Because it’s a public holiday today, we took a slightly longer walk this morning. Rather than our default of heading for the park, we walked through the back streets of Annandale toward Blackwattle Bay.

It was drizzling with rain pretty much all the way but enjoyable nonetheless. Most people appear to be complying with the requirement to stay at home – there were very very few people out and about.

Despite the rain there were so many bright colours everywhere – lots of teddies in windows, rainbows and adorable signs.

And flowers! So much seems to be in bloom right now. I have no idea if this is normal for Autumn or if the changing climate has everything a bit messed up.

Naturally I took a ton of photos, which I haven’t really done for a while and should definitely do more of.

A+++ would stroll in the rain again.

quite bonkers

Tough day – slept poorly, still a little unwell from the cold/allergy, drained from wrangling team, missing the energy from interactions, reading too much news, pondering what I’m doing with my life.

In real need of some care and feeding. And a decent sleep.

Don supplied chocolate, which was also welcome.

The five days of relaxing ahead of me will be very welcome! One day for chores and the rest for various projects.

It will be amazing.

when too many kitties are barely enough

I’ve been really enjoying our morning walk to the park, twice around the oval and back. Naturally we’re mindful all the while to keep an appropriate distance from others which has quickly become the new normal.

Now we’ve been going for the past two weeks at the same sort of time, we’re starting to become aware of the regulars.

* the running couple who wear black face masks
* the two young girls drinking coffee on the bench
* the tween brother who offers his tween sister 50 cents to “run another lap”
* the rag tag band of dogs and their owners
* the revolting spitty dad (so gross)
* the two middle-aged women exercising in the rotunda
* the couple doing yoga to a yoga video
* chatty dad – who does not appear draw breath or let his kids get a word in
* the tall stern German personal trainer and meek obedient client
* assorted other personal trainers
* dads and offspring out for a jog
* the couple doing what appears to be a strange slow dance-fight-mime in each other’s arms

I wonder if any of them notice us, or if we’re just weirdly observant and nosy.

It’s really pleasant to start the day in this way – and only took an apocalypse to make it happen.

plenty more where this came from

I’ve been quite diligent with social distancing, remaining indoors, hand washing, using sanitiser and whatnot, so I’m not entirely certain how I ended up getting a cold – but here we are!

Well either a cold or some sort of newly developed allergy which is manifesting itself as a cold.

Fortunately there is no need to be anywhere other than here, so I can take it easy and cosy down.

A minor hiccough in those good intentions to show up every day!

Over the weekend there was much pottering, cleaning, cooking and nesting.

It was … really nice. Peaceful and calming.

I also pulled out the DSLR from a drawer and took photos of the kitties:

And of sunsets:

I was contemplating sticking the DSLR on eBay, but I’m now inclined to use it. It is easy to forget how nice the photos can be.

xxx

We bravely ventured out for grocery shopping yesterday. The stores open at 7am and we thought to get there early and avoid crowds. We arrived just after 8am. This was clearly not an entirely original idea as it was quite a lot more crowded than it would otherwise be. Possibly the opposite of peaceful and calming, though I expect it would have been much worse later in the day.

We usually shop weekly, but it had been about a week and a half since our last shop. In the interim some stores have introduced more distancing measures, some thoughtfully provided hand sanitiser, wipes for the trolleys, clear shields for the staff at the cash registers and marks in the queues to indicate where to stand – others not at lot at all.

We wore the masks which I’d had kicking around since the bushfires. We saw lots more people with masks and some taking it to the next level with surgical gloves.

We always prepare a weekly meal plan, but will occasionally go off piste. Before C-19 I’d drop into the supermarket a few times a week to pick up additional “stuff”. Yesterday we bought enough food to theoretically last us a month or longer, hopefully eliminating the need to go out for anything other than milk.

It feels increasingly wrong to be out and about – per the guidelines I’m sticking only to groceries and the morning walk. Don will play the weekly socially-distanced golf game for as long as this is permitted. All golf was banned last week, but the ban was quickly lifted and replaced by stringent social distancing rules a few days later (in some areas) to much rejoicing.

I hope things are chilled and peaceful where you are.

lowering property values

ThePalace(OfLove) is situated on a highly trafficked street and directly under a flight path. Fortunately we have reasonably effective double glazing so we’re generally not bothered too much by noise, but there’s usually a background hum, even late at night.

Well there was a hum until we were all sent indoors. Now – silence.

So much silence it’s quite eerie. It is not unlike being camping far away from civilisation. It was so quiet this evening, I could hear the beep of the pedestrian crossing button from down the street while sitting at my desk.

We’ve take to turning on a fan for some white noise so we can sleep.

I think I’ve said before that time bends in strange ways in this situation. We haven’t even been doing this for a full two weeks, it feels much more like two months.

getting autumnal

This evening I decided that I want to embrace the (very privileged) opportunity this enforced hibernation gives to slow right down and reflect and assess.

What do I want to be doing with my time?

How do I want to live?

And all those kinds of great and big questions.

There’s loads of ideas kicking around on the InformationSuperhighway about picking specific projects, areas for improvement or skills to develop while we’re all locked away. I want to explore some of those too.

Will definitely work better for me if I frame this as a growth thing and try to focus on developing myself.

Ideas to follow.

ominous sunrise

Showing up because I said I would.

I can’t quite pinpoint why today was so tedious, but it really was and it was difficult to shake off post-work.

I’m taking a couple of leave days here and there – first on Friday – that should sort me out.

I finally made that list of the various craft projects I’ve had kicking around in my head.

There’s quite enough to see me through many, many months – years even.

(seeing the list I realise there are a couple of items missing – I need a cushion for my chair in the not-sewing room and some wee coasters)

I have everything I need to get started on these, so nothing is stopping me except … myself.

Amazing that I can easily find the time to spontaneously craft a hat to wear for my morning team call, but I really struggle to get going on the the larger, slightly more serious projects.

Perfectionisting?

Maybe I really do need to be more playful and make the stakes lower. Not everything has to be a masterpiece and I should allow myself to make mistakes.

My resolution for the next week is in the title. I will indeed select two things from the list and start on them.

In the last weeks of work at the Project Sulfur offices, there had been so many government announcements the inadvisability of various travel things and outright bans of other travel things that it was hard to keep up.

I was somewhat surprised to see a ship in port when I arrived at Circular Quay one morning because I could have sworn I’d read that cruise ships were no longer permitted to dock.

Since working at the good end of town, I’ve been taking a daily (when I’m there) photo of the harbour at the same spot with the plan to turn it into some sort of project.

plague ship

I’d been expecting to have an uninterrupted run of bridge photos for a while, but figured I’d likely misinterpreted the ships announcement, took my photo and carried on.

I kept my distance from the disembarking passengers who were milling about the station because at that point we becoming careful about social distancing – and we were becoming increasingly aware that cruise ships are giant floating disease incubators and particularly favoured by covid-19.

My instinct to be cautious was the correct one – the ship was the now infamous Ruby Princess.

That was the second last photo I took in my series. The last was taken the next day – of another ship in port, with of course more (though less than Ruby) coronavirus on board.

Much safer at home, but I do regret the end of the series.