Diary Entries

I miss you...FRIENDS. I miss you...FAMALY. I miss you...BEACH. I miss you...TOWN. I miss you...AIR. I miss you...CUMPONY. I miss you...COMUCASHON. I miss you...PARK. I miss you...SCHOOL. I miss you...SHOPS. I miss you...PEOPE. I MISS YOU, I MISS YOU,T MISS YOU!!!

We are strugaling throw pane and misery. But if we stand together we will make it. We will make it I promes cos we are strong. We will fight till the end. Were we will get puzzel bake up. WE WILL GET THERE!!! YOU CAN MAKE A DIFRENTS TO!!! ITS YOUR TIME TO SHINE!!!

Okay so... This isolation period has been intense. Uni work is driving me mad. The whole family is starting to get sick of each other - if we aren't already. I'm so tired all the time, so it keeps pushing back my work because I'd rather sleep than get assignments done sometimes. One good thing to come out of this is that I've started talking to a guy from uni... We're in the same faculty, and it seems like a good friendship for now. I'm secretly hoping it will progress into something more. He's a great guy, and I can't help but smile when his name pops up on my screen. We've had some great conversations going for the last week or so. A lot of inside jokes and the playfighting... best part is that he gets my humour. He is pretty funny, and smart too, which makes it easier to hold conversations with him. Cute smile too. My friends are happy that I've finally found someone to connect with at uni. Most of my friends are in relationships at this point, so I'm not surprised, hahaha. I can't wait for isolation to be over so we can finally meet up. I've really been missing my close friends. I celebrated my birthday at home, and my friends called over Zoom to celebrate with me. It was so sweet. ALMOST as good as having them here with me. I quite like being at home sometimes. Usually when I can stay lying in bed all day with a book and some music. Not long to go... I hope. Okay, I really need to get back to my assignments now. Talk soon xx

It was my father's birthday on the 18th. He turned 92. He hasn't been the easiest person to protect from COVID-19 mainly because at the beginning he wasn't taking things seriously enough. He wasn't taking enough care. He has a tendency to downplay health issues anyway. He still lives in his own home with Mum so that worked in his favour but for a while there he didn't want to stay home. There was a secret visit to a coffee shop (kept secret from the family)and not wearing a mask, to see friends. Fortunately there was no one there and he came home again. His friends were sensibly fearful of COVID-19 and didn't show. Then he would refuse to wear a mask on his daily walk around the block because he insisted the streets were empty. There was no one to catch COVID-19 from he claimed. Shopping was also an issue. I wanted to organise for groceries to be delivered but Mum and Dad didn't want deliveries. So I was going to the supermarket myself and doing their grocery shopping. I did the best I could but there were complaints. The bananas weren't green enough (the bananas had to be green) or the broccoli was too big and won't fit in the pan. The strawberries and raspberries weren't wanted neither were the qukes or tomatoes (That was my attempt at getting some vegetables into them.) and under no circumstances was I allowed to buy lettuce. Now that things have settled down a little they go to Aldi once a week and do their own grocery shopping. They insisted that they wanted to do it and kept asking. At least they go when it is very quiet, wear a mask and sanitise the trolley and their hands. My shopping is delivered.

I just read some hours ago that yesterday in Melbourne CSL started making 30 million doses of the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine because the trial is nearing completion and it looks like it will be successful. Churches have opposed this vaccine because they have said it uses cells from an aborted foetus. I need to do some investigating before I decide to take it, that is if this is the vaccine that will be made available. At any rate it is an extraordinary achievement. That a vaccine could be found and made available so quickly. Another feather in the cap of human achievement. It is my father's birthday on the 18th.My sister has organised a birthday party in an Italian restaurant where they make one metre long pizza. I'm not such a big fan of pizza but it sounds like fun. What do you gift a 92 year old man? An electric massage pillow. Places in Europe are in lockdown again. Greece till the end of November and France for 4 weeks I think. I have friends in both these countries. One French friend has said that the atmosphere there is morose. At least a vaccine is now on the horizon. I have made more things in the collage class - a postcard which I am going to send to my father and two self-portraits. Aaron, the teacher, has organised an exhibition in a local library for May of next year. We need to pick one collage from our collection to be framed and exhibited. It will be my first exhibition. That is something I never would have imagined would happen. This morning I was having a think about why the collage class has been so successful. We were producing our own work right from the beginning and not copying.

Waiting for rain My shoulders are taut, sitting on a wooden bench staring at the fields, I realise how much I am straining, willing rain to come. I decide, instead, to listen. Near-in to my body, throat breath, heart-beat I hear so much these days, the dog’s paw on a gabion taking careful steps on wires and rocks, toenails on wood. At mid-range, birds: a lark over our fields, ravens cawing, ducks dry crop-futtling, silver-eyes in thorns, small plovers ‘twitting’, galahs’ wingbeats right overhead. From a distance it comes on gently, ​​trickles off roof to tank, plips a water-level sonar, wetting us as we sit, glorious, slow rain.

I miss you, Sea. I miss you, Sea mist. Wind-battered. Mind-battled. With tide I did follow. Stranded now dry I ache in my sorrow.

Things at the moment have been about water. It rained last night and everything is wet. It is going to rain for the next week much to the delight of my garden and plants everywhere. The rain will wash everything down and cleanse. The first sunshine after rain is glorious. I look forward to it. Still on the theme of water my pipes decided that during COVID-19 was the time to play up. Over 7 days it was a flooded shower, a visit from the loveliest young handyman in Australia from Nowra I think who put a camera down my shower drain only to discover the problem wasn't there and then didn't charge me. How many tradespeople do you know who do that ? Impeccable manners. He wanted to take off his shoes before coming into the house because he didn't want to stain the floor. How many people do that ? We had a lovely chat while he was working. He was a great conversationalist. Very polite and respectful. They say people from the country are different. Then it was 3 visits from plumbers, digging and new pipes. This is an old house and the pipes are very old. I was the only person wearing a mask yesterday at the hairdresser. Why aren't more people taking care ? COVID-19 is still with us. It is still out there. We aren't out of the woods yet. I missed my collage class yesterday. This week's theme was to create a Dada like poem. I will do it myself. Looking forward to it. This last week has seen the corruption of government officials. The squeaky clean Premier is no longer so squeaky clean after the revelation of her secret relationship with grubby MP Daryl Maguire and the unlawful shredding of important documents.

Is this really the end of the world as we know it? Because the sun is shining today and it's hard to imagine it ends on such a glorious spring day. Stay stay everyone and stay gold, Ponyboy.

I still think of him daily. At the end of the day, I peel back my bed covers and melting onto the mattress i prematurely congratulate myself that I went a day without thinking of him. Jinx! Too late. I then play music which we played or i create playlists about us and the moods we were in, the emotions we bled in unison. I wonder if he sees my subtle code of playlists and images I curate on spotify. Does he not-think of me too?