This is one of the incredible photos taken from The James Webb Space Telescope of galaxies a million light years away from ours. It’s literally too hard to wrap your head around how microscopic we are in the scheme of things and right now I feel like the Universe is trying to tell us something but I have no idea what? To say we are experiencing unusual times is an understatement as yet another year of challenges unfold. The bloody pandemic is still in our face – in fact it is infecting more and more people every day but as with everything we eventually get more used to it and become a bit more blasé as the months and years tick over. I still have a healthy regard for what it can do but how long can we hide away at home and not live our lives as we would like? In our age bracket in particular time is not on our side – we don’t have decades left to enjoy travelling and adventure so we have to seize the day despite the virus and make the most of the opportunity to enjoy our lives as much as we can. A few things have made that extra hard recently…the aforementioned virus has been having a ball literally infecting people as they pass each other in the street.

This picture of our book club girls taken a few weeks ago was when we got together to remember our lovely friend Marilyn one year after her passing. She loved bright colours and we tried to do our best to honour that love brightening up a table in a Balmain Pub where we enjoyed a couple of hours together having lunch and chatting about anything and everything. A few days later 7 of the 8 of us had Covid!! This came straight after my few weeks with the flu so I really won the lottery! I am now feeling better but taking precautions when out as I’m pretty sure my immunity must be a bit tired and emotional after the last 2 months and we literally have only got 4 weeks until our trip to Europe.

That is yet another challenge to be overcome with airports around the world struggling to keep up with the eager tourists who have been deprived of travel for the past 3 years heading out in droves to enjoy the northern hemisphere Summer. Depressing pictures of abandoned luggage strewn around Heathrow Airport unclaimed for days together with tales of cancelled and delayed flights doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzy feelings and for the first time ever I am considering taking carry on luggage with a couple of changes of clothes etc incase I am parted from my case for a few days! The only thing in our favour is we are arriving at the end of Summer and hopefully most people will be home from their holidays and getting the kids ready to go back to school instead of heading abroad….. #pray for us!

The third part of the catastrophe trifecta is the weather – still causing havoc left right and centre around the world for different reasons. Here in Oz the rain is still hanging around with the odd few days in between taunting us with sunshine and light breezes which started to dry up the mud again but it was just a ruse as we now have a week of rain predicted with very little of the wet stuff needed to top us back up again and the poor cows are still up to their knees in mud. Our local roads are very compromised with several still shut due to landslides and you never know when you come around a corner if there will be a tree fallen across the road or if indeed you can even see the road……we took this picture a few days ago driving home with a large amount of water covering both the road and a gigantic pothole which luckily we managed to avoid but many others didn’t. There is talk of a third La Nina this summer but I seriously hope they are wrong. Meanwhile in the UK they have had their hottest day ever at over 40C and have endured days of melting temps, wildfires and are now acutely aware of how they are not set up for hot summers. I have a feeling that air conditioning companies are going to see a surge in demand over there after this!!

But it works both ways I guess. We have had a cold wet winter which is not our happy place either. Our houses are built to stay cool, the charming old weatherboards are not great insulators and our 13 feet ceilings are nice in the summer when the hot air rises but in winter we want it down here near the couch thank you very much! Builders tend to do big builds and renovations in Winter as in the past it has been reliably dry and sunny but cool. We have NOT had that this year and I’m sure most of us are dreading getting the electricity bill after trying to keep our houses cosy. There are two groups of Aussies in Winter – the first have puffer jackets and boots to top off their 6 layers and the other half are still in their shorts and flip flops saying “it’s not even that cold” every ten seconds but in general we are underprepared for anything under 20 degrees and our houses are like fridges. Thank God it only lasts 3-4 months.

On top of all that we are now being warned that Foot and Mouth disease is on our doorstep in Indonesia and with the Aussies love of Bali it’s only a matter of time until it’s here. As usual the powers that be are saying “we will be getting sanitation mats and footbaths at the airport” instead of just doing it already! These things really have to be nipped in the bud quickly and I’m pretty sure no tourists would complain about an extra step coming home to protect our dairy and livestock industry. If they do they can’t complain when we have no beef/lamb/pork/dairy products on the shelves in 6 months time. As if farmers don’t have enough to worry about already…..

Hopefully my next post will be much more upbeat and full of fun in the sun and the joy of being immersed in new places and the wonder of exploring new food, old buildings and different cultures! Until then lovely people stay safe and optimistic that things will improve soon and let’s make the best of what we have……remember we only get one bite folks!!