We left last Thursday. Got away about 10.30am for our holiday to Adelaide. First night we'd booked a dog friendly motel at Bordertown, where we'd stayed last year on our trip over and back. We enjoyed dinner at the pub and settled back in our motel room about 8pm and watched the first game of round 1 of the AFL season. Richmond jumped Carlton early by the time we switched on and were four goals up and maintained that margin at the end of what was lack lustre viewing of a game of televised footy with no crowd due to Corona Virus restrictions.
We'd booked an Air B+B house at Henley Beach for 8 nights and took our time getting there as check in time was 3pm. It's a nice house, a solid old place renovated with high ceilings, large rooms, and a bit of a back yard for Pip. Comfortable, unpretentious, carport with electronic roller door, TV's in all 3 bedrooms and a very large one in the loungeroom which we've given a good work out.
The draw back is the traffic noise. The house is on a main road with hardly a front garden so the vehicle noise from cars buses and trucks reverberates through the house. There's another main road at the back with only one row of houses between it and us so you get noise from it too. Not ideal for one sensitive to noise as I am.
The plus side is the beach is very close, we go out the front door and across the road and down a side road through the row of houses that stretch along the foreshore and you are on the beach. We've walked Pip a couple of times a day on the beach which she loves, and so does Lib, although it isn't the type of beach we are used to. The houses (and apartments) all along the foreshore are multi million dollar jobs with that very square solid modern architecture with lots of glass and balconies. It amazes at how many wealthy people there are in Adelaide. Henley Beach is quite upmarket, not our style at all really, but we try to pretend we are having a good time, given the hefty expense of the accommodation.
It has been a testing four days here. This Corona dominates the news and each day there's more and more hype and restriction. We can't help but worry about getting home and the possibility of imposed self isolation when we do. Victoria has not yet closed it's border so we haven't packed up and left to beat enforced self isolation on returning if they do. Hopefully if they do we'll have 12 hours notice to get over the border.
Not that 14 days isolation would worry me greatly, all my customers at the farm cancelled their pick ups so my business is effectively closed down anyway, but Lib will need to start back at work and isolation would prevent that.
So it really has not been the ideal time to take an interstate holiday. The mood is missing. To be frank I'm keen to get home. We may leave as early as tomorrow and drive back in one hit. We are listening to the news and weighing options. Fortunately there has been no talk of petrol shortage, we can jump in the car at short notice.
I'm conscious that so many people have had their lives turned upside down by this health crisis and my problems shrink to near nought by comparison. I'm nearing retirement so it doesn't really matter if my business does not revive and I have no rent or mortgage payments. I feel very sorry for people who lose their jobs and have commitments they can't meet. I had a massage this morning (for stiff neck and upper back) and the masseur said the chiropractor business he works with is closing and he'll be this day joining the Centrelink queue to look for work in a different field. He has three young children.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Saturday, March 14, 2020
All's Well, But Cold
I looked out out into the garden from our deck this afternoon. The foliage was almost glistening in the autumn sun. The grass is lush green, growing at a fast rate. It's hard to believe that this is so in early March, after summer, a time when usually the landscape is dry and parched.
We had 140ml of rain in February, and I think another 40 or so in the first days of March. It rained again on Friday, not heavy but enough to water the plants in pots. Watering has been no problem this last couple of months.
The honey season has been the best for years. Before the big deluge in February a honey flow was in progress. It seemed to return as the weather cleared, slower, but still happy bees. I managed to get some off for my friend Leanne to extract, and also help Denny, who has health issues and needs a bit of a hand with his bees. I would expect by the end of March there'll be more to take and still be plenty to leave for the bees for the winter. Nothing is certain but that is the indication.
My only complaint is that I'm sitting here with a jumper on and still I'm cold. And last night in bed I was cold for ages before falling asleep. Then Pip woke me twice during the night. Lib and Gord are at Lakes for a few days, home tomorrow. I guess the house feeling empty doesn't help although I've thoroughly enjoyed my evening solitude. I've always found my own company pleasant.
I'm still on my alcohol free experiment. Tomorrow I'll be 70 days AF. It would be so good to have a bottle of red with our roast lamb tomorrow night when Lib and Gord have returned, but I've set my new target at 100 days. I have found life still to be enjoyable without wine, something I doubted prior to me embarking on the experiment. I wondered if being home alone might trigger me relax my resolve but It hasn't been too bad. I think I've established a "new normal", and have a routine of non alcoholic beverage to fill the psychological void and a bit of chocolate and a cup of tea after dinner, followed by a creamy coffee later and maybe a vanilla slice or an icecream.
We go on holiday soon, to Adelaide for a week, that will be another test, a holiday without a rewarding relaxing wine. Then there's a footy club reunion in April, 40 years since Greta premiership 1980, another test. But there were non drinkers in that team, several if I recall, and many moderates. If it was split into thirds, I would have been in the drinker third. I don't feel threatened by attending and not drinking.
I'm off for a hot bath, another cold night ahead. I don't feel justified to turn on a heater just for me. Who knows what the weather will do from here. I have plenty of firewood cut but would hope not to be lighting the fire till May. Who would have thought with the dry weather over much of south eastern Australia and all the bushfires, that we here in the Dandenongs would have had such a mild lush summer with continued green and growth, and now such cold in what is traditionally heatwave time.
We had 140ml of rain in February, and I think another 40 or so in the first days of March. It rained again on Friday, not heavy but enough to water the plants in pots. Watering has been no problem this last couple of months.
The honey season has been the best for years. Before the big deluge in February a honey flow was in progress. It seemed to return as the weather cleared, slower, but still happy bees. I managed to get some off for my friend Leanne to extract, and also help Denny, who has health issues and needs a bit of a hand with his bees. I would expect by the end of March there'll be more to take and still be plenty to leave for the bees for the winter. Nothing is certain but that is the indication.
My only complaint is that I'm sitting here with a jumper on and still I'm cold. And last night in bed I was cold for ages before falling asleep. Then Pip woke me twice during the night. Lib and Gord are at Lakes for a few days, home tomorrow. I guess the house feeling empty doesn't help although I've thoroughly enjoyed my evening solitude. I've always found my own company pleasant.
I'm still on my alcohol free experiment. Tomorrow I'll be 70 days AF. It would be so good to have a bottle of red with our roast lamb tomorrow night when Lib and Gord have returned, but I've set my new target at 100 days. I have found life still to be enjoyable without wine, something I doubted prior to me embarking on the experiment. I wondered if being home alone might trigger me relax my resolve but It hasn't been too bad. I think I've established a "new normal", and have a routine of non alcoholic beverage to fill the psychological void and a bit of chocolate and a cup of tea after dinner, followed by a creamy coffee later and maybe a vanilla slice or an icecream.
We go on holiday soon, to Adelaide for a week, that will be another test, a holiday without a rewarding relaxing wine. Then there's a footy club reunion in April, 40 years since Greta premiership 1980, another test. But there were non drinkers in that team, several if I recall, and many moderates. If it was split into thirds, I would have been in the drinker third. I don't feel threatened by attending and not drinking.
I'm off for a hot bath, another cold night ahead. I don't feel justified to turn on a heater just for me. Who knows what the weather will do from here. I have plenty of firewood cut but would hope not to be lighting the fire till May. Who would have thought with the dry weather over much of south eastern Australia and all the bushfires, that we here in the Dandenongs would have had such a mild lush summer with continued green and growth, and now such cold in what is traditionally heatwave time.
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