Self Isolation Day 55/56. Tantrums and

I think I was doing better in hotel quarantine! Today, I had a relapse into a semi tantrum stage that I remember being in during my isolation in France. It has returned! It is exactly 8 weeks today that I arrived in France to lockdown. Maybe it's triggering memories. After another terrible sleep, I got out of bed. Yes, readers, I managed that. So proud of myself. Had a pot of coffee (yes, a pot! It has come to that) and walked to the shops for food before that part of me who whispered as I awoke: 'Don't get up!' got the better of me and convinced me to go straight back to bed. This is so unlike me. I wake, I check the coronovirus worldometer stats around the world, I arise, shower, get dressed, put lipstick on (this is probably more important than anything else), and then I coffee. Even in my darkest hours, I kept this routine going. I struggled with it this morning. I worry that tomorrow, another part of me that has emerged with this virus, will take over and run the show. It is the Covid-19 depressed me. It followed me around as I social distanced and disinfected my hands at every disinfectant station on my rounds. I thought I'd lost it but it came with me to the supermarket and made me buy biscuits. I rarely buy biscuits. They were expensive Italian biscuits. I bought them. And when I returned home I ate half of the packet. I. Have. Never. Done. That. Before. In. My. Life!

I said to the daughter I was going to buy plants, I needed to get away from the biscuits. I needed to do something wholesome. I knew the daughter would accompany me, she was variegated plant obsessed; (this didn't come from me, I like a good uniform colour in a leaf; I blame her father). We went, we bought, I planted. The depressive Covid gene was still tailing me after I completed this activity. I went to bed. I think I napped but don't really know if I did. I ate more biscuits. I was done with creativity. I didn't want to paint or write or more importantly, wear winter clothes. I had come from 6 months of cold weather and I was now going into another winter so I put on a autumn weight dress and refused to take it off. I was cold for most of the day. I solved this by ringing my plumber to put a gas heater outlet upstairs in the art room so that I could continue to wear coolish dresses for as long a possible. I am in a contrary mood but I had the look of a woman embracing autumn. I shall keep up the pretence for as long as possible.

PS. I didn't eat the last of the biscuits as of 10 pm. That could change if I awake at my usual time of 3.30.

PSS. I wasn't going to write this blog but it has happened. I think the sugar from the biscuits has finally kicked in.

Me in warmer weather with the Sicilians serenading me. #blendeditor

Self Isolation. Day 54. A day of pretence.

So I had a day of pretence. I made brunch for the daughter and I in our gazebo. I made corn fritters served with sour cream, bacon and chilli sauce. We were at the Middle St cafe, which incidentally, is open all hours and has started to serve alcohol after midday and is currently looking into champagne breakfasts (will keep you posted on that one, although I think the approval will obtained by week eight in two days time).

My sleeping pattern, never great even at the best of times, has lost all sense of design. Today I woke before dawn, so by the time I'd gone shopping and prepared brunch, I was ready for a nap. Has everyone's life taken on a weird level of abnormalcy? Time slows, then suddenly fastens, then drags between 4-5 when one isn't employed or even when one is working from home. It was the time that I worked on my rug and now that is finished, I'll be in need of another project for that witching hour time. But today I was all crafted out. The starting of new projects was always harder than the actual working of them and I was not in the mood. I decided to have the day off but for most of the time, felt guilty that I was not busily occupied doing something, if not anything important. I feel that at the start of the pandemic, everyone started out doing all the things they had been putting off and projects were big on everyone's agenda (think sourdough bread, something I have still managed to sidestep). By now, I think we're done with all the charm of the newly isolated and boredom is reaching in and setting up home in the recesses where our creativity once grew.

But we did have a chosen visitor who made it through on the premise of a birthday (and innate charm.) We entertained with social distancing in the gazebo with a good Aussie cheese platter and a New Zealand Sav Blanc. The Middle St cafe had just brought in the alcohol after midday ruling so all was well. For a brief time in the garden, life appeared normal except for the conversations surrounding social distancing and that the majority of Australians, we noticed on our brief outings, weren't following the rules.

Self Isolation Day 52/53. The stages of quarantine.

I finished the rug! I would do things very differently if I did it again but I don't think that'll happen anytime soon. A lot of cutting. The weaving was very therapeutic though, all thoughts disappeared as I listened to Lana del Rey on #Spotify and days disappeared. It's not as big as I had hoped but I ran out of vintage fabrics that matched. It was a bit of a process like the self isolation. In the beginning it seems life changing, a never before experienced way of living. You begin on a bit of a high, wondering how you'll cope, that it'll be an interesting experience (this was how I felt about the rug, I don't feel that now). About week three, the newness of it starts to fade, by week four we were ready to cross to the other side of the world through crowded carriages and empty airports with even emptier planes. We took a risk to remove ourselves from the ongoing ennui. By week 6, after the hotel quarantine experience, the newness of being home and having normal things to do took the attention away from the continuance of the virus period. By week 7, I had begun the making of the rug to end all rugs (which it has, not going there again anytime soon). I have bought cocktail hour back (having been good since I arrived home -well not that good but only the daughter knew up to now) the last couple of nights because I really just want to get back into the world, to a luxurious fancy cocktail bar. Just to wander amongst humanity again (although the daughter walked to Coogee today and there was so much humanity there that she was horrified and came back home), so maybe not that much.

All my packages seemed to have arrived in the last two days so I have revamped my life a bit with online buying. I still disinfect my hands a couple of times after undoing the packages and I wash all the contents straight away so I'm still on Covid virus patrol. The house has never looked cleaner. Both the daughter and I ,at any given time of the day, just start to do a house cleanse, a sageing of the spaces, washing of hitherto places that have not been washed for quite some time. We have almost run out of things to clean. What then? She has two months before she goes back to Uni and I have a lifetime to work out what to go back to.

Last night we looked up at the full super Flower Moon and we met up with our tenants, drank a bit too much and allowed the moonlight to wash it's gentle light over us as we sat out the back in the gazebo talking about lives and where we wanted to steer them. We wrote our releases, our dreams and our gratefulness on scraps of paper and let them go. A month ago we were standing on the balcony in Bordeaux, France, peering up at the last full moon, releasing our dreams of how we had envisaged our year abroad. Last night we tried to move on with new visions and my daughter brought up healing for the world. I really hope enough of us have changed the structures of our minds, our beliefs and that we move forward more united, more aware of how fragile life is and how we must take the minutes of each day and hold them more gently in our hands than we used to pre- Covid 19. Let's hope so.