What was normal just a few weeks ago is but a distant memory now. The freedoms and choices that were our everyday life are no more. We are the most basic essences of ourselves right now. You may be home alone or stuck in a share house with many different people each with different ideas about what exactly social isolation and distancing is. Either scenario has its pros and cons. The structure of our days is largely formed around work and family life, but now the two have merged and people are working out of a communal space with parents needing to home school their children on top of work commitments and lots have a very real fear of how they are going to cope with the next 6-12 months both emotionally and financially. The government have I think been brilliant, helping out in as many areas as possible to keep life flowing and hopeful that there will still be businesses for people to return to when this is all over. Thank goodness Australia has some money in the coffers and has been able to lessen the burden for people affected by job losses and sickness. Thank goodness too for the fact we are a few weeks behind the rest of the world and can learn from what has come before. Thank goodness we have the luxury of hand wash, space to distance ourselves and technology to keep us connected and sane. Thank goodness we have a fabulous medical system, available to all if necessary. Thank goodness for all those wonderful doctors and nurses working at the front line of this deadly virus, at the risk of their own and their families health, to help people at this frightening time.

I’m lucky as we have a baby in our house and babies keep us all grounded with meal preparation, play and bath time and when her little arms wrap around my neck as she gives me a cuddle it makes me forget temporarily all that is happening in the outside world. Babies also make you tired so we are all in bed by 10pm especially as she is teething at the moment and a bit more wakeful than normal. I suspect if we didn’t have a baby in the house we may well be descending into an alcoholic haze whilst watching reruns of some sort of inane television into the wee small hours of the morning….

We are also lucky to have a dog. Our beautiful Bailey gives us an excuse to get out into the fresh air and walk. We have many local laneways to enjoy and as our local beach is 7 miles long we can still get into the car and walk and swim on a nice day, the ozone soaking into our lungs and psyche and reinvigorating us. She is also available 24/7 for love, cuddles and company.

Luckily everyone is out of their 14 day quarantine period with no symptoms and we are now 5 adults, a baby and a dog in The Meadow which means we have lots of hands to make light work of cooking, cleaning, laundry and little Myla has lots of people to play with and Bailey gets loads of walks! We have each other to interact with and some nights are loud and noisy and filled with quiz games and others are quiet as we all retreat to our various corners . So far we are fine. We all get it that this is our new normal and we have to make the best of it so patience and compromise is the new black and we are all grateful to have each other and be safe. We keenly miss the other branch of the family in Sydney but thanks to videos and chats we still feel connected. We are all enjoying our food. The planning, cooking and eating of meals is a highlight in an otherwise predictable day. Add the fact that winter is around the corner we will have to be careful not to come out of this crisis 2 sizes bigger! We try and walk at least twice a day to offset the extra calories and with all this extra time on our hands there really is no excuse to not come out of this whole thing a bit fitter at least!

Loz and Tom have dug out their old guitars from the loft and now spend an hour here and there practising new songs (thanks to an app) and are enjoying reconnecting to their love of music. It gets them away from their laptops which is where all the work is happening nowadays and is a welcome break to the routine. My paints are still languishing in the cupboard but my veggie patch is bristling with late season lettuce, silverbeet, capsicums of every shape and colour and eggplant. A few zucchini are still arriving and loads of little tomatoes are ready to burst onto the scene in the next week or two. Tom has been making up fresh jars of pesto, the smell pervading the house in the way only basil can. We enjoyed a pizza night at the weekend, firing up the wood fired oven at sunset and using up all the odds and sods in the fridge to create some deliciousness. Tinned tomatoes have become a precious commodity so our passata and tomato paste is stepping up to fill the gap but with winter looming and the braises and stews that we normally enjoy all needing the tinned variety it is a constant on our shopping list, literally being transferred from one to another along with toilet paper, cleaning products and baby wipes! Hopefully the ones growing in our patch now will be able to be jarred for use in the next few months…

The other upside to this strange time is that people are saving money (if you are lucky enough to keep your job)! You can no longer get your hair done, no beauty treatments, no massage, physio or chiropractic appointments. Staying at home means minimal car travel therefore no money spent on petrol or tolls. No events means we don’t need any new clothes, there are no holidays to save for , no pubs or restaurants to spend in etc etc… The things people ARE buying are books, magazines, games, jigsaws, apps. Netflix, Foxtel and streaming platforms are doing huge business. Food is a highlight and purchase of alcohol is being rationed as we all come to terms with long days at home.

So as the days stretch into weeks and the weeks into months and the numbers keep climbing it feels more and more like we are living in a sci-fi novel. We are only watching the news twice a day to prevent an overload of information and pessimism. The morning news is a depressing necessity as we find out what has occurred in the rest of the world while we slept. I struggle to come to terms with the magnitude of this virus. No one is really safe from it, fit and healthy, young or old, all have fallen prey to it so all we can do is wait, at home, for as long as it takes for it to stop multiplying and one day even a trip to K Mart will be akin to going to Paris as we are allowed back into the real world again, in the meantime the general consensus of opinion is that…..