Just as we were getting used to the new normal of staying home, shopping quickly and effectively once a week and standing 1.5 metres away from other people it’s all about to change… The Government has announced the easing of restrictions with two people from outside your house allowed to visit. This is a welcome change for those of us separated from our families and allows a small glimmer of hope for things to get back on track. Apparently we are losing 4 billion dollars a week here in Australia due to the downturn in business and if things continue along these lines we will have more than a virus to contend with, we will have a recession as well. So to alleviate this we are slowly opening up again. Not opening travel into other states or overseas, nor restaurants, cafes or pubs but shops and schools and offices. They will open to a model with new safety precautions and reduced staff and students to keep numbers small and we will watch the outcome carefully before extending them. The new COVID Safe app has been downloaded by more than 5 million Aussies which will help to trace an outbreak quickly and inform anyone who has been in contact with the infected person faster to stop the spread. Of course there are the usual suspects who are worried about privacy and suspicious of the governments ulterior motives but I think we have to trust that this has been rolled out to help us all and we divulge no more information to sign up to this app (in fact probably less) than we do when placing an online shopping order to Amazon or Woollies!!! So I think we can be proud of how our country has handled the virus crisis so far and with only 97 deaths we are doing a whole lot better than many other western countries. Our relative isolation is finally a bonus and a spread out population has helped us too.

In the meantime everyone’s experience has been different. To say we are all in the same boat is a mis-truth. We are in the same storm but not in the same boat. To paraphrase an unknown author: For some this has been a time of quiet contemplation and the respite from the rat race that they have craved. For others this is a desperate financial crisis or a time of endless loneliness. We are all on different boats during this storm and we will all make our own journey, hopefully we won’t be shipwrecked along the way…

Apparently even the animals in the zoo are depressed. They are already in a life of lock up but the liveliness of visitors and the engagement they get with them keeps them from total loneliness. Maybe we finally have an inkling of what their life is like interred in cages, pens and enclosures…

Meanwhile Nature is the winner with animals all over the world seen exploring cities now empty of people and traffic. The sky is the cleanest we have seen it in decades, wildflowers are invading parks and gardens as mowing and gardening of public spaces has been temporarily abandoned. The stars seem to shine more brightly now and we have more time for star gazing. Our local South Coast beaches put on a performance last week showing off bioluminescent plankton en masse in the sheltered beaches of Jervis Bay. It is an amazing sight if you are ever lucky enough to witness it. These photos from Jordan Roberts Photography show it beautifully.

On April 20th we celebrated not one but two special birthdays here in The Meadow. Miss Myla turned one and her proud Grandpa a few years more!! Loz made a lovely cake, decorated with flowers from the garden and with a few balloons tied to a tree we celebrated another year around the sun and congratulated the parents on getting through their first year with a child! She loved her prezzies and her first taste of sugar and we had a lovely simple day with all of Pa’s favourite food and raised a toast to life, family and cake! The MOTH was surprised with a brand new toy to play with….a smoker!! Ribs anyone??

Five days later we celebrated Anzac Day. It is one of the most beloved days on the Australian calendar and has been slowly growing in popularity every year as more children are educated about our past and learn that we all now understand that what happened all those years ago allows us to live the life we (usually) lead today. This year was obviously very different. No marches. No dawn services. No pubs open to celebrate all that is Australian or buy a Digger a beer. No getting together for the returned service folk to reminisce about old times together or to honour mates no longer here. As always however, ingenuity came along in the form of a wonderful idea to hold an Anzac Driveway Tribute. People would get up at dawn and stand at the end of their driveways holding a candle to honour the Anzacs and if you knew how to play it and you had an instrument you could perform The Last Post. A simple idea that was taken up by thousands of people, the sounds of the last post floating through the air of suburb after suburb in a rather haunting way, maybe not the usual standard of professionalism that we usually hear but all the more endearing for the odd wrong note. People did their best and that is all we can ever ask.

Our local memorial in Berry was also visited over the course of the day with people bringing simple posies and homemade heartfelt messages which seemed all the more poignant somehow.

We spent the morning at Gerroa, our favourite local beach and the cutest little village beautifully situated at the mouth of The Crooked River where it meets the ocean. This means there is some flat water as well as the surf and makes it a perfect place for the littlies. A walk around the headland provides a perfect view of surfers and the amazing sweep of Seven Mile Beach. As close to perfect as you can get in these parts I reckon….

We have been making the most of the local area as we get our daily exercise. We are lucky enough to be able to walk from our house into the countryside but variety is the spice of life and we have loads of local bushwalks that mix things up a bit so we pop Myla into the carrier and explore a different one once a week. I think so many people around Australia have rediscovered the beauty in their local area during this lockdown and we are fortunate to have some wonderful walks along the river within a 10 minute drive to enjoy.

Life on the farm carries on and keeps us busy. The last of the tomatoes, capsicums and zucchini are being enjoyed before we bed down the veggie patch for winter crops. We had a very early windy patch last week when a cold front roared through Eastern Australia, snapping my beautiful 5 foot high camellia plants off clean at the base and tossing them through the air as if to say up yours. During this tempest I noticed a cow had been lying down in the same spot for a day without moving so I called the farmer to let him know. She had what is commonly known as Three Day sickness, usually contracted through mozzies or midges apparently. Goodness knows how such a minute tiny thing can make a huge cow so sick but nature is a bit like that sometimes. They put a big bucket of water there for her as cows drink a huge amount of water every day but it got blown away in the wind. I felt so sorry for her having to just lie there in the awful weather but she basically ate a circle of grass all around her until on the 4th day they managed to move her and she was seen standing later in the day with the rest of the herd. A happy ending thank goodness. Our new chickens are now laying and giving us about 4 eggs a day and Atticus has come into his own, crowing over his girls and running at us if he deems we are too close. He is quite an unusual and magnificent looking animal and will still tolerate a cuddle from the MOTH in between his shows of manliness in the chookyard.

Well it’s time for me to sign off and go and prepare the guest room for Sam, Liv and Coops who are on their way here now we are finally allowed to see them again, woohoo! It is going to be a madhouse with two one year olds, 7 adults (and a labrador who has just been put on a diet God help us all) but a madhouse of the best possible kind and what more can a Mum ask for on Mothers Day but to be surrounded by all three of her kids and two delicious little grandchildren. I’m a very lucky woman!