Diary Entries

COVID Diaries - Captains Log Post for the 50th day of lock down. Today I looked at the vertical and diagonal marks I had been scratching on the "Dr Who Calendar" that hangs in the study of my isolation pod and came to the scary realization that the four vertical marks with one diagonal mark through them came to a total of 10 items marked that way - or that 50 days of isolation had been record. Only 50 days that felt like 50 years as I remembered back to the days when people looked forward to being in a crowd or riding on train. Now everything has become a litany of preparation to protect and defend against a virus, a something it is not really possible to defend against. A simple trip on the train requires the packing of gloves, a sanitizer and possibly a mask if you are going a long way - just the preparation to do stuff is exhausting. As a person who has always loved the spontaneous, the idea that "anything can happen Thursday" should be a thing, the COVID has been a real "Buzz Killer". Still there is always a positive and as we look forward to the arrival of our fifth grand child, there is the reminder that life renews and that time not only moves on but can also get better. I like my Dr Who as he/she are a Time Traveler and my scratches on his/her calendar as they remind of this fact.

Captains Log Day 2 Week 9 of the Corona files: Today I took my log cutting chainsaw on the road and went on a space walk around the Isolation Pod. Yes! Chainsaw in hand, I looked for an ideal spot to chop up some timber for the self contained BBQ in the entertaining area out the back of the Isolation Pod. My thinking being that with some of the COVID restrictions eased the next weekend might be a good opportunity to burn meat into a carcinogenic state with friends (all 2 of them) and tempt fate even more than the virus has. Ahhh! the small pleasures that are making isolation tolerable. Today I am looking forward to having some more English Muffins for lunch. Yes! that's the high point of the day. As time continues to drag on, its a bit like being forced to binge watch a TV Soap like "Neighbors" or a reality TV Show like "My Kitchen Makes Me Fat" (joking aside the would be a good title for a COVID based TV Show.) Oh dear! I cannot believe that it has been more than 2 months now in this Isolation Pod out in the Werrington Sector ....... BTW - Apparently, there is now talk of a "NZ Bubble", interesting idea yes, but more jargon to add to things like "social distancing", "flattening the curve" and "avoiding the peak" - room for a COVID-19 Dictionary I'd say, but I'll leave that for my next entry?

I started writing Log Notes in the form of a Star Trek Ships Captain for the amusement of friends and to pass the time in isolation - here a some samplers. Captain's Log In my Isolated Pod detached from the main ship, the NCSS Pyrmont, out in the dark black hole which has become known as the Corona Constellation. I and my colleagues have been busy trying to avoid Space Cabin Fever and the COVID virus. My approach has been to keep busy with domestic duties like re-tiling the space bathroom and modernizing the galley bench tops. Lucky for us the Klingon's have been observing the Federation's Isolation directives which has given us the time to indulge our diversions. Life has become very repetitive and each day is starting to melt into the previous. Out here in the Isolation Pods life is going on, and on and on. The days like gum on the bottom of your shoe are stretching from one step to the next. Food wise I have become so lazy that I can no longer be bothered pushing the button on the replicator and I feel like I am living on almonds and cashews. The cashews would be nice if I had some stir fried beef to go with them as well as some fried rice. This morning the Editorial Squadron now all in isolation from the mother ship still docked in stasis in the middle of the COVID black hole in Pyrmont, had a SLACK meeting [not a slack meeting but a meeting via the Slack App - who names these thing?]. The meeting was cheerful and it was nice to hear the voices of colleagues even if they were just icons on a phone screen bobbing in and out as the NBN failed the unfailed.