Well the plague is spreading through my fair city darkening the lives of all those it touches. Along the way its managing to darken the lives of those that it so far hasn't gone anywhere near. This is our punishment for smugness, for thinking that we somehow had everything under control. With the lockdown extended and, finally, becoming more draconian the only thing in the city that isn't under the control of the government is the virus itself.
Down in Melbourne gleeful schadenfreude turned into weary despair when it became apparent that a couple of Sydney removalists had dropped off more than a bunch of tasteless furniture during their recent sojourn to that city. Melbourne too is now under lockdown and given the circumstances the Federal government has been unable to avoid giving them money.
As for me things have come to a pretty state indeed. When all of this started about seventy years ago one of my first reactions was to do some housework. In a classic case of history repeating itself this seems to be all that I have left this time around as well. I knocked the spiders out of my vacuum cleaner the other day (and then sucked them up) and the weekend found me staring at my bath trying to figure out how to clean it without drowning myself much to my puffin's amusement. The fuzzy little bastard wasn't so amused when I sprayed him with exit mould and used him to scour the tiles in the bathroom. Serves him right for sniggering.
It's got to the point where I daren't go out for coffee. Actually that's a lie. I would go out for coffee in the middle of a zombie apocalypse as I mentioned to my favourite cafe owner the other day. Her response was succinct.
"How the hell did you get my home address and get your carcass out of here disease bag!"
Obviously this lockdown is hard on all of us.
Fortunately our state's Health Department is on the case. After gruelling work by dedicated teams of professionals they have finally discovered who has been leaking the state's infection numbers on Tik Tok before the official announcements. For those of you who don't know what Tik Tok is, its a Chinese government surveillance app that people download to their phones for some reason. Its entirely possible we will defeat the Chinese by boring them to death.
Updated restrictions turn up so that official spokespeople have something to contradict in the daily press conferences. One of these restrictions is on exercise. If I restrict my exercise any more I'll stop breathing. As far as I can tell exercise can be carried out only within ten kilometres of home and with no more than one other person. Apparently if you wander eleven kilometres from your home COVID related death is inevitable. This puts me in a bit of a quandary as I have already wandered through the most visual pleasing parts of the countryside (cityside?) within ten kilometres of my home. It's also a measure of how desperate things have become that I'm actually seeking out places where I can exercise. I never do that. Now however it is a choice between that and doing the housework while a collection of stuffed toys chuckle under their breath. Will this horror never end?
I think you are within 10km of a coastline. Take one more step and dog-paddle east. Plenty of marine exploration to be undertaken.
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