Next up … Joan

Australia currently has 0 cases of community transmission of the covid. One of the reasons our Government has managed this so successfully is by making it next to impossible for our citizens overseas to return home – aggressively low incoming passenger caps, individual one way flights costing >$10k each (if you can even find one – and these will generally be cancelled multiple times at the last minute), mandatory hotel quarantine costs of $3k and a ton of other restrictions. There have been a handful of sporadic official repatriation flights, but these are quite poorly managed and pretty impossible to get.

What the Government has done outstandingly well is deflect any criticism and whip up public sentiment against those overseas with a whole “they should have come home earlier” narrative – quite how this could have been achieved with that whole no flights thing is never really articulated. It’s probably unrealistic to expect these incompetent clowns to arrive at a plan in the almost 12 months they’ve had to organise something.

There are currently 39k people trapped in this situation – Joan is one of them. She’s in Switzerland right now residing with her Swiss boyfriend. The Swiss Government being more humane than ours, is permitting her to stay on for chunks of time – though she does not have work rights. While this is not great, she is in a better position than many others who are in really quite dire circumstances.

On that uplifting note …

Let’s review 2020

1. Have £x in my savings account by June 2020
✅

2. Find a new hobby that involves physical activity
Not so much…

3. Start a language course
I started an online German course but it’s not the best

4. Travel to 5 new countries
I went to Spain in February and snuck to Liechtenstein in November but 2020 hasn’t been great for exploring new countries

5. Reduce my expenditure on food
No in the first half of the year when I ate my quarantine feelings away through Deliveroo but I’ve spent a lot less the second half of the year in Switzerland

And for 2021

Doing this under duress. If there’s anything I’ve learned from 2020, it’s that you can have the best intentions for the year ahead but external factors can make achieving goals impossible.

1. Add five new dishes to my cooking repertoire
2. Do some sort of physical activity at least every second day
3. Earn some money, somehow
4. Sort out my photo library
5. Go to Australia at some point

xxx

Joan’s previous not-resolutions:
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011