Week 78 - Earthquake!

It's been an extraordinary week!

Firstly we have the continuing lockdown and curfew, with a couple of minor tweaks (upping the distance people can travel and allowing two households to mix outside), but on the whole the same rules and regulations still apply to metro Melbourne. There is a "roadmap" to when all this will be lifted, which is dependent on the level of vaccinations in the state and across Australia more generally.

Then on Wednesday we had an earthquake! Not something that happens very often in Melbourne and not to the magnitude that this one struck - 5.9. It was a very scary 20 seconds, as the apartment shock and things fell over. Thankfully there was little danger caused by the quake, a couple of walls on old buildings collapsed and some people lost power  but thankfully no one was hurt or lost their life.

Then on Friday I found out that my father had been taken to hospital and was in a pretty bad way. I have spoken to him and he sounds in good spirits, but he's apparently been suffering for some time and had not told anyone. Unfortunately dealing with this has fallen on one sister, as my older sister was away at the time and of course, I'm several thousand miles away on the other side of the planet (in a country that does not allow its citizens to leave).

I have been looking at what options are available if I can get permission to leave Australia, and they are few. I can transit through Hong Kong or Singapore, and hopefully if the UK recognises my vaccinations, I will not need to quarantine once I arrive there. Also there are far less flights, so it might be easier to get a one way out of the country and then once everything settles in the UK (and hopefully home quarantine is available in Australia) then I can organise my return.

This all depends on whether I can get permission to leave Australia and I believe that can be a bit hit or miss depending on who is reviewing your case.

In addition to all of this, I had a cat that was limping so I had to take him to the vets and thankfully nothing appears to be broken, he may have sprained something, so I have to keep giving him pain killers until the limping goes away. At least that does seem to be working.

Victoria had a public holiday on Friday, which traditionally is when the two team playing in the AFL grand final parade through the centre of the city, but there was none of that this year and the final is being played on the other side of the country in Perth, where they are allowed to mix and have small crowds attending events.