Diary Entries

LIVING WITH THE VIRUS … AND THEN? (OR “THEY SHOOT VACCINES DON’T THEY”) The Premier says “We are re-opening soon” As the COVID case tally rises Vaccine rollout includes most ages The preferred jab is Pfizer’s One gentleman refuses to wear his mask A lady and her uncovered sneeze The teenagers huddled close together And the ignorant do as they please The pandemic it continues Lockdown about to end again Epidemiologists have a strategy For the dreaded Delta strain How do we keep safe and well? How do we help our plight? Complacency is the greatest enemy In this COVID fight Email your distant family Telephone long lost friends For anyone who is estranged It is time to make amends In time this virus will ebb away Less danger to me or you To become a distant memory Just like that Spanish flu

The Lockdown Lament The origins were in Wuhan In a lab and in a flask Someone left the lid off And now we wear a mask 😷 A virus that is so sneaky For a fortnight it can hide The best that we can do Is keep ourselves inside Peculiar is this problem Pondered by doctors, Premiers and P.M. Heed the expert warnings Or we lockdown again and again If we are to beat COVID We all must get the vacs They say each jab is free 💉💉 But it's paid for with our tax Alcohol wipes and sanitiser Social distance and face masks Practise these precautions To carry out your tasks

Life during Covid19 has been one of ups and downs, people behaving badly, people behaving as they should. Lockdown was prolonged more than it should have been, and we can all thank the protesters and the people wandering the streets unmasked, unvaccinated, partying, and not caring if they infected anyone. I can't believe how many self-entitled people live in this world, who risked the lives of others so they could do as they wished. I spent what time I could researching my ancestors and what their lives were like. I was unable to find anything in writing about them living in the time of the Spanish flu and how they faired. Life after lockdown, ah bliss. I plan on wandering around the local malls and catching up with friends and, window shopping, with maybe a few purchases. I am wanting to go to the State Archives, Australian War Memorial and State Library for some family history research. But first, family (and their pets) as I have missed them so much and I need a hug or two. Then off on some one-day or two-day trips to find and visit the graves of ancestors from Rookwood to Wagga cemeteries. I have been contacted or made contact with distant relatives and plan to meet them once we are safe to do so, which will be so interesting. I look forward to sharing information with them. Take care and remain safe

I spend my days with my laptop set up in my kitchen, surrounded my cookbooks and dough in various stages.

I've been very lucky. Even in lockdown and stay at home, I have still been able to go to work. I didn't realise how much seeing my work colleagues would mean to me during this period. Socialisation was so important - if I had not been able to at lease see and talk to people I really don't know how I would have coped.

Wow, what can I say about the months of lockdown and the weeks ahead to re-emerging. For one it was easier this time knowing there will be a solution so for me it was one day at time. Working at home enabled me to fill my days with constructive work and truly increased my learning curve. I was to go to visit my sons in Victoria which of course couldn't happen so I still took the leave. I woke up one morning with the idea of restoring my parents 1960's ironwork hall table. I had left it outside for twenty years. My father gave it to me after the smoked glass top broke and he'd replaced it with a wooden top that wore away. The framework was solid though rusty. I spent days in the winter sun sanding away. It was cathartic and I thought of my parents a lot and what they would have made of this year and last year if they were still here. Again sitting in the sun I painted the hall table with several coats of white metallic rust proof paint. I sent a before and after shot to my siblings and my children and my younger brother told me he'd broken the glass by sitting on the bottom shelf and trying to get up and knocking the glass. I have the table sitting in the spare room and eagerly await reopening to see if I can get a piece of smoked glass cut to fit the top. I sit quietly before starting work outside with a cuppa and watch the birds come and eat he crumbs I've thrown. My garden has thrived and I remember being do pleased when I saw the first blossom on my apricot tree I sent a photo of it to my work chat. This lockdown has made me appreciate all the things we do have and I look forward to seeing my family and friends at the end of it and walking along the river.

"We're all in this together": No, we're not. "We're all frustrated": No we're not. "We're not out of the woods yet": We were never in "the woods". "None of us like lockdowns": Some people have benefited from lockdowns and don't want lockdowns or other restrictions to ever end. The inequality of the impacts of lockdowns, border closures, mask wearing, and restrictions on home visits along with limitation of travel distances within Sydney are clear, yet the silence on the social damage is continues. Who cares? When I raise these inequities or, dare I complain, I am met with sanctimonious remarks and accusations about the irresponsibility of "rule breakers". I have heard people being accused of not caring if others die of Covid because of their "selfishness". Yet, the selfishness that I see is with those who continue to call for harsher restrictions that they are not affected by due to their comfortable lives, large houses, good incomes, secure employment, never having known true loneliness. Covid has brought nastiness to the fore, yet this nastiness is hardly ever remarked upon. The demonisation of those who are against harsh lockdowns and border closures has created an "us and them" divide in Australia. There's little sympathy for people in circumstances whose lives were miserable before Covid and for whom lockdowns have made their circumstances worse. The cruelty inflicted by lockdowns and border closures leave me feeling that I no longer want to live in Australia, the country of my birth. I am saddened that Australia has become nothing more than a group of villages that has no interest in being a nation. While I hope for constitutional reform to uphold the right to freedom of movement, I doubt that this will happen given the attitudes that currently prevail, which are parochial in the extreme. "Compassion" is a word that is very much over used, and is hardly ever practiced in any real sense. Australia will never be the same.

It's starting to heat up. We've had a few very hot days already and the weekend before last a scorching heatwave that lasted all weekend. Nevertheless, the overall mood in the country is much better I think. Much calmer. The news of a vaccine soon has, I think, calmed people. It has calmed me at any rate and I think my father who has been pretty much cooped up at home all year. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. A word about the irresponsibility of the media. At the beginning of the year the mood was anything but calm with the media whipping everything up by telling us over and over again that there may never be a vaccine because there has never been an effective vaccine found for this type of sickness. That is vague I know but I can't remember the details. Scientists were, on the other hand, quietly working away and at lightning speed and here we are with a vaccine or it seems more than one vaccine in just 11 months. I can't believe it has spread so voraciously all over the world so quickly. My thoughts are still occupied with my garden. At the moment I'm trying to decide if I want a full, bushy garden or if I want a garden where there is more à sense of space and light. To cheer them up, I have sent my friends in Brittany in France some books - two cookbooks - Greek Vegetarian and the Best of the Australian Women's Weekly - "A Short History of Australia" by Manning Clark and "Tracks" by Robyn Davidson. I paid an exorbitant $68 in postage for two. COVID-19 has affected overseas postage rates too. The council is putting in a beautiful street tree. Christmas present!!!

covid is so annoying. i wish we could go back to the old days were there is no covid. i am now allowed to go in peoples houses and me and my two friends are so close and love each other as if they where my family. and thats all for now and i will write to you again once i have another story to tell about covid.

Covid 19 has changed our lives. It has definitely changed our lives firstly because there is a new virus that can kill people. But that's fine because i just pretend that it isn’t around but that is hard because it is around and i keep asking myself the same question over and over again, when is covid going to stop and when is our life going to go back to normal again? I keep looking back to the old days when there was no covid. When i first heard about covid it was on the news then my parents started telling me more about the new virus. I was wondering how it started and i still don’t know how it started because I have heard a lot of different stories. People are telling me that someone ate a bat and it gave them the virus and other people are saying that china started it and other people are saying other things. I have one question that mostly only scientists know but maybe you know what the answer is. That question is how did covid get its name? I have an rhetorical question. How do you think the person is feeling that they started the virus and why do you think it. I think that they feel pretty bad because they gave the virus to the whole world. If there was no virus i would have got to spend that much time with my family and friends but there was also stuff i really hated about covid. I have these two friends who move every year because their dad works in the navy or army and i wasn’t allowed in other people's houses but they were so they went in each others houses while i was unhappy and feeling lonely.