-quarantine or mandatory quarantine, keep up social interaction using FaceTime/Skype, phone calls, or text messages.
Stay physically active. Be outdoors if you can. Maintaining physical activity and spending time in fresh air can help to keep anxiety down.
Limit screen time. Too much time on the phone or computer, on social media or websites, can lead to less activity and more anxiety.
The problem is motivation. I feel adrift and somehow able to fritter time as never before. Lack of deadline!
I just don’t want to do things right now.
I am literally killing time waiting to die.
Spend a lot of time thinking about other women, isolated women, old women, worried women…
Justifying why I am doing this instead of doing something frontline, but what? I am supposed to be doing this. I feel young but I am old. Dammit.
I make keto bread toast with cheese and tomatoes for us both. The full tummy lifts the spirits.
When P calls, we rant on for an hour and end up crying with laughter. Silly mirth. A tonic. Oh, yes.
Some actual reading online now. Vanity Fair features. Worth the subscription price.
Shower, dress, make bed. Load of washing. Get back to sorting the dresser drawer.
Lunch on blackberries and yoghurt. I can make a punnet of blackberries last for three days, if they are good and fresh when bought.
The orb-weaver in the courtyard, whose anchor lines I’ve accidentally broken several times forcing her to move her web, has spread her web across the far end of the courtyard and stayed in it into the daylight. She is very hungry. Not many insects around.
I stay away from her territory, although I am wanting to chore out there. Take a photo, tho. Always hard to photograph spiders with the cellphone.
I fuss around cleaning things. I clean the cat window and window sills.
When the wind comes up, the spider moves and I get into the corner of the courtyard to do a clearup. I am careful not to ruin the cat’s night jungle while at the same time organise stuff and get access to pots in which I may grow vegies.
Good physical activity. I need it. It feels good.
B makes early drinks.
Call M for usual catchup and talk for ages, making sure I do the old phone pacing thing to get the steps and exercise up.
Just as calls with P start my days, calls with M finish them. Comfortable bookends of friendship.
Woolies notifies that my delivery is on the way. It is duly dropped off by handsome young Sikh with very long beard.
No meat today but a goodly sized chicken and some nice veggies. More yoghurt and milk.
Marg has unfolding drama in Barossa with news of 18 American tourists quarantined with news of 10 testing positive to corona. Suddenly Marg’s secure community looks less secure.
B has chopped veggies while I sanitised and trotted the delivery items down the house. I then put them together with our carefully leftover chicken and make another fabulous Goan green curry thickened with almond flour.
And so to House of Cards. The series is dropping away a bit now and getting scrappy in the plotline but one is so grateful for the distraction.
When I waken in the night, I put audiobook on and Simon Reeve reads his book Step By Step and it is riveting…a journo in the Stan lands.
Sunday
It is pitch dark at 6am when I awaken. There is a crescent moon shining hopefully out the window. A proper “lucky moon”.
The cat comes in from the courtyard the moment he hears movement and twirls around my legs as I have a pee. Why do cats do that?
It is a still, lovely, hot, new day. I listen for the morning planes. None, of course. Dark and silent. Dexter cries loudly by the cat door. Asking for treats, it seems. This is a new behaviour. He seems to love having us around all the time and is usually close to one or both of us although he spends a lot of his nights on black-eyed vigil out in the courtyard. There are possums to watch and geckos to hunt.
I still feel soiled and traumatised by the episode with the car yesterday. I feel I am starting the whole isolation thing again. Anxiety level is heightened. No amount of reassurance can seem to wipe it away. I read an article on anxiety sent on a link from the Yale chancellor. He sent out a very impressive letter to all the Yale alumni, albeit there has still been no official cancellation/rescheduling of B’s 50th reunion event around which our now-cancelled US trip was planned.
When you feel anxious, here are steps you can take to put those feelings in perspective:
Information is useful—but too much information can be unhelpful.
Limit news intake to what is actually providing new information, and stick to reliable news sources. There’s no benefit to watching the same news over and over.
Take the necessary and recommended precautions, but don’t try to “innovate” new ones.
As with all dangers, the trick is to be ‘careful enough.’ When we try to ensure 100% safety, we get caught up in unhelpful behaviours.
Keep up daily routines, and make changes only when necessary. Maintaining regular schedules and routines is a good way to keep anxiety at bay and feel normal. Even if some changes need to be made, maintaining the overall routine is helpful.
Don’t completely isolate yourself from other people. Fear of contagion can cause some people to withdraw socially, but maintaining relationships and social support are good ways to combat anxiety. Even if you are in self-quarantine or mandatory quarantine, keep up social interaction using FaceTime/Skype, phone calls, or text messages.
Stay physically active. Be outdoors if you can. Maintaining physical activity and spending time in fresh air can help to keep anxiety down.
Limit screen time. Too much time on the phone or computer, on social media or websites, can lead to less activity and more anxiety.
The problem is motivation. I feel adrift and somehow able to fritter time as never before. Lack of deadline!
I just don’t want to do things right now.
I am literally killing time waiting to die.
Spend a lot of time thinking about other women, isolated women, old women, worried women…
Justifying why I am doing this instead of doing something frontline, but what? I am supposed to be doing this. I feel young but I am old. Dammit.
I make keto bread toast with cheese and tomatoes for us both. The full tummy lifts the spirits.
When P calls, we rant on for an hour and end up crying with laughter. Silly mirth. A tonic. Oh, yes.
Some actual reading online now. Vanity Fair features. Worth the subscription price.
Shower, dress, make bed. Load of washing. Get back to sorting the dresser drawer.
Lunch on blackberries and yoghurt. I can make a punnet of blackberries last for three days, if they are good and fresh when bought.
The orb-weaver in the courtyard, whose anchor lines I’ve accidentally broken several times forcing her to move her web, has spread her web across the far end of the courtyard and stayed in it into the daylight. She is very hungry. Not many insects around.
I stay away from her territory, although I am wanting to chore out there. Take a photo, tho. Always hard to photograph spiders with the cellphone.
I fuss around cleaning things. I clean the cat window and window sills.
When the wind comes up, the spider moves and I get into the corner of the courtyard to do a clearup. I am careful not to ruin the cat’s night jungle while at the same time organise stuff and get access to pots in which I may grow vegies.
Good physical activity. I need it. It feels good.
B makes early drinks.
Call M for usual catchup and talk for ages, making sure I do the old phone pacing thing to get the steps and exercise up.
Just as calls with P start my days, calls with M finish them. Comfortable bookends of friendship.
No meat today but a goodly sized chicken and some nice veggies. More yoghurt and milk.
Marg has unfolding drama in Barossa with news of 18 American tourists quarantined with news of 10 testing positive to corona. Suddenly Marg’s secure community looks less secure.
B has chopped veggies while I sanitised and trotted the delivery items down the house. I then put them together with our carefully leftover chicken and make another fabulous Goan green curry thickened with almond flour.
And so to House of Cards. The series is dropping away a bit now and getting scrappy in the plotline but one is so grateful for the distraction.
When I waken in the night, I put audiobook on and Simon Reeve reads his book Step By Step and it is riveting…a journo in the Stan lands.
Sunday
22nd March
Day 14
I roll into the morning listening to Simon Reeve reading his book on Audible and realise I am not feeling all that flash. Headachey and stuffy. Oh no.
Dexter gets very attentive and snuggly. Pushes in under the bedclothes and purrs snoozily for a long time - until my bladder is bursting, actually. One never wants to disturb a contented cat. Even Mohammed didn't do that. He cut the sleeve off his robe rather than waken the cat, or so the story goes, So who am I to make this sweet creature move. Oh, boy, am I keen to pee when, finally, he does get up!
Talk to P. I’ve left sanitiser and a book and his thumbdrives outside for him. He says he has found a lot of sanitiser in a tidyup yesterday. I am not short yet and I am sure supplies will open up. Everyone is keen to turn a buck. M tells me that with all the pure alcohol in the Barossa they are all out to make sanitiser quick smart.
I am supposed to do Sunday Arts radio with P doing postmortem of the Fringe….but the PM calls a corona press conference in the middle of the arts show and the critics don’t get on. Since I have no shows to review, I am not stressed.
Read a great article about the Royal family in The Atlantic,
Check out the corona community FB pages as they evolve. Everyone is being very neighbourly and outgoing. Telling stories about kind gestures, especially in supermarkets which have become volatile places, it seems.
Make bed, shower, still feeling not great. Bit throaty. That’s a worry. Try to convince myself its psychosomatic.
Madly do stuff. Scrub front cat door. I should have done it ages ago, Ugh. Bad Sa. When I go out to check his litter box there’s a nasty surprise. A very sickly, stinky abnormal poo on the mat, and a lot of poo in the box. Clean up and sterilise mat just as B calls to say cat has been sick in the living room. He kindly cleans that up and I realise that the cat is clingy because he is poorly. I wonder about the duck and fish treat I gave him last night. He has not had those for ages but the last time he had a loose stool was after one of those very threats. I throw them out.
Then we strip the bed and remake it. Sigh.
Make peppermint tea with lemon and take my book and dodgy throat into the garden for the watery sun.
Leftover Goan curry lunch, more tea.
Feeling a bit improved. Hang out washing and do more organisational chores, up and down the house,
Get a phone call from Shanghai. Do not answer. But it leaves a message. In Chinese, of course.
Clean corner table and SaziBarbie in corner of garden and set myself up with more tea and my book and greedily soak up the late sun.
B brings out our drinks. I find that I am waiting for my G&T all day long. It is the highlight of the day.
Lots of lime, diet tonic, dried orange slice on top. The supplies won’t hold out but I’ll love them while I can.
Talk to M again about how things are feeling in the Barossa following the corona American tourists. Radio reported that Four of them have now been taken to hospital. Not good. M relates a rich vein of Barossa community news.
I pace up and down with the phone getting my steps up. Indoor walks.
S texts bad Corona news. Suddenly he has stopped racing around getting his world ready and it is all hitting home, badly. It is an ugly reality. He has no job or money or govt support and his and he has dependants….
He is petrified and almost in shock. It is a dire situation for a young family man. Dire. I vow to help as much as I can.
B and I have cooked a gorgeous huge silverside dinner in which I eat my first potatoes in over a year. Twice cooked a la B. What a treat. Jelly and yoghurt and three eps of House of Cards taper us off into the night - which, for me, is restless, worrying about Sam
Monday
Day 14
I roll into the morning listening to Simon Reeve reading his book on Audible and realise I am not feeling all that flash. Headachey and stuffy. Oh no.
Dexter gets very attentive and snuggly. Pushes in under the bedclothes and purrs snoozily for a long time - until my bladder is bursting, actually. One never wants to disturb a contented cat. Even Mohammed didn't do that. He cut the sleeve off his robe rather than waken the cat, or so the story goes, So who am I to make this sweet creature move. Oh, boy, am I keen to pee when, finally, he does get up!
Talk to P. I’ve left sanitiser and a book and his thumbdrives outside for him. He says he has found a lot of sanitiser in a tidyup yesterday. I am not short yet and I am sure supplies will open up. Everyone is keen to turn a buck. M tells me that with all the pure alcohol in the Barossa they are all out to make sanitiser quick smart.
I am supposed to do Sunday Arts radio with P doing postmortem of the Fringe….but the PM calls a corona press conference in the middle of the arts show and the critics don’t get on. Since I have no shows to review, I am not stressed.
Read a great article about the Royal family in The Atlantic,
Check out the corona community FB pages as they evolve. Everyone is being very neighbourly and outgoing. Telling stories about kind gestures, especially in supermarkets which have become volatile places, it seems.
Make bed, shower, still feeling not great. Bit throaty. That’s a worry. Try to convince myself its psychosomatic.
Madly do stuff. Scrub front cat door. I should have done it ages ago, Ugh. Bad Sa. When I go out to check his litter box there’s a nasty surprise. A very sickly, stinky abnormal poo on the mat, and a lot of poo in the box. Clean up and sterilise mat just as B calls to say cat has been sick in the living room. He kindly cleans that up and I realise that the cat is clingy because he is poorly. I wonder about the duck and fish treat I gave him last night. He has not had those for ages but the last time he had a loose stool was after one of those very threats. I throw them out.
Then we strip the bed and remake it. Sigh.
Leftover Goan curry lunch, more tea.
Feeling a bit improved. Hang out washing and do more organisational chores, up and down the house,
Get a phone call from Shanghai. Do not answer. But it leaves a message. In Chinese, of course.
Clean corner table and SaziBarbie in corner of garden and set myself up with more tea and my book and greedily soak up the late sun.
B brings out our drinks. I find that I am waiting for my G&T all day long. It is the highlight of the day.
Lots of lime, diet tonic, dried orange slice on top. The supplies won’t hold out but I’ll love them while I can.
Talk to M again about how things are feeling in the Barossa following the corona American tourists. Radio reported that Four of them have now been taken to hospital. Not good. M relates a rich vein of Barossa community news.
I pace up and down with the phone getting my steps up. Indoor walks.
S texts bad Corona news. Suddenly he has stopped racing around getting his world ready and it is all hitting home, badly. It is an ugly reality. He has no job or money or govt support and his and he has dependants….
He is petrified and almost in shock. It is a dire situation for a young family man. Dire. I vow to help as much as I can.
B and I have cooked a gorgeous huge silverside dinner in which I eat my first potatoes in over a year. Twice cooked a la B. What a treat. Jelly and yoghurt and three eps of House of Cards taper us off into the night - which, for me, is restless, worrying about Sam
Monday
23rd March
Day 15
Bloody dark. Ugh. It’s still real. I don’t feel as bad as I did yesterday. Throat a little tight. Bit on the old breathless side again.
Make coffee and read and social media .
.
Have usual meaty morning call with P. Bless. It is a welcome routine. B brings me fried eggs and bacon. He is the best egg cook in the world.
Get up and shower and make the bed and even put on lipstick. Just making an effort to front the day. Why not? I’m a bit shaky inside, tho.
I am an addicted radio listener but now I can’t bring myself to turn it on. I do for a while and Ali Clarke is doing a valiant job of keeping the mood up. Sports commentators commentating old guys kicking a ball in the park, people crossing roads… People are ingenious in this perilous time. But everything is stopping and so many are financially desperate.
The government announces a relief package for the unemployed. MyGov website promptly crashes with the response and now there are massive queues outside Centrelink offices. Sam sends me a vid of the local one. The line streaming down Edward Street. He tried to apply online but the site has crashed.
The news is full of it. shocking
I delve out the face masks I managed to buy online earlier in the year. Not enough but they were very expensive and B baulked. I share what I have to try to protect my brood. Ry is optimistic because he has some on order,
S drops off a loaf of keto bread and a bunch of pink roses. How I love a house with flowers. I am smiling.
But N is still very sick. Woe.
There is a little sun. I grab it. Pull a couple of weeds.
Reach out to my fellow journo Cousin J in Sydney for the catch-up call of the day. Long nourishing talk.
G&T time comes and a phone chat with M.
Silverside again with veg sitting up on the bed with the telly.
Finish house of cards.
Tuesday
Day 15
Bloody dark. Ugh. It’s still real. I don’t feel as bad as I did yesterday. Throat a little tight. Bit on the old breathless side again.
Make coffee and read and social media .
.
Have usual meaty morning call with P. Bless. It is a welcome routine. B brings me fried eggs and bacon. He is the best egg cook in the world.
Get up and shower and make the bed and even put on lipstick. Just making an effort to front the day. Why not? I’m a bit shaky inside, tho.
I am an addicted radio listener but now I can’t bring myself to turn it on. I do for a while and Ali Clarke is doing a valiant job of keeping the mood up. Sports commentators commentating old guys kicking a ball in the park, people crossing roads… People are ingenious in this perilous time. But everything is stopping and so many are financially desperate.
The government announces a relief package for the unemployed. MyGov website promptly crashes with the response and now there are massive queues outside Centrelink offices. Sam sends me a vid of the local one. The line streaming down Edward Street. He tried to apply online but the site has crashed.
The news is full of it. shocking
S drops off a loaf of keto bread and a bunch of pink roses. How I love a house with flowers. I am smiling.
But N is still very sick. Woe.
There is a little sun. I grab it. Pull a couple of weeds.
Reach out to my fellow journo Cousin J in Sydney for the catch-up call of the day. Long nourishing talk.
G&T time comes and a phone chat with M.
Silverside again with veg sitting up on the bed with the telly.
Finish house of cards.
Tuesday
24th March
Day 16
It is early and oh, so dark but there is no going back to sleep. Another day of internment. Coffee will help, I think, and it does but then the shortness of breath. I gulp for deep breath like a fish.
It is cold and cloudy day outside. light rain. Long discussion with P about what he might write this week. He wants to do working from home but everyone is doing the same thing, I suggest Cuba's stand on corona, sending its teams of doctors to help in Italy, he likes that. we talk about how to find content for forthcoming arts shows, we chew the fat...
B makes bacon and I have a bacon, tomato and cucumber sandwich in toasted keto bread.
It turns out to be an interesting social media day. My dental hygienist sends me a friendship ball on FB messenger. It is a charming and playful message written in a ball to bounce around among one’s friends, not at all like the usual saccharine chain messages of the Internet, So I bounce it along to a couple of nice friends, among them an old school friend. she responds and a delightful conversation ensues within which, of all things, she offers to make me a patchwork quilt.
The outside world comes in from various directions all day, busily,
People are home and keen to talk.
One old friend is holding a live online African dance class. I take the laptop into the living room and join in. It is all sorts of stretches, new to me, - falun gong, taichi...
S and daughter R1 on Facetime, R1 demonstrating what S had taught her in the morning lessons, S in his dressing gown, comfortable in their new home.
He has been applying for jobs and battling for hours on the government’s website for assistance the government has offered but which has created terrible, desperate havoc among frightened workless people.
It’s late when I have my shower, do the bed and make my official start to the day. I have to finish the story I am writing for Barefoot,.
But there is a bad cat smell under my desk. The cat has done a spite revenge for clipping his bum fur yesterday. I get to with shampoo and odour masker and then move on to different chores .. bring in washing.
N has been to the specialist and the diagnosis remains uncertain but the conclusion is that her immune system is in strife. This is a terrible worry with corona all around. She has no defence at all.
Busy doing nothing. Sometimes I find myself just standing and staring.
Snack lunch of yoghurt and blueberries and a slice of cold silverside. I like to eat lunch standing at the kitchen window and gazing at my colourful little courtyard. And the tops of the gums over the high white wall in the distance.
Phone calls. The phone system is rocking with the added demands, Sometimes one gets the “network is unavailable” message. I make a long call to Merry about not getting down to EB and the many reasons, Mainly my inability to leave here and fear of being out on the road.
S sending pix of himself and R1 in Botanic park getting fresh air and exercise. wearing masks. happy photos.
Friend calls with a story she feels needs to find a journalist
I chase up an old colleague and discover she has just received a redundancy. I am gobsmacked.
B makes G&T for me and Bloody Mary for he, and we sit in the cool garden and admire the sunset clouds.
M rings on her regular spot. She’s drinking Semillon. Her world is busy with people catching up. Barossa has ample supplies of needed things like pure alcohol and her friend’s B&B supplied with enough for complete sanitising.
I hook in to Emma Hack’s Gaggle of Great Girls on Zoom.
It works fantastically. About 12 women, all powerful players in the city, their images lined up at the top of my screen, all talking over the state of the world. Most have glasses of wine. I have what’s left of my weak 2nd gin.
They are career girls in their prime. I am the only oldie, the only gran. I don’t know them all but they seem to know me., I like getting to know them. It is strangely intimate, face to face inside their homes.
it is revelatory hearing their various aspects of incarceration and work at home and financial expectations.
They have insider knowledge, saying that this state of affairs is expected to last until December.
There are dogs and kids in the home views, other worlds in lockdown, rich worlds, glamorous women. Kelly Noble talks of trying to keep people employed while losing the backing she needs to run her website Glam Adelaide which has become the primary local independent online power. it specialises in lifestyle but is now reporting politics.
Mums have kids with birthdays, exams….some with big families at home.
b bring a tray with veg and viennas and a tomato salad I’d made earlier and I eat while watching the girls who aee generally amused by my roomservice husband, Bruce is enjoying the zoom event vicariously
Clever Emma to bring this gathering together. It is the new way, the new houseparty, the new coffee club, borne from committee meeting format popularly used by Zoom.
We wind up about 8.30.
S texts the worst govt news yet. No open inspections, No auctions!!! Oh no. Oh no. Poor R can never take a trick. That lovely Walkerville condo which he has made so classy and which they badly need to realise to refinance their build. Oh no.
Also no weddings and max of 10 at funerals. The logistics of all this fuddles the mind.
The horrors cascade. The people try to keep spirits up but the odds grow.
Watch the OJ Simpson series we dropped….and I realised why we stopped watching. Cuba Goodings, So crass and miscast. I just want to drop it again.
Wednesday
Day 16
It is early and oh, so dark but there is no going back to sleep. Another day of internment. Coffee will help, I think, and it does but then the shortness of breath. I gulp for deep breath like a fish.
It is cold and cloudy day outside. light rain. Long discussion with P about what he might write this week. He wants to do working from home but everyone is doing the same thing, I suggest Cuba's stand on corona, sending its teams of doctors to help in Italy, he likes that. we talk about how to find content for forthcoming arts shows, we chew the fat...
B makes bacon and I have a bacon, tomato and cucumber sandwich in toasted keto bread.
It turns out to be an interesting social media day. My dental hygienist sends me a friendship ball on FB messenger. It is a charming and playful message written in a ball to bounce around among one’s friends, not at all like the usual saccharine chain messages of the Internet, So I bounce it along to a couple of nice friends, among them an old school friend. she responds and a delightful conversation ensues within which, of all things, she offers to make me a patchwork quilt.
The outside world comes in from various directions all day, busily,
People are home and keen to talk.
One old friend is holding a live online African dance class. I take the laptop into the living room and join in. It is all sorts of stretches, new to me, - falun gong, taichi...
S and daughter R1 on Facetime, R1 demonstrating what S had taught her in the morning lessons, S in his dressing gown, comfortable in their new home.
He has been applying for jobs and battling for hours on the government’s website for assistance the government has offered but which has created terrible, desperate havoc among frightened workless people.
It’s late when I have my shower, do the bed and make my official start to the day. I have to finish the story I am writing for Barefoot,.
But there is a bad cat smell under my desk. The cat has done a spite revenge for clipping his bum fur yesterday. I get to with shampoo and odour masker and then move on to different chores .. bring in washing.
N has been to the specialist and the diagnosis remains uncertain but the conclusion is that her immune system is in strife. This is a terrible worry with corona all around. She has no defence at all.
Busy doing nothing. Sometimes I find myself just standing and staring.
Snack lunch of yoghurt and blueberries and a slice of cold silverside. I like to eat lunch standing at the kitchen window and gazing at my colourful little courtyard. And the tops of the gums over the high white wall in the distance.
Phone calls. The phone system is rocking with the added demands, Sometimes one gets the “network is unavailable” message. I make a long call to Merry about not getting down to EB and the many reasons, Mainly my inability to leave here and fear of being out on the road.
S sending pix of himself and R1 in Botanic park getting fresh air and exercise. wearing masks. happy photos.
Friend calls with a story she feels needs to find a journalist
I chase up an old colleague and discover she has just received a redundancy. I am gobsmacked.
B makes G&T for me and Bloody Mary for he, and we sit in the cool garden and admire the sunset clouds.
M rings on her regular spot. She’s drinking Semillon. Her world is busy with people catching up. Barossa has ample supplies of needed things like pure alcohol and her friend’s B&B supplied with enough for complete sanitising.
I hook in to Emma Hack’s Gaggle of Great Girls on Zoom.
It works fantastically. About 12 women, all powerful players in the city, their images lined up at the top of my screen, all talking over the state of the world. Most have glasses of wine. I have what’s left of my weak 2nd gin.
They are career girls in their prime. I am the only oldie, the only gran. I don’t know them all but they seem to know me., I like getting to know them. It is strangely intimate, face to face inside their homes.
it is revelatory hearing their various aspects of incarceration and work at home and financial expectations.
They have insider knowledge, saying that this state of affairs is expected to last until December.
There are dogs and kids in the home views, other worlds in lockdown, rich worlds, glamorous women. Kelly Noble talks of trying to keep people employed while losing the backing she needs to run her website Glam Adelaide which has become the primary local independent online power. it specialises in lifestyle but is now reporting politics.
Mums have kids with birthdays, exams….some with big families at home.
b bring a tray with veg and viennas and a tomato salad I’d made earlier and I eat while watching the girls who aee generally amused by my roomservice husband, Bruce is enjoying the zoom event vicariously
Clever Emma to bring this gathering together. It is the new way, the new houseparty, the new coffee club, borne from committee meeting format popularly used by Zoom.
We wind up about 8.30.
S texts the worst govt news yet. No open inspections, No auctions!!! Oh no. Oh no. Poor R can never take a trick. That lovely Walkerville condo which he has made so classy and which they badly need to realise to refinance their build. Oh no.
Also no weddings and max of 10 at funerals. The logistics of all this fuddles the mind.
The horrors cascade. The people try to keep spirits up but the odds grow.
Watch the OJ Simpson series we dropped….and I realised why we stopped watching. Cuba Goodings, So crass and miscast. I just want to drop it again.
Wednesday
25th March
Day 17
Black morning. Bed is cosy. Face the day. We have to plod through it, through the voyage of weirdness, The voyage of fear and worry.
I turn on the radio as I make coffee to hear a child having a tantrum of distress because all her favourite fast foods are shut down and she will have to eat Mummy’s food. It could be funny but, of course, it is not. It is a child confronted by a terrifying enclosed world, a marauding virus which rules that one cannot touch anything, not even one’s friends.
I now rarely listen to 891 or news radio in the morning. Don’t need the barrage of horror. It is coming via the phone and computer, anyway. I worry about the journalists who are having to cover coronavirus day after detailed day after day in ever more difficult circumstances. They will be suffering. There will be some form of corona PTSD
It is nearly 7 when the first plane goes over, So extremely comforting, that sound, Normality. A world going on. But the airports are empty, the borders closed. Who is on it?
The stock market is a bit happier that the US is pouring some money into the airlines. Me, too.
Had a personalised newsletter from my financial advisor yesterday advising to ride it out. There is no choice. I hope there is enough money to keep trickling through for bills and groceries. I see the window cleaner has sent in his account for Encounter Bay. I yearn to wake up to that view. I miss the house. But the logistics are flawed. This place is better for the cat because he has his pieces of enclosed yard. Art EB there is only a windy balcony and no cat door. I’ve planted pots on the balcony to make it more verdant for him for when we go away and Merry takes care of him - but that is not like his wee potplant jungle here.
My mind dwells on my family and the sense of helplessness. I want to spread my mother hen wings and tuck them underneath and not let the world touch them. I want them to be happy, not afraid. I don’t want Sam out in the workforce. Not that he has a job. But he has applied for lots and they are all dangerous and bring the outside into his home haven. Oh, money, money, money.
Another plane
Another plane as the sky lightens.
So much going on in FB. This is the parish pump of our times. Here everyone shares fears and ideas. We try to cheer each other up. We gather, all day, every day, so long as the technology allows us.
Llysa Holland posts Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing Aaaron Copeland’s Rite of Spring from their home, superbly tech “conducted” by the double bassist. It is sublime. And such a favourite piece of music or me. Bless Llysa, I post it on my page and soon find others also gaining pleasure. Such pleasure. It makes me very happy.
Usual long talk with P, he reporting on the tech nightmares of radio world and I on the boon of online society and the way it is evolving.
It is strange how the memory opposes the minutiae of these sequestered days. Not for the first time. I struggle to remember the day’s activites a few hours later.
How did this day pass?
Big event is the Secret Seven meeting via Facetime. We are a group which used to do aquarobics together and now, since the loss of our marvellous teacher, he have stayed connected going for walks and breakfasts together. Now it is via apple phones. My phone calls at the given time but it asks for my password and kicks me off the facetime connection. I try to reconnect and pick up Loretta. We chat a while and decide to try again. Now we picked up Anne Monceaux, mayor of Burnside…so we are three of seven. When we disconnect, I try again and am able to join, voice only, three of the others. We are nearly there. Not quite. But we are not giving up. Same time next week.
Chores. Vacuum around my desk defiled by bad cat. Washing. Shopping.
Lovely neighbour has brought our rubbish bin in. Heart warms.
After shower and dressing and bedmaking I take a peppermint tea outside to read the ’Tiser review book in a pleasant sunshine. Loving my garden but the book is hard work. It is get another of the new literary vogue of getting inside the head of “spectrum” children. The last book of this vein that I reviewed did it better. This book is Dutch. Of course, the world is gaga with the idea that this is an amazing original new literary cutting edge. I persist, looking for a semblance of coherent thought.
Phone calls with R. His prescience and calm is brilliant.
WTF with sale of his condo?
Worry re N.
Washing. Window washing. Snack lunch. Vacuum desk area.
Busy, busy. Hang out. Bring in. Think. Fret. Rouse myself. Cheer. Fret.
Spend what seems like hours online trying to shop when Woolworths seems unable to supply sausages, cabbage, zucchini…
A food writer friend has recommended on her FB page a restaurant supply company. I finally overcome link issues and hook into the fruit and veg and then the meat and European sections of this business. Wade through a mass of options. Overwhelming really. Order rather a lot. Go back to Woolies to order soft drinks and miscellaneous. It is all very time-consuming and expensive, but I have done it. Three deliveries. We’ll be heavily supplied for about 10 days, I reckon. Just a couple of negatives. No oat bran or ginger.
This whole thing is really complex if you are not going out to shop. I wonder about other old people with less net and market savvy. I hope they have caring neighbours. My heart aches.
This is not just us; This is the whole world struggling to find ways to cope.
As an habituated radio listener, life is odd. I won’t listen. It is all news. More of the same awful news.
N calls in post doctor. She is very unwell. Little M turns up on camera clutching her head possessively. OMG. Tell them they need to go shower before talking to me. N has been out at medical and blood clinics and all over the place in her quest for assorted tests and diagnosis. Darling girl looks so sick and so stoic and indulgent in the face of a very demanding 9-year-old. They must both shower. She rings back later to hear “Dr B’s” views on the intravenous Vitamin C treatment her doctor suggests. B not impressed with this. He reports on his research and thinks that the antibiotics and time may yet cure her. She has had myriad tests. Blood in the urine…
When I am back oh the phone, N looks utterly spent and very sick indeed. Poor, sweet N. I can see how sick she is and how awful she feels. I encourage little M to be a mum-carer. Unfortunately, she is whispering special deals in her mother’s ear. Promises of stories…N assents to little M. I can recall that fatalism in sickness when my kids had needs, way back in the day. Sooner N gives little M what she’s waiting for, the sooner she can rest. I say goodbye.
B has been saying that, for us, we must try to see this stop-the-world isolation as our planned road trip to the US, but at home. He wanted long-stay accommodation with kitchens. Here we are, very long stay with kitchen And between our cooking skills, we can have fabulous dinners night after night.
Thursday
Day 18
Ooh, what a night of weird dreams. Woke in the dark and had a refreshing thought, “Bugger it”. So I did not get up but wrapped the duna around me and actually dozed. Am I getting used to this ordeal?
The answer is a big “no”. None of us is. There are so many problems and worries on such a vast scale.
Money and food, principally.
I have my usual morning call with P talking about, well, you know. Corona life.
But my darling S is my worry. He is in panic mode about money. He is in a predicament worse than most insofar as the govt stubbornly has found ways never to assist him. He has been through years of hell and has rebuilt his life and now is at last happy with family, house and casual work which he loved and was looking steady. Now? He has applied for every job going in the virus economy. Coles advertised for 5000. He had an online interview response and was told that something like 70,000 people had applied for those 5000 jobs.
Mothers will feel my aching anxiety. My babies and their babies.
Discover that the Woolies home delivery I am expecting is not coming because their entire online system has crashed. Spend hours on the website trying to recover it. Fail.
Sam says he is going to the shops so I ask for a few things.
Immerse myself in the clamour of grief and fear and valiant goodness of heart online. Facebook, the Parish Pump of this HiberNation.
Emma Hack again impresses with her intelligence, entrepreneurial spirit and constructive outreach. Her Gaggle of Great Girls group is turning into a powerful support. She is analysing the emotional reactions to stopping-the-world quarantine - fear, anger, confusion, acceptance…
We are all at home afraid of an invisible enemy out there. It is a strange war.
Day 17
Black morning. Bed is cosy. Face the day. We have to plod through it, through the voyage of weirdness, The voyage of fear and worry.
I turn on the radio as I make coffee to hear a child having a tantrum of distress because all her favourite fast foods are shut down and she will have to eat Mummy’s food. It could be funny but, of course, it is not. It is a child confronted by a terrifying enclosed world, a marauding virus which rules that one cannot touch anything, not even one’s friends.
I now rarely listen to 891 or news radio in the morning. Don’t need the barrage of horror. It is coming via the phone and computer, anyway. I worry about the journalists who are having to cover coronavirus day after detailed day after day in ever more difficult circumstances. They will be suffering. There will be some form of corona PTSD
It is nearly 7 when the first plane goes over, So extremely comforting, that sound, Normality. A world going on. But the airports are empty, the borders closed. Who is on it?
The stock market is a bit happier that the US is pouring some money into the airlines. Me, too.
Had a personalised newsletter from my financial advisor yesterday advising to ride it out. There is no choice. I hope there is enough money to keep trickling through for bills and groceries. I see the window cleaner has sent in his account for Encounter Bay. I yearn to wake up to that view. I miss the house. But the logistics are flawed. This place is better for the cat because he has his pieces of enclosed yard. Art EB there is only a windy balcony and no cat door. I’ve planted pots on the balcony to make it more verdant for him for when we go away and Merry takes care of him - but that is not like his wee potplant jungle here.
My mind dwells on my family and the sense of helplessness. I want to spread my mother hen wings and tuck them underneath and not let the world touch them. I want them to be happy, not afraid. I don’t want Sam out in the workforce. Not that he has a job. But he has applied for lots and they are all dangerous and bring the outside into his home haven. Oh, money, money, money.
Another plane
Another plane as the sky lightens.
So much going on in FB. This is the parish pump of our times. Here everyone shares fears and ideas. We try to cheer each other up. We gather, all day, every day, so long as the technology allows us.
Llysa Holland posts Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing Aaaron Copeland’s Rite of Spring from their home, superbly tech “conducted” by the double bassist. It is sublime. And such a favourite piece of music or me. Bless Llysa, I post it on my page and soon find others also gaining pleasure. Such pleasure. It makes me very happy.
Usual long talk with P, he reporting on the tech nightmares of radio world and I on the boon of online society and the way it is evolving.
It is strange how the memory opposes the minutiae of these sequestered days. Not for the first time. I struggle to remember the day’s activites a few hours later.
How did this day pass?
Big event is the Secret Seven meeting via Facetime. We are a group which used to do aquarobics together and now, since the loss of our marvellous teacher, he have stayed connected going for walks and breakfasts together. Now it is via apple phones. My phone calls at the given time but it asks for my password and kicks me off the facetime connection. I try to reconnect and pick up Loretta. We chat a while and decide to try again. Now we picked up Anne Monceaux, mayor of Burnside…so we are three of seven. When we disconnect, I try again and am able to join, voice only, three of the others. We are nearly there. Not quite. But we are not giving up. Same time next week.
Chores. Vacuum around my desk defiled by bad cat. Washing. Shopping.
Lovely neighbour has brought our rubbish bin in. Heart warms.
Phone calls with R. His prescience and calm is brilliant.
WTF with sale of his condo?
Worry re N.
Washing. Window washing. Snack lunch. Vacuum desk area.
Busy, busy. Hang out. Bring in. Think. Fret. Rouse myself. Cheer. Fret.
Spend what seems like hours online trying to shop when Woolworths seems unable to supply sausages, cabbage, zucchini…
A food writer friend has recommended on her FB page a restaurant supply company. I finally overcome link issues and hook into the fruit and veg and then the meat and European sections of this business. Wade through a mass of options. Overwhelming really. Order rather a lot. Go back to Woolies to order soft drinks and miscellaneous. It is all very time-consuming and expensive, but I have done it. Three deliveries. We’ll be heavily supplied for about 10 days, I reckon. Just a couple of negatives. No oat bran or ginger.
This whole thing is really complex if you are not going out to shop. I wonder about other old people with less net and market savvy. I hope they have caring neighbours. My heart aches.
This is not just us; This is the whole world struggling to find ways to cope.
As an habituated radio listener, life is odd. I won’t listen. It is all news. More of the same awful news.
N calls in post doctor. She is very unwell. Little M turns up on camera clutching her head possessively. OMG. Tell them they need to go shower before talking to me. N has been out at medical and blood clinics and all over the place in her quest for assorted tests and diagnosis. Darling girl looks so sick and so stoic and indulgent in the face of a very demanding 9-year-old. They must both shower. She rings back later to hear “Dr B’s” views on the intravenous Vitamin C treatment her doctor suggests. B not impressed with this. He reports on his research and thinks that the antibiotics and time may yet cure her. She has had myriad tests. Blood in the urine…
When I am back oh the phone, N looks utterly spent and very sick indeed. Poor, sweet N. I can see how sick she is and how awful she feels. I encourage little M to be a mum-carer. Unfortunately, she is whispering special deals in her mother’s ear. Promises of stories…N assents to little M. I can recall that fatalism in sickness when my kids had needs, way back in the day. Sooner N gives little M what she’s waiting for, the sooner she can rest. I say goodbye.
B has been saying that, for us, we must try to see this stop-the-world isolation as our planned road trip to the US, but at home. He wanted long-stay accommodation with kitchens. Here we are, very long stay with kitchen And between our cooking skills, we can have fabulous dinners night after night.
Thursday
Day 18
Ooh, what a night of weird dreams. Woke in the dark and had a refreshing thought, “Bugger it”. So I did not get up but wrapped the duna around me and actually dozed. Am I getting used to this ordeal?
The answer is a big “no”. None of us is. There are so many problems and worries on such a vast scale.
Money and food, principally.
I have my usual morning call with P talking about, well, you know. Corona life.
But my darling S is my worry. He is in panic mode about money. He is in a predicament worse than most insofar as the govt stubbornly has found ways never to assist him. He has been through years of hell and has rebuilt his life and now is at last happy with family, house and casual work which he loved and was looking steady. Now? He has applied for every job going in the virus economy. Coles advertised for 5000. He had an online interview response and was told that something like 70,000 people had applied for those 5000 jobs.
Mothers will feel my aching anxiety. My babies and their babies.
Discover that the Woolies home delivery I am expecting is not coming because their entire online system has crashed. Spend hours on the website trying to recover it. Fail.
Sam says he is going to the shops so I ask for a few things.
Immerse myself in the clamour of grief and fear and valiant goodness of heart online. Facebook, the Parish Pump of this HiberNation.
Emma Hack again impresses with her intelligence, entrepreneurial spirit and constructive outreach. Her Gaggle of Great Girls group is turning into a powerful support. She is analysing the emotional reactions to stopping-the-world quarantine - fear, anger, confusion, acceptance…
We are all at home afraid of an invisible enemy out there. It is a strange war.
It is hard to stay focused because our directions have been impeded. We are not going anywhere.
I saw the idea of sequestration as a creative opening. I have so very many projects on the go. Plenty to do.
But I am not doing things. I fritter time being busy at frittering. There’s an ennui. Ennui.
And then there’s the worry about others, my adored kin out there.
There is a daily routine. Walking up and down the hall briskly to get exercise. I try to make it to 5km a day.
It’s a bit tedious. My arms need exercise. They are used to water resistance in aquarobics and I have no resistance equivalent. There’s another project. Find an exercise.
The sun is out. I take my review book and sit with a cup of peppermint tea. Dammit. I am hating this book. It is ugly, depressing and pretentious. I have doggedly persisted with it and, suddenly, my patience with it is done. It is s new “thing” with mew writers to play at being inside the heads of spectrum children. Last year I read a very good book of this genre. It had a narrative thread and some heart. This is grotesque. I flick to the ending and find it as tedious as the rest of it. I would not recommend it to anyone.
I go and get the other review book. A Japanese Australian discovering the identity and life of her grandmother though inherited possessions. OMG. Last year I reviewed a Chinese-Australian book with exactly the same theme. It was wonderful. But this is copycat. I decide to read it later.
Walk the hall. Do a load of washing. Handwash my silk cardigan. Clean a window.
It looks as if the black house spider on the kitchen window has been consumed by a white tail. She looks like a husk. Oh, no, another spider gone. The garden insect life is almost all gone. Spiders are starving.
Bruce does some vacuuming for me. I hate vacuum cleaners with a lifelong vengeance.
Sam rings the doorbell alerting to his drop-off.
Damn. I was just on my way to leave to envelopes to be posted. A fun card for Phyl Skinner and a postcard to Nisa Bella who had put up a FB challenge to revive letter-writing.
I message lovely next door and ask if he would mind posting them when he takes the dogs out. He merrily agrees and proffers further offers.
I do my old friend reach out of the day, an old journo mate I’ve known since 1965. She is 82 already. She is a vibrant, clever, generous-spirited human being and the best conversationalist I have ever known. Our catch-up chat goes on for hours. She lives alone with serious health compromises but is beloved by many so has lots of people shopping for her.
N news is not good. Still v sick, she needs a scan and more expert diagnosis. R is taking her to appointments tomorrow. Oh, dear.
S messages sadly that he did not score one of the 5000 jobs the Coles.
Oh, my poor darlings.
P calls reporting in on his research on Maggie Day. Brilliant idea he has had to write of this old theatre identity. I knew her because she was in my parents’ circle and always at parties. She was “prompt” in all the theatre productions of their era, a hard-drinking gravelly-voiced, well-informed woman always with a cigarette dangling from her lips. She was a hoarder of books and newspapers and allowed no one into her house. It ended up uninhabitable. I dropped her off there once or twice.
G&T, the prize of the day. B comes to sit but I am still on the phone. A plane high up making a contrail. Then M calls for our daily exchange. She has gloves at the back door for people to bring things in. We laugh. The Barossa folk are helping each other. They have plenty of everything and the marauding supermarket hordes have abated. I walk the hall as we talk to get my steps up.
B makes a terrific version of last night’s dinner with a mass of cauliflower and frozen spinach. We gorge ourselves.
And see eps of a silly show called Cops-99 or some such before realising we never actually did see The Post.
Friday March 27
Day 19
Oh these black, black mornings. But I am so grateful to have slept. I am terrified that when my Normison supply runs out, there will be no more. I am a bad sleeper in good times.
No planes have gone overhead this morning.
People send Facebook funnies. It’s a desperate sharing thing. I love them for it. I find myself trawling through a seemingly endless stream of them, some of them dog rescue stories.
Wonder if Woolworths can be persuaded to deliver. Fill in the vulnerable oldies page again and not that among the conditions thereon is the stipulation that they will only do one delivery per house. Oh. And I have had it? Oh, my. My cheerful expectation that we would get through this with Woolies as our umbrella slips away and I feel a chill of fear.
I have put in orders to Marino Meats and go-fresh veg and am praying they will work out. We are about to have our third meal of the huge chicken Woolies brought us a week or so ago.
The cat is restless. He comes and goes, purring loudly. He senses the strangeness of the times.
The fruit and veg order is delivered early. A ring on the doorbell and two bright green boxes outside. I callout thanks and the deliverer in the street calls back “no worries”.
I leave the boxes a while before spraying them, putting on gloves and bringing them in. It's very exciting. There is a followup phone message thanking me for supporting them. Thanking me? I’m beside myself thanking them. And inside the boxes, not only asparagus and pears and fennel etc but little gifts of micro salad herbs and edible flowers. Oh, so cheery.
The meat order comes quite late in the day. I’ve screwed up a bit. I thought I was ordering silverside but it is cooked and
After I have washed all the plastic vacuum packages B and I divvie up the delicious excess and share it with the kids.
I am waiting to hear how N went with her medical scan. Finally she calls and says that they had found it is endometriosis cysts causing the blood in the urine and the extreme pain and she is to be taken straight to hospital. She urgently needs surgery. Ryder takes her to Flinders. Poor darlings. Worry.
Make a chicken curry and look at Unabomber series - and hate it.
Saturday March 28
Day 20
What day is it? It doesn’t really matter.
I’ve been on tenterhooks all night worrying about N and waiting for news.
Very tense and on edge. Hard to get moving. Try to exercise to pick up spirits. Worried sick. Try to do Zoom for Robert’s birthday.
Finally, get news that they did not operate at all and are sending N home because all elective surgery has been stopped as of this very morning due to coronavirus. They want her out of the hospital ASAP. She will have to wait until the pandemic is over for surgery. Meanwhile, she will have to be bedridden and on strong analgesic. Oh, my. Poor N. Poor R. Woe.
I find myself wandering around the house, pacing, without purpose.
I put music on to hep myself up a bit.
Later, when I have called R to check on how things are now at home, poor boy sounds exhausted and stressed but plodding on doing all the things he has to do, and hew says he had a long talk with hee gynae and there is hope. Expensive new drug is expected to give her some gradual improvements. And, she had been undergoing on her analgesia and will be feeling a lot better on the prescribed dosage she now has.
This gimmer of good news puts a bit of a spring back in my step.
There's a loud kerfuffle in the street. Hooters and shouting. Turns out that it is the 50th birthday of our neighbour and his friends are doing an over-the-fence corona party. Cute.
More corona iso-action on FB - and I watch a couple getting married in their back yard. Off attending the wedding of people you don't know. But a wedding needs a crowd, even of invisible strangers.
S drops off some groceries, B makes G&Ts which we drink in the "Hawaii" of the courtyard. Ritual Marg chat, followed by fantastic sausages with silverbeet and salad and a binge on Tiger King, the hit doco de covid jour.
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