One day at a time

The restrictions in Victoria continue to be relaxed, although face mask indoors is still mandatory. Parts of Sydney have gone into lock down (although they are refusing to call it that) for the next seven days, their numbers of cases has been much higher than Melbourne had before it went into lock down (or circuit breaker). Still working from home, although the requirement to work from home has been lifted, however since masks are required to be worn in the office, I am not going to be rushing back. I had a better day on Friday, I made a bit of an effort to dress up and worked on the slides for the forum I am organising for the middle of July. Not going to be catching up with friends this Sunday as one of them is away in regional Victoria for the weekend. I still hope that I will be able to get away to Adelaide later in July, at least the SA borders are now open (even if I'd have to get a COVID test on the first day there). Trying out a new internet provider, it took a while to fin...

There have been a handful of new cases over the week, but the restrictions continue to be relaxed in Melbourne and more broadly across Victoria. Masks are only required indoors and people can have visitors in their home. Work continues to be very quiet, I do have the survey to give me something to do. This was a short working week, as I did not work until Wednesday with a combination of public holiday and annual leave, I was supposed to be in Hobart but that wasn't going to happen given the closure of virtually all state borders to residents of Greater Melbourne. Worry about my father who seems to have lost weight and has little energy to do anything these days. His sister is doing we, but also doesn't have much energy these days.

The latest (fourth) lock down was relaxed from midnight Thursday and we are now allowed to leave our homes for any reason, but are limited in how far we can travel (up to a maximum of 25km). Still working from home, although offices are allowed to reopen, but if people can work from home that is still encouraged. The relaxation coincided with a long weekend, which I should have been enjoying in Hobart in Tasmania, but since they have closed the borders to Victorians, that was cancelled last week. I am still taking the leave from work and will not be returning until Wednesday. One of the relaxations was that restaurants are allowed to reopen, so I was able to have brunch with friends over the weekend and I also washed the car (although I think that was allowed during the lockdown). I also took a train on Friday to do some shopping, as expected there were very few people on the train in both directions and I only travelled a couple of stops. My arm has finally stopped hurting where I had...

The 7 day circuit break has been extended for metro Melbourne for at least another 7 days, basically the same rules but with the extension of the distance that people can travel for shopping and exercise from 5km to 10km. So working from home continues up until my leave, but unfortunately I have had to cancel the trip to Hobart, as Tasmania has closed the border to Victorians. I had an unscheduled visit to my elderly aunt, she needed someone to stay with her after a small procedure to remove a lump and I was really the only one that could do it at short notice. I didn't sleep well staying there but we both survived the experience. I have had the first COVID-19 vaccination and my second one is scheduled for August. Apart from a sore arm where the injection was made, I currently feel okay. I thought that I would do some online shopping, but hit a problem when the payment system approved my purchase but the online retailer site failed as I returned from the payment site. I have been i...

Here we are again, lock down!! Although it has a new name - Circuit Breaker! 7 days across the whole state of Victoria, so back to working at home and not going out further than 5 km for shopping. It is disappointing, although not surprising that we have gone back to another lockdown. After spending a day in the office having to wear a mask, stay at home is much more preferable and I am glad that I don't have to use public transport at the moment. I will be taking a care package to my elderly aunt to make sure she is okay during the lock down (sorry I mean circuit break!). Work is remarkably slow at the moment, in a normal year I would have been in the UK by now and I usually take around a month off work, but at the moment, it looks like even my trip to Hobart later this month is in doubt, depending on what Tasmania does when the lock down (circuit break) is lifted. There is no point going down there if we are required to quarantine for longer than the planned break. We've had ...

There has been a complete change of pace at work, from completely hectic to completely dead. With the completion of the budget, there is now a pause before the next product until July. I have started preparing for the next products, but there is a limit that I can prepare before closer to the date of the products. I am now going to be taking four trips outside Victoria, with trips to Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide and Christchurch now all booked. Apart from New Zealand, there is no other countries that we can travel to at the moment and international borders are likely to remain closed until 2022. I am eligible for the COVID-19 vaccination here due to my age, but since I recently had a flu vaccination then I have to wait at least 14 days before getting the COVID one. I will probably get it, but there isn't much urgency here to do it since there is very little local transmission at the moment (unless one of the new variants gets into the country). I have been waking up early to watch the ...

It's strange how quickly life returns to "normal". I am now regularly working three days in the office and two at home. The commute is still relatively pleasant with few on the trains in the morning, although the evening trains are more like they used to be. I have been feeling miserable again, but I think that is due to work and the changes that keep happening with the product that I am working on, and the timetable that expects people to work over the weekends, it's basically built into it. I don't like it when I am not given time to finalise my work to the degree that I am satisfied with. I have to just get things done and hope they are acceptable. I did weaken and made a totally impulsive purchase of another smart watch, this one is supposed to have NFC payments via Google but I am yet to see it work and the battery life has not been very impressive but I have only just started using it so maybe it will improve. The Eurovision Song Contest kicks off soon but t...