and the clock ticks...

Saturday, March 28
Day 20

What day is it? It doesn’t really matter.
I’ve been on tenterhooks all night worrying about Nic 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 from Ry at the hospital they did not operate at all and are sending Nic 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 analgesics. Oh, my. Poor Nic. Poor Ryder. 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 Ry 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 lot of noise out the front. Heavens, people blowing hooters. Oh, it is our neighbour's 50th birthday and his friends are throwing a surprise over-the-fence party.
And next, just to highlight the lockup lockout nature of the rules of the pandemic, I tune into a wedding live on Facebook. They can only have about five people social distanced at the real thing but all the FB friends tune in and it is quite a crowd. I only know the groom fleetingly as a friend of S's but I feel interested and supportive - and, indeed, touched. And a very nice little ceremony it is, too. Good on them!
S delivers groceries with a ring of the bell. I spray and sort.
Aaaaah, and at last it is time for G&T in the garden. The sweet spot of each day.
M on the phone as usual.
Fantastic sausages with silverbeet and salad.
Tiger King


Sunday March 29
Day 21

Soft rain through the open window. It’s pleasant. Sweet cat follows me to the loo, as ever, swishing against my legs as I pee. It is an odd characteristic of cats. I give him a rub. He throws himself on the floor in full presentation. I look in the mirror and see a wreckage of thin hair. My hair is falling out in this time of crisis. If I ever get through it, I fear I will be bald. I told this to Bruce yesterday and he said that many beautiful women were bald. Later he showed me a webpage of famous bald women.
Listen to the radio as I make the coffee. Netanyahu is empowering himself with his role as Covid leader, it says. Indonesia is about to collapse with Covid, it says. Its ABC foreign correspondent is working from home and the bureau staff are weeping.
I take the coffee to bed where email from B’s sister, Ginger, reports sadly on his declining nonagenarian Aunt Libby who is still looking forward to us coming to visit her in May.
Read the latest report in my former Tiser colleagues, Paul Ashenden and Anthony Keene stuck in Nepal after a trekking holiday. Now the Qatar flight they thought would rescue them has pulled out because social media busybodies complained that the $3000plus one-way tickets home were too expensive. WTF? Reckon I’d pay anything in those circs.

Corellas shrieking and yodelling out there, celebrating the rain. A massive colony of them is flying overhead, Bruce says they are leaving the parklands and heading for the hills. The daylight comes slowly in the grey.
Peter rings en route to the ABC through the deserted streets. Petrol now 89cents, he says.
Join an Emma Hack watch party of DJ Dave Collins. Fantastic studio. People watching all over the world. This is the new norm. The global parish pump.
Peter’s show lovely with Laura Kroetsch on books then the health minister speaks to the nation and then the PM speaks to the nation. Producer Troy rings and says, yay, we are not getting cut this week. Thee’s going to be 15 mins left. But then, suddenly, it is on hold for the Victor mayor, Moira Jenkins to tell people not to come to Victor at Easter. P is prioritising her as a public priority. She’s chosen our tiny section of the arts show? Or he has? The gardening show which follows has a whole hour. I am shitty and when Peter reiterates her message to me I agree but wish it was not in the arts show. I immediately regret saying this but it’s out. Of course, all the holiday places are saying the same thing all over the place. KI, Barossa, Rovbe… the country communities can’t accommodate holidaymakers. Moira is inferring that they are coming to have parties in holiday houses. Gee. I think not. The police will have to be involved if they are. But she sounds as if she does not even want the likes of us coming to our houses down there and, wow, the rates her council charges us…!!!!!
A little later I unwrap and Sunday Mail and there it is, front-page headlines. Don’t go to the local country resorts! Back of on Easter Holidays. The communities can’t cater right now.
And Moira had rung the arts show because no one had seen the mainstream front page?
I later get Peter on the phone and say I am remorseful for my outburst and yet still angry with her.
I’m probably conflating with my own corona stress. One needs outbursts about something, I guess.
Various things are irking me. I seem to have a swatch of really smug friends on Facebook, posting about how much better their lives are than others, how they are living on fantastic restaurant food deliveries, how much room they have to be free, how few worries they have in this time of plague. These people are not amusing or clever. Luckily there are lots of people reaching out to one another, coming up with ideas, being creative and kind and interesting. Ah, yes, this crisis is showing new colours in the people around us. And we have a long way to go. Of course, there are those who still refuse to knuckle down and conform to the rules of containment. They, one can only revile.
So this day passes.
I apply myself to Jonathan Mill’s voice class. He’s president of MEAA performers, what used to be Actors’ Equity. He gives a breathing and articulation class direct to camera and he has a lovely, seasoned style and is entirely agreeable. I’ve wanted to do some voice work for a long time in the hope that such practice may help me to be less softly spoken.

B and I do a rescue mission on a wee gecko that Dexter has brought into the house. It has been living behind a painting on the bedroom wall and coming out from time to time. It is a mild day. We release it to run on the next door's lawn, nothing that it has been regrowing its tail since, presumably, the cat scared it off. Poor wee thing. The indoor cat only has the little walled courtyard as an outdoor space. I guess any wee creature finding its way in there is doomed.


Monday, March 30
Day 22

Dark morning after dubious sleep. B makes coffee. A treat.
And, oh yes, it is still what it is.
The invidious invisible enemy is out there.
Another day in iso.
It is not going away any time soon.
The strange aimlessness prevails. I seem to be very busy with nothing to show for it.
The work waiting on my desk is to be avoided.
The deadline is ?
The day ends with silverside and amazing salad and pickles




Tuesday, March 31
Day 23

Ibena’s dance class for a bit of stretching in the morning. Sorting out parking places with neighbours.
S sends a photo of a weird rash on H's hand for Dr B to identify. Baffling. He'll have to see the actual doc.

Busy routines. Washing, I clear and rearrange the kids’ toy corner. Do chores. Bit of dusting. Brisk walking around the house to keep the steps up.
Look, some nice sun. B and I grab a few minutes of sunbathing in the front garage area. It is about as unglamorous an environment as one could find, high brick walls and high gate enclosure adorned by the clothesline and the bag of potting mix I intend to put to use to grow some spinach,
But we imagine it is Hawaii. A wee mental game. The sun is beautiful.
I have a long catchup call with Brenda.
Deb has left me a couple of finger eggplants she somehow came by. Organic, she cheers. I lovingly salt and bleed them of their bitter juices and, with a serendipity of vegetables to hand, make a classic ratatouille just as my mother used to do.
Bruce is defrosting some saved meatloaf.
We take our cocktails in the courtyard with almonds. It has become a special ritual.

And then it is time for Emma’s Zoom party. It is always refreshing to see these bright young women mid-career dealing with the iso life. A great gaggle of girls, indeed. Everyone has a drink or two and compares notes.

Fall into bed still binge-watching the corona iso cult series, Tiger King



Wednesday, April 1
Day 24

Soft grey morning. The usual social media links and barrage of Covid-19 news. The Adelaide Airport baggage handlers are a terrifying complication. Exponential, exponential. Why is the population understanding this so poorly?
Peter call at 3 minutes past 8.
Then it’s time for the 9am Secret Seven Facetime on the phone, It works wonderfully. With Di at the helm, we gather on the phone screen and catch up with each other. We, the group who bonded in the amniotic intimacy of the warm Colonial Motor Inn pool as a long-time aquarobics class, who kept in contact to become a breakfasting and walking group and are now a self-isolated band of Facetime pals. It is good. We keep seeing each other and we like what we see.
I grab a wonderful hot shower. Oh, how the water washes one into new life each day. Wash my hair and am glad to see no extra hair in the drain. Ready for the Zoom meeting with B and his autistic son, Robert in the USA. Once again, it does not happen. More crossed wires. But I am free of the efforts in time for Jonathan Mills’ wonderful voice class. He is just superb. Not only a skilled teacher but an innate sweetness of character comes across in his FB live streams.
On the dot on 11, Peggy Barker, my wonderful financial advisor, comes on Facetime to discuss my financial predicament. Of course, the situation is not great. We move some investments and I promise not to panic.
Here endeth the online program of my insolate day.

The morning news has reported that bottle shops are to be closed to stop all the lock-ins drinking so much. OMG. That rattles the cage. I have been hoping to get some rose. I am having a yen. My wine stock is very low indeed.
The afternoon news reveals that it is April Fool’s Day.
What a great prank! Love it. Wish I’d thought of it. I used to get away with some hilarious Fools’ Day fake news through the years when I was writing those daily columns in The Tiser - Back Chat and Sa on Six.


I Facetime with Ruby who has tummy pains and is self-diagnosing gallstones and appendicitis. Dr Bruce gives her 100 PC Facetime attention, listening carefully to her symptoms, and assures her it is “gas”
I suspect the real explanation may be stress and fear. I had her messaging me in the depths of the night, unable to sleep, sourcing distractions on YouTube. I wish I could be there t cuddle her.

As many diversions as we may supply, from the newspaper’s fine daily HiberNation pages to the ABC’s excellent podcasts, there is nothing fully to lift the sense of threat that children are experiencing right now.
Just as we Boomers felt when the Cuban Missile crisis was upon us and we thought the world might come to an end any minute with nuclear bombs. We saw the drills of getting under desks. We tried to think what way over here on the end of the planet in Australia, we were less vulnerable. The grownups reassured us. But we carried a secret terror within us like a secret shameful tumour.
I remember the bleak nocturnal brooding in the solitary hours of the night.
And we Boomers had been born in the shadow of war, many of the grown-ups around us grieving the losses of peers in the war. People were still saving silver foil, string and rubber bands “for the war effort”. Giant balls of them. Still eating bread and dripping. They were used to things being in short supply.
And I recall, at the age of 8, visiting London and seeing all the cratered building sites and mountains of rubble…
We are the generation which remembers that the war ended because of nuclear bombs. We learned the grim details of the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are still etched vividly in my mind. Terrible suffering of Japanese children and their families.
These are formative images of our generation, a genuine reason to fear the threat of nuclear obliteration.
They underscored our world view. It is why we became the Flower Power generation, the Peaceniks, the love children, the gentle hippies…
Not just a backlash against the avid materialism of our parents’ generation as they strove to own all tje symbols of a reviving economy, but an unconscious expression of the worst of human mass violence…



The day seems to go quickly with myriad tasks not completed. Travel agent. She has not rung back for two weeks, only sent automated responses to my emails and has us up in the air with our travel fares.
Flu shots. We are urged to get them, but how, in self-isolation? Can’t get thru to the GP on the phone. Send email. Get weird automated response. At least Haley’s hand is better.
Exercise. Up and down the hall. Take pot out the front, fill it with potting soil, recoiling at the danger is poses to the lungs, and plant lettuce seeds which are totally the wrong sort.
A book Peter has posted is delivered and I put it in quarantine. The cat has done prodigious pooping after skipping a day. One of my daily chores, keeping up with the feline bowel.
Long talk with Merry about the bloody bourgeoisie flooding Encounter Bay against all urges. Franklin Parade has been “like Pitt Street” with the black BMW 4WDs and their boats and families coming down for usual Easter Holidays. They are not changing a thing. Fuck viral death. It is not their problem. Merry and I wish rain and wind upon their holiday, keeping them inside to do jigsaw puzzles with their spoiled private school offspring.


Barbecue chops and eat with baked turnips and cabbage.
See the last of Tiger King and catch up on Stateless.
Then, as B sleeps, I agonise over the Woolworths online site and make a massive order to come on Saturday. This will relieve supplies at the 11th hour.


Thursday, April 2
Day 25

Awaken in anxiety. I think I slept in anxiety. It was hard to get to sleep because I was already brooding on logistics and problem so I awaken somewhere still haunted by the grocery ordering process, particularly that it would allow me to order only 5 packets of cat soup and Dexter has one every day. How do I explain this shortage to a cat? Why are they rationed?
A lot of things are rationed. Tissues and toilet paper especially. I did not order them, though, The old Costco supply is still holding out and I am being very frugal.
I am worried about all those outside items coming into our little sanctuary. Rona can be a symptomless disease in many. They are unidentified vectors, just as the airport baggage handlers were. Everything from a supermarket has been repeatedly handled by others. The sterilising ritual has become a huge and time-consuming part of our daily lives. Not just the handwashing, but the spraying and washing of every single thing. Some surfaces are more difficult than others. I will have to increase the size of my staging post for the thin
things I have to leave for days to let the virus die in the air. And cat-proof it. And winter makes it all the harder. The virus hates heat and loathes the sun which, of course, is my favourite antiseptic. Airing things in the sun. I have my quilt out in the sun several times a week weather permitting. Otherwise, I put it into the dryer for half an hour. Been doing this since for ever.

I have a massive to-do list.
Finish Paper Boats
Write art
find new blogging app
edit blog
chase flu shots’
deal with car
chase travel agent
chase up why printer ink has never arrived
chase hotel insurance
chase volcano house for confirmation of cancellation
chase book for Katie

The day chugs into form in the usual way. Peter on the phone at 8 am. He is officially “essential service” working with the ABC and he needs a flu shot. He calls the pharmacy and is told next Wednesday is the first spot on its queue. “I can’t wait. I’m essential service”, he asserts to the hapless girl. She gets her supervisor to tells him that, of course, he must come immediately ahead of the queue. And so he does. He is well pleased with last night’s show - and rightly so. Peter is a loyal and dedicated visitor to old and frail friends and now he, like everyone else, is locked out of the nursing homes. We have talked about the old days when they had a Hospital Hour on the radio, sending cheerios to patients. I recall it vividly from my childhood. I think it’s a brilliant idea ripe for revival. And now he has done it. His first session - and I bloody missed it. My scattered lockup brain. I am furious with myself. It has been a triumph. A brilliant,much-needed outreach. Of course.
I post a big plug on FB. The ABC is promoting it as “Aural hugs”. Lovely. I dub him the Aural Hug Master and soon there are lots of congrats for him on my page.


Sam had to take Ruby to the doctor who did not bulk bill but charged $80 to say she may need a scan if she does not pick up. One day he is at the surgery with Haley, the next with Ruby. Oh, my poor boy. Haley’s hand is completely better.
Ry has to take Nicole to Flinders for more endo examinations. He describes the rona restrictions, the divided parking lot between Covid cases and regular medicine, the guard who asks their purpose and keys in the ticket machine so other hands don’t touch it. They just take their ticket and park where instructed. Nic is put on the Priority 2 surgery waiting list. That means she is not life-threatened but her quality of life is seriously impaired. She is given an appointment with the pain clinic. Tramadol and Oxzycontin make her sick. They go home and strip and shower and Ryder does clothes washing etc, fixes meals for the kids, supervises home school. He has been told to organise flu shots for Nic since she is so debilitated her vulnerability is immense. I can hear in his voice how worried and stressed and exhausted he is. Oh, my poor boy. I ache with powerlessness.


Brace myself, put on mask (unnecessarily) and go out into the deserted street to move the car which has stood on one spot for weeks. My first outside venture since Sam brought the car back and parked it in the wrong place. It starts happily. I take it around the block, up William to the church, and around the roundabout to open it up a bit. The brakes are grabbing a bit but it seems in good nick. There are quite a few people out walking the streets and more cars than I had expected. . Then I park securely off-street down our share driveway as agreed with the wonderful Jason next door.
Hopefully we don’t need it until next Tuesday which is when we have our flu jab appointment. We drive in and the nurse jabs through the window.

OMG, I realise I handled the front gate and did not wash my hands when I did the car.
Christ. the virus lives for days on metal surfaces. I suppress a panic attack by sitting in the precious sun for half an hour with the JM Coetzee book Peter has loaned me. A diatribe on vegan philosophy springboarded from Kafka’s Ape. It is not a big book, but dense with philosophical references. I plough through and weep at its ending.

So these are two of the things I manage to get off my to-do list today.
I play for some time with the Tumblr blogging app and can’t get the hang of it.
I complain on the OfficeWorks survey that my ink has not arrived.
I ring FlightCentre again to ask why Lara has dropped the bundle. I get a girl called Rain who is looking after Lara’s clients. Rain is as lovely as her name and assures me she has our account in hand. We are trying to leave our credit with the idea that we will pick it up and do the trip in 2021.
Oh, the OfficeWorks parcel arrives. Two days late but, phew.
I spray it and leave it in the sun a while.

I rearrange things in the cattio to make a larger staging place for things coming into the house,

Sam has gone to the supermarket and will drop off some cat soup and sugar-free lollies. He even manages to get me a bottle of Toilet Duck loo cleaner. Woolies can’t supply this stuff.

Between walks up and down the hall, I try to spend some time at my desk getting on with the work backlog. I find my thought lines hard to pick up. But I make a start.

People keep writing about this time when the world is supposed to stay at home and do “fuck all”. But I have more to do than I can manage.
I punctuate the day with a call to Peter Burdon to see how he is coping. Champion! He has work-at-home city council work to do and he is editing a symphony, gardening, drinking wine, sleeping when he wants, sharing figs with neighbours….
I walk while I talk on the phone,.
Today Dexter is sleeping in the medieval hall cabinet where B keeps clothes. With one eye, he watches me striding it out in the hall.
Cocktail hour finally arrives. 4pm. There is still precious sunshine. B and I repair ritually to the courtyard with olives, almonds and drinks and imagine we are on holiday somewhere luscious.

Tonight I am cooking a Chinese chicken and capsicum stirfry dinner. My turn to cook. My recipe. Marg calls and we exchange life reports as I chop.
Dinner is delicious. We watch our first Amazon Prime movie. Blow the Man Down, set in a Maine lobster town in cold, snowy winter. We know these places intimately and relish the location as much as the superb noir movie.
And thus passeth another day.

Friday, April 3
Day 26

So much to read! it is overwhelming.
Jonathan Mill’s Voice Class. I love him for it. It is an anchor to my days and the breathing exercises help a lot. One of my stress characteristics is breathing difficulties, never being able to get my breath down deep, , yawning and gasping for air like a fish.
Back at my desk for a while, distracted by messages. Call my Critics Circle colleague Peter Burdon to see how he is doing the isolation thing now that theatre reviewing his vanished for us all. He is plenty busy working from home. restructuring the Town Halls antiquated VIP list and editing a symphony. He has fruit trees and figs in his garden. I am envious.
I have flowers. Sam brought me some florist shop reject stocks and I’d ordered myself a $9 bunch of roses. A house without flowers makes me sad. So now, happy. Of course, I had sprayed and aired them. Who knows the virus life on flowers? What a sad thing to be worrying about. But we have to worry about everything.
Looked at my favourite old cedar chairs and feel sorry for the leather seats, so very worn and weary. Find some ancient leather conditioner from my mother’s era and some very fancy polishing cloths, pristine and unopened, Lord Sheraton no less, made from, wait for it, horse bandage. I open them. Lovely stretchy fabric. And I go to work on the leather seats of those beloved old chairs. Then I hunt up the lavender and beeswax polish for the cedar. I really go to town on those chairs. Every buff and polish is another memory of their lives, going right back to my childhood around the kitchen table. They have been in kitchen of every house my parents occupied. Epically sat-upon. I lavish them with love. I surprise myself with the depth of satisfaction this gives me. I even photograph them when I am finished. Oh, me. Isn’t this getting a bit quaint?
Have a lovely catch up conversation with my aquarobics instructor, Janet.
It’s Bruce’s turn to cook. He has done his prep early and is ready on the dot of four with our cocktails.
There is a change on the way but it is not yet cold. We sit in our usual spot in the courtyard and watch the clouds and our weather apps. Then the rain starts to plop and we retire inside.
Later, the most incredible storm cells rage over the house. I have the window open. It is dramatic and beautiful. The cat is very alarmed. He comes for comfort.



Saturday, April 4
Day 27

Rain. Rain. Cells of hard rain through the night.
Cat and coffee. He is not eating his cat soup, suddenly. Now I have a supply of it. I was so worried I would not be able to explain to the cat that he could not have his morning soup. I begged Sam and Peter to look for it for me. More important than loo paper. They both sourced some. Now the cat won’t eat it. CATS!!!!
Another busy day. Bruce has a Yale class reunion meeting on Zoom at 10. He sets up in the living room with his iPad. I have my Jonathan Mills’ voice class at 10.30.

Eating leftover lamb chops and Keto toast.
Then watching Emerald City to “review” for radio. Richard Sage and his wife Lynette ring up to catch up, He’s mayor of Grant Council in the South East and gave us the most superb hospitality when I did Oz Day there a couple of years ago. We loved those people to bits. Their daughter Danielle is now on daily dialysis. She’s very vulnerable but still working and, says Lynette, “just getting on with it”. These are indomitable good spirit souls. I just bless that they came into our lives. Thanks Australia Day Council and Bill Bell.
Missing grandies badly. Facetime with Sam and then with girls, esp Rosie whom I have not seen for aeons. She loved the online TheatreBugs class.
Watch the Vimeo stream of the Griffin Theatre production of Emerald City carefully, taking notes to talk about his manifestation of the theatre world. $5 to do so. But my idea is that there is still theatre for us, just recorded theatre. But still, interstate and overseas theatre, fresh productions. This one stars Mitchell Butel who is now artistic director of State Theatre of SA and is a splendid insight into his skills and versatility. I love his performance.
Face time with Rosie. Aaaah. I miss those darlings. Tells me about home schooling and Facewtiming her best friends. She loves it. She hates school uniforms. She hates having to dress up. She is rarely keen on going out. This life suits her.

Phone with Kay about the abortive outreach to an 85-year-old isolated in Minnesota. Kay had been seeking penpals dffor her on FB. So, I had written to her offering correspondence, mentioning my American connection and saying that, of course, if she was a Trump supporter, we could just end things here.. She pinged back a swift response in screaming capital letters saying that she was indeed a Trump supporter and that he had done more for her country in 3 1/2 years than anyone before him etc…. Kay had no idea of the woman’s politics. She had come upon her in her genealogical research and while establishing that they did not actually have any blood links, she had offered to help the old girl with some human outreach.

And so the day swirls along.
Drinks in the cool outside. Marg phone. Woolies delivers. Phew. Walk and talk 10,000 plus steps. Sausages and veg. I adore those cheap Woolies snags with sugar-free dead horse. I do. I bloody do. Ru calls for Facetime. Aaah. Of course she is less suited to the indoor life than her sister. She shows me her treasures, a Gucci this, a Vuitton that, a Chanel this… Ruby is an extrovert, a dedicated shopper and queen of brands and trends and girlie minutiae. But she, too, enjoys home schooling, the one-on-one with her father and her “classes” at the long dining room table with Luca. She shows me the last project she did at real school, a wonderful, comprehensive spread on Anne Frank. I am proud of her.


Sunday 5
Day 28

Daylight Saving. Clocks are back. The morning just a wee bit lighter.
Sunday, Smart Arts. I have date with the outside world, albeit from the phone in my bedroom.
Peter kindly drops off sugar-free tonic water and cat treats he has bought for me en route to the studio.

On 891 with him a bit later, Steve and I review Emerald City and talk about the choices of theatre to see online.

B and I a bit abrasive. We can’t afford to let that happen. He presses one of my buttons and I snarl. Then he gets annoyed with me for snarling and goes into grudge huff. Stand off.
The issue has been the sterilising of deliveries. This is the new horror chore of the self-isolation era. The Glen 20 spraying of everything, remembering that cardboard is a carrier and smooth containers also. The plastic delivery bags are a serious issue. Spray them. Spray inside them. Spray the items. Leave them for a time kill. Stage what one brings to the kitchen. Wash things again in the sink. Dry them. B worries that perishables will perish. It is cool. I am less worried. But the whole process fills me with anxiety. I was a germ phobe before all this.

Good grief, through this day I have walked 12604 steps in this little house. I’m going to wear the carpet thin. Partly it has been the up and down of bringing food through, partly it has been my daily striding it out up and down exercise regime and partly long and interesting walking and talking phone calls.
It is still wet outside but a few spells of gentle sunshine.

As usual, I have showered and dressed as if the world can see me. It is a discipline. The bed must be made, We must be spruce. Just for ourselves - and the mirror.
My last lot of almonds is Riverland and very so-so. I love them with our cocktails so I roast some in the oven. Slightly overcooked but, oh, my, what an easy success.
Meanwhile, I have cooked a massive Pea Kima curry in which I accidentally spilt a mass of chili powder from an unfamiliar container. I scrape some out but figure that we like it hot and I don’t have to worry about other palates. I made a minted tomato and onion salad. But it is still so hot, hot, hot.



Monday 6th
Day 30

The cat really hates me doing the voice class. But I am finding benefit in the breathing and relaxation and fun in the diction. We do I went to a marvellous party…
A lot of time spent trying to order provisions online.
Coles invited online ordering and I joined up and v carefully compiles a list only to find that it did not deliver at all, unless one was in sone wat government ticketed as disabled. Back to Woolies which has expanded its service. But now I don’t know what I have ordered where and I know I am in a logistics mess. However, Marino Meat and the SoFresh veggies are uncomplicated and efficient. I love them. So grateful. I liaise deliveries doe Wednesday.

Try to chase up New Haven hotel refund.
Totally demoralised. Give up. Again. So much money lost on the cancelled trip.

I need to write. I need to get this blog up. Why have I not done it? What’s with this lassitude, this ennui…
Rev up the mojo. Come on, Sa. You are an action stations person. You are curious and interested. Where does this indifference come from?

I contemplate the cat and the pleasure of his existence as another life in the house. Magnificent complex, supremely aesthetic creature. I am so glad we have him. I wish my mother had had more time with him. She would have adored him. I miss her but am glad she has missed out on all the bad and painful things that have happened since she died.

Bruce and I don’t talk a lot during the day. He does this studious thing in his chair (which was mother’s chair) and I prowl around and give myself chores - or not. Clean this and that. Eat crackers and vegemite.
Worry about the kids, especially Sam with no work and no prospects. Wish I could solve their problems.

We are all marking time.





Tuesday, 7th April
Day 31

A shudderingly ghastly night. Wakened at about 3 by a coughing fit, as if something had gone into my lungs and then, very awake, having the gulping fish breathing syndrome. Just c can't get air into the bottom of the lungs. A long night. Listened to Silk Road audio book which vividly describes the SARS epidemic in China. I just could not getaway. I also could not get warm. Window open breezy but my usual quilt cocoon was not effective. I start to fear that I am unwell. In the morning I take my temperature. Normal. But still not breathing well, This is flu shot day. We are leaving the sanctuary of the house to get vaccinated thru the car window at the local GP. I figure it’s a panic attack I have been having, Bloody hell, I take my temperature. Normal. Reason my way through it. Anxiety is a crumby condition to have in circumstances like this. My mother suffered from anxiety. Her father also. Who knows how far back it goes in the family? Who knows what genes carry such things? I can’t talk to Bruce about it. It makes him impatient.
I know he is worried about the pandemic but he distracts himself with knowledge. He studies all day. He studies the virus, human physiology and medicine and also, tirelessly, the manic meanderings of Donald Trump.
I have a hot shower and do Jonathan Mill’s online class, lying on the floor and concentrating on the breathing, I am still not breathing well, but it helps and I am grateful.
And thus we don our masks and go out into the big wide world for the first time in a month,
To give the car a warm-up, I drive around the corner to see the demolition site which was once the home of Vlad, the dentist. We have been hearing the bulldozers and wood chippers. Down by the medical practice we see lots of cars in the supermarket car park and a group of fitness-type young men definitely not social distancing. Cars on The Parade. The world is still humming along out here. We phone in to announce our presence and are told to drive down the back to get our shots. We wait in the little parking lot. A nurse in blue protective gear is talking to people in a car as we drive in. It leaves. There’s a car with several elderlies in masks in it. They are waiting with a door open in the corner. Another car arrives and parks beside us, Right beside us. Too close. A corpulent woman gets out and walks into the practice leaving some masked oldies in the car. I move our car to the other side of the lot, The phone rings. It is Mary the receptionist checking on us and suggesting we come inside. It is not busy. I say, no thanks, you organised our shots out here, We have been isolated for 30 days and do not wish to break out. Then there are a series of the most perplexing to and fro phone calls while I am cross-examined as to why we are isolating and don’t want to come in. As if having the shots in car is a big call. But it was their offer, their idea, their system. I am just baffled. I am kept on the phone. The nurse is consulted. Then Dr Kajani is at the car asking us why we don’t want to come in, why are we isolating. Our doctor??? Asking why? We explain the medication that Bruce is on. the medication that he, Kajani, prescribes and its abreaction to coronavirus and we explain my COPD from my decades of smoking. Oh, he says, He is close to the window, He is unmasked. Feeling altogether confused, I lower my mask to talk to him. Doh. Finally, Helen, the nurse comes out clad in blue protectives, black hair flowing, with the most magnificent mask I have ever seen. It is like a huge white duckbill. And it does not blur her speech at all, And suddenly, I discover MASK envy. It hits me like a bullet. The new phenomenon. I have a pretty washable fabric mask with a carbon filter. I bought a set of them early on. Can’t get them now. But I have never seen anything like Helen’s. I can’t believe I am sitting in my car and complimenting a nurse on the quality of her mask, This is all too surreal. She gives us our over-65er flu shots and tells Bruce that his pneumonia vax is not up to date but mine is. Hmm. But we had them together. Hmmm. We drive home, confused and exhausted.
The day chugs on. Barb on the phone always having a wonderful time with neighbours wherever she lives. She is the most amazingly neighbourly person I ever knew. Now they have been having street tea parties in Homer Road, sitting in chairs outside their houses and calling across the road to each other. Sweet. Wildlife in pandemic suburbia.
Meanwhile, I call Ryder to hear his voice flat with stress and exhaustion. Now he has been taking Kath out to her doctor’s appointment and doing her shopping as well as caring for Nic and the kids and the house and the condo and working from home. He sounds as if the energy has been sucked out of him. There is too much on him.
Then, when I talk to Sam it is to hear that Ruby has had a third scan to diagnose her pain. Another $80 he does not have. Kajani refuses to bulk bill them. Why? Is he unaware of the plight of his patients? As for Ruby’s abdominal pain, one just can’t work out how much is injury and how much a distressed and anxious child may have her fears manifesting in in psychosomatic pain. My mother always had stomach issues when she was over-stressed. But there is no knowing and one cannot risk not taking a child seriously.
I have a good vent when Marg rings.
I’m feeling a bit worn out by the time Emma Hack’s Zoom party begins. I think I’ll just pop in. But they are such a wonderful group of interesting, smart women that it is, yet again, a pick-me-up. I am honoured to be included and to have a window into their worlds.
We cook up a long-frozen chicken roast for dinner, with a mass of cabbage.