One day at a time

Been back a couple of weeks now and the trip is just a memory. Returned too work and although the plan was to go in three days a week, so far I've only managed one due to complications with the effects of my food intolerances. Been to see my elderly aunt, who's in residential care and the last visit she was more distressed than usual, from what appears to be all to familiar symptoms to my food intolerances.  Went to check on her home and it was all okay. It was a lot of driving in one day, and is probably why I feel tied the following day. One of my friends has Covid-19 at the moment and he's not feeling very well at all, but he only has to isolate for seven days. It's one of the last restrictions in place together with face masks on public transport. 

 It was nice to have a four day weekend.  Still had things to do, including visiting elderly relatives (one visit require the wearing of PPE, due to a COVID case in her wing of the care home), as well as writing notices for the Owners Corporation to go up warning people in my apartment block about security concerns (the notices were taken down each time after a couple of days).  There was the usual shopping trip and I did buy a new travel shaver, whilst my friend purchased 4 pillows (I'm not sure why he needed to buy four in one go). The final day of the long weekend has been more laid back, although I have had a bout of gastro problems once again, which took out the early part of the afternoon. Surprisingly there has been someone working on the new apartments all weekend, although I didn't see the crane move, so they must have been working on something inside the apartment building.

 Its been a while since my last post to this blog and whilst some things have changed, there is a lot that remains the same. I’m still working from home for the majority of the week, although we are encouraged to go back to the office, this time there is no minimum number of days that you are expected to be in the office. At the moment, our work space is being shared by another team, so we are only supposed to be in the office two days a week and that suits me, although I am yet to make it in on both days. As well as my usual problem, my elderly relative has moved in to permanent residential care and for the last couple of weeks I have been going up during the week as well as one the weekends. Work is being very good and flexible about the arrangements at the moment. Work is busy at the moment, as we prepare for the next state budget, the information I look after has been in the system for some time, but we are waiting for the other areas to complete their adjustments. I am sure th...

I have noticed that the days are getting shorter, or more precisely the daylight hours. Other than that little changes. I'm seeing how my body reacts to wheat again after so many years gluten free. I can't say that it's had a big impact but there are some subtle changes. I don't know if it's related but I'm having difficulty getting off to sleep. 

 Working from home is getting me down and I told my manager during my mid-year performance discussion. He was not surprised given how long this has been going on and that I am living on my own. I visited my relative’s home to check up on it while she is away and it was nice to go for a drive. Unfortunately, Sunday has not gone to plan, as I am ill again. I have decided to have a weekend away in Sydney in April but avoiding Easter weekend as most places are dead one that long weekend.

 I continue to go through the routine of sitting at the computer every day for work and trying to find something to fill my evenings and weekend. The planned break this week, to visit my elderly relative in her care home was knocked for 6 by another COVID case at the care home (and the cancellation of all visits). This week I have left the apartment only a handful times, either to go food shopping or to pick up deliveries. I have been quite proud that I have been able to assemble the new scratching tree and monitor riser myself. I was nice to go shopping with a friend last weekend, but that's not happening this weekend. My friend as recommended that I see a professional to see if they can help my mood.

Whilst the year number changes, life continues to be stuck in a perpetual ground hog day. Working from home continues and new record numbers of infections, hospitalisations and unfortunately deaths occur on a daily basis. I’ve created quite a comfortable cave to hide away from it all and seldom venture out, really only for necessaries (assuming the local supermarket hasn’t run out of them). I miss my chats with my father, even though we didn’t say much it was someone I spoke to on a regular basis, that wasn’t related to work. Although I did enjoy (usually) chatting to work colleagues, it reminds me that I am not the only one stuck at home. I have an elderly relative in residential care and the care home has been hit by a COVID outbreak, thankfully not in the section my relative is in but it does mean that we can not visit her and have to rely on interacting via video calls. On the whole, Victoria has few restrictions, apart from wearing masks indoors. So I guess for a lot of people lif...

Short working week, as I took Monday off as part of a long weekend, when I was supposed to be in Sydney, but due to the current lockdown was stuck at home. Not sure when the current lockdown will come to an end, I've stopped following the news about the pandemic as it's just too depressing to keep hearing about infections and deaths. I know the lifting of the lockdown is linked to the vaccination rates. Been looking at air fares to get over to the UK, but at the moment, the borders are still closed here in Australia and I don't have the information necessary to apply for an exemption. I have been looking at going over during my Christmas and New year leave, but the prices are exuberant and will probably cost me several thousands of dollars to get over there. At least more airlines are being to schedule flights to Australia and hopefully the more that come back, will help lower the cost. My dad is still in hospital but there have been moves to get him home (because the hospi...

Once again I celebrated my birthday in lockdown, at least with have a road map (again) out of this one, depending on how the vaccination rates go. I had planned to be in Sydney this weekend and although I can not travel, I have still taken the annual leave that I booked for the trip. I did manage to see my social bubble mate on my birthday. My father is still in hospital but there is very little that I can do from here, with the international borders still closed here in Australia. He is in very good spirits even though it's not looking that good in terms of a full recovery.

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 ...

The walls are going up, in my case quite literally at the building site down the road, The walls closest to our apartment building are going up first, which might act as a sound barrier but I doubt they will have much impact. The lockdown continues, although there have been a couple tweaks to the restrictions from Friday, with travel permitted up to 10km and small gatherings outside allowed. I had a visit from my social bubble friend, he turned up during the afternoon, when I was still working so I probably was’t the best host. I am on the owners committee for my building and we had our first meeting with the new owners corporation management company, it was a refreshing change to talk to someone who came across as professional and knowledgeable. Sounds like the transfer from the old company did not go smoothly but they are working through the issues. Work is getting to the pointy end of the latest publication, we have the big meeting with the “important” people next week and I had to ...

 Finally had enough of work and took a mental health day on Friday to do something completely different (well as different as I can in lockdown). I took the train to the next town and went shopping (all within my 5km limit). The other highlight from the week was arranging, conducting and editing a radio interview for the show I volunteer on, which we recorded on Sunday. I also went to see my elderly relative to check up on her and make sure she was okay over the weekend. One of the family will see her during the weekend as she does not receive support over the weekend. Apart from that my week has been very same same, there is very little to do in the evening but watch TV so it was nice to do something different this week. 

Lockdown in Victoria will stay in place until 70% of elibigle people have had their first vaccation and then there will be some lifting of the restriction, unfortunately that means that we are probably going to stay in lockdown for most of September. My elderly aunt had her 99 birthday in lockdown, although one of my cousin's children did make time to visit her and she had lots of phone calls and presents delivered. I had my second jab and have received my vaccination certificate to prove I have had both jabs, although at the moment that doesn't change anything for me, but hopefully when the international borders open up a bit, I will then be able to travel again. We have been having some nice weather and even though today was forecast to be wet and cool, I am out on my balcony enjoying the sunshine.

The current lockdown continues and the earliest it will be lifted is 2 September, but based on the numbers recently, that looks unlikely to happen. Been a bit lost at sea recently with work and took Friday afternoon off, I was supposed to get my second vaccination jab but had to reschedule due to usual problems caused by food intolerances. It has been rescheduled for Monday morning. Was going to see my friend this weekend, but he has called it off to work on a computer issue that he caused and is trying to fix. I will go and see my elderly aunt on Sunday and take the electric blanket I bought to replace her fan heater, hopefully she doesn’t put up a fight to keep the fan heater. Haven’t been out much, just to go shopping when I need to and then only locally. I did take the car out to go to a different supermarket and that was a nice change. We are only allowed to travel up to 5km for shopping and exercise at the moment. The building site down the road is supposed to get its crane next ...

This nightmare continues with lockdown until 2 September and a nightly curfew between 9pm to 5am. This means that my local supermarket now closes at 8:30pm! There have been violent protests about the lockdown and I share the frustration, but the protests will have no impact and can possible turn into super spreader events, only prolonging the lockdown! Work is not really helping, with numerous requests coming from another area of the department with no regard to the work I need to complete for my own role, hopefully I will be getting someone to assist me soon and I have sent some of the recent requests on to other members of the team so I can concentrate on my own work. I should get my second AZ vaccination on Friday coming, although recently there have been people dying from COVID who had been fully vaccinated so it's not a silver bullet the politicians keep saying it will be, I hope they make sure that we have got to over 80% fully vaccinated before removing all the restrictions ...

I don't think anyone was surprised that the 7 day circuit breaker (ie lockdown) was extended for another 7 days, since it is the same thing that has happened for all the previous Victorian lock downs. Even though it wasn't a surprise that does not mean that it wasn't a disappointment when it was announced. Work has not been helping my mood,with endless rounds of chasing people for information, used by other areas of the department. This means it has felt like there is little time to do what I consider my own work, reviewing the feeds and preparing the reports for the sectors. One of my flights to New Zealand in November got rescheduled, so that I would need to spend a night in Auckland to connect another flight and therefore arrive back a day later. I took the decision to cancel my New Zealand trip to Christchurch, one of the flights has been refunded the other has been converted to a credit and I cancelled the hotel booking .I am also in the process of cancelling my trip t...

Didn't stay out of lockdown for very long. Victoria went back into one on Thursday. Doesn't feel like we've actually got out of lockdown for a very long time given how slowly the restrictions are lifted. Beginning to lose track of what day it is with working over the weekend as well as visiting my elderly relative on Sunday rather than the usual Saturday trip. Work is getting me down, sometimes I stare at the screen and don't know what to do next. Currently got four requests from budget as well as trying to help entities feed, plus I'll be expected to follow up those that have not fed their data. If I don't work evenings and weekends, I wouldn't get my own work done. 

 The lockdown in Victoria has come to an end, although I am still working from home and visitors are not yet allowed. Masks are mandatory both inside and outside of the home. Work is beginning to pick up and there is a difficulty that many of the early submitters are falling foul of in the new system, even though advice has been provided to them to help overcome the issue. I went to visit my aunt today and she thought I was bringing food but I only mentioned cake in the conversation this morning. Thankfully she enjoyed the cake I had brought. Trying to get her to use a mobile phone but she was having difficulty just getting it to start up. I'm writing this on my “new” iPad and am waiting for a cover to arrive. It's a refurbished unit and can no longer be updated but most of what I want works on it at the moment.

Lockdown continues in Victoria, I did escape it for a little while whist in Adelaide but have now returned. Due to cases of COVID-19 in South Australia, Victoria authorities changed the rules about returning from there and I had to quarantine until I got a negative result from a COVID test. So I spent the early hours of Wednesday queuing to get a test and then waited 24 hours for the result. When I wasn't allowed to leave my apartment, I wanted to more than usual. I got a negative result so was free again (within the limits of the current lockdown). I hope that COVID is under control when my next trip comes up later this year to Sydney and the Christchuch, but at the moment, it is possible that Sydney will still be in lock down (or under some restrictions) then and NZ has temporarily halted the quarantine free travel bubble with Australia,so who knows where we will be by then. My dad has finally given up driving,which at 97 was about time. He seems to be coping okay with it and wil...

Managed to get away from Melbourne for a long weekend in Adelaide, even though we had get a COVID test on arrival (it came back negative). But I have been having issues with my phone not accepting authorising sms which caused issues when I arrived. The weather has been terrible, cold and wet but it has been delightful to be able to go somewhere  different. Melbourne has now gone into lockdown, but Adelaide is still relatively open. A friend is staying in my apartment while I am away to look after my cat although the cat isn't being that friendly.