We have been here one year now since December 13, 2019 and I suppose a lot has happened. At first we were just so happy to be away from the traffic, heatwaves, bushfires, and floods, but then there was Covid-19. We did have the once in 100 year snow event back in August, but that has probably been the worst of it. We are both healthy, our finances are still in reasonable shape, and we don’t have to pay rent. We now have the solar power we always wanted, and with the garden screen we don’t have to look at the neighbours’ business any more. Plus, we have two beautiful cats Chocco and Latte. For the past six weeks we no longer confine them to the family room downstairs, whey now sleep up in the bedroom with us, and are happy snuggling under the covers if they get cold.
We feel like we have been living without a care in our own little bubble here, while the rest of the world has been going to the dogs. We are still not out of the woods yet, it will be at least 6 months before enough people are vaccinated to completely suppress the virus and get back to something resembling normal. The Australian government has already resumed it’s ideological agenda, promoting fossil fuels, cracking down on welfare, workers rights, and proposing more tax cuts for the wealthy, all in the name of economic recovery. It’s like they didn’t learn a single thing from any of this. The current plan is to start rolling out the vaccines in March here, but that may have to be accelerated due to recent events. It’s pretty depressing to see what’s happening in the U.S., currently over 317,000 dead but every time I look it goes up by at least another 1,000. Nearly 26,000 dead just in Texas but that keeps going up as well. Where my aunt lives it’s approaching 200 just in that county. Still sitting at 908 dead here in Australia. There has been another mini outbreak in the suburbs north of Sydney over in NSW, about 70 people have tested positive so far. They did genomic sequencing on the strain and it came from the U.S. It most likely came from air crew flying in, they had been allowed to “self isolate” during their layover, but as recently as yesterday some were caught out and about and were fined. Now all air crew have to be in mandatory quarantine. They keep doing stupid things here like exempting foreign service, foreign diplomats, government big wigs from quarantine, and then this happens. Now all the other states are imposing restrictions on people from around Sydney, and they have cancelled the Sydney to Hobart yacht race for the first time ever. They had 4 people who arrived on a repatriation flight from India to Hobart test positive two weeks ago, but none of them are in hospital any more, at least that’s something. Life is still pretty normal here in Tasmania, but it can all change so quickly.
We are looking into getting a heat pump hot water system, which will free up space in the downstairs bathroom, which can then be renovated. We may finally get a bed and some other furniture for the annex so people can come over and stay. It looks like another brother is coming over in March from Victoria barring any further outbreaks there, and some of our other friends from there will probably be contacting us soon. Now that we have the screen up on the patio, we can start planting a lot more trees and shrubs out in the yard between us and the neighbours. We are still thinking about chickens. I cleaned out all the bulbs from one of the garden beds, hundreds of Belladonna Lilies (Naked Ladies), jonquils, daffodils, etc. I still have at least five areas to do but will eventually get around to it. Still getting lots of kangaroos and wallabies coming up and eating the swedes and carrot tops we have been putting out for them. I wasn’t going to grow any more of them but may put in a smaller amount next time just for feeding. It’s fun watching them, and the cats are absolutely fascinated looking out the laundry window at them.
Christmas is next, I take the turkey out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge today. Instead of the BBQ, it will cook in the oven on Christmas Eve and use some of that free electricity!
