We’ve had an astonishingly low number of covid-19 deaths in Australia so far – less than 100. I guess this is attributable to our very isolated location; that after an initial period of dithering, mixed messages and very mediocre leadership, the federal and state governments acted relatively quickly to lock us down; and a reasonably compliant population. Restrictions are very slowly being eased in stages from this weekend. I suspect it will be a long time before we can travel overseas and I imagine it will be some time too until we’re back in the office.

We’re about to head into the seventh week of The Indoor Times and we’re becoming pretty much habituated to it now. This can be dangerous as it’s quite easy to let bad habits creep in. Mid-morning Monday I had to take to bed with a migraine that absolutely walloped me. I haven’t had a migraine for a very long time and this one came with an aura which is really unusual for me. Doubtless from many days of way too much coffee and not drinking very much water or green tea, both of which were part of my usual workday routine. And probably too much time with my face in the bright lights of a giant screen.

Of course like most people I had grand intentions of making good use of this enforced time indoors. This has met with varying levels of (but mostly little) success. I started riding the exercise bike for a short stretch each day, but my recent exercise has been pretty much limited to taking a morning walk with Don. I don’t think I’m snacking too much, but I’ve probably gained at least 10kg. I’m sitting way too much. I’m probably overly ambitious about what I’m able to take on project-wise. All The Things!

To be honest, in recent years much of my non-work time is generally spent at home, so not a huge amount has changed for me. There is much less shopping for sport or things we “need”. Grocery shopping is done quickly and efficiently. I spend much less time on the weekends doing housework because I can shove in a load of washing here and there during the work day.

Now that I’ve found my way a bit, I’m liking working remotely much more than I thought I would. I’m so happy to have access to fresh air and sunshine during the work day and while my commute was quite short, I am also delighted to be without it – I invariably came down with some sort of cold whenever I was forced to catch a train. During winter it will be utterly wonderful not to come home in the dark. SML has recently engaged consultants (of course we have – we love consultants) to review our organisational structure. As part of this, managers were asked if we could do our job remotely post-covid – many of us have said we could and we’d prefer it. Of course it’s not all sunshine and ponies, and I do miss the energy from other people but on balance I would rather be here.

All this indoorness of course makes you wonder whether you need to live close to the city with accompanying eye-watering mortgage in order to be close to things – especially when you no longer access those things very frequently. I’m right there with the excellent Dame Eleanor in possibly re-examining the desire to spend my latter years in a teensy city pad amidst vibrant bustling metropolis. Maybe I really want a garden and access to nature and space to spread out to make things, and space to socially distance!