Post 423 Bats and Ballots

Continuing my theme of 'March in recent years', this is 21 March three years ago with my cousin Pen and Mark in Lynton, Exmoor. Again, I am so pleased I was able to visit them when I did. We created so many memories to hang on to. 

In contrast, "abundance of caution" has made this a very quiet week. In line with SA Health Guidelines for close contacts (7 days isolation 7 days caution), I have avoided all those crowds I usually mix with(!). On Wednesday I had a problem-solving session with a Guild member - at an outside table in a coffee shop. Seemed to work. Although my Pilates class is never more than 4 people, it is indoors and I cancelled to be safe. I did a bit of food shopping and visited Create in Stitch to replenish my supplies of DMC Etoile thread, used up on the Bush Sentinelles.

The big event of the week was our State election on Saturday. I had mailed my postal vote last week. I spent election night having dinner and watching the count at friends' place - an old tradition. Pre-polls suggested a tight result with a probable change of government. It turned out to be a landslide change. Once I might have been excited by this. Now I have very mixed feelings. I am really over the tribalism. I can no longer see the two Party system (indeed the Party system itself) as efficient, effective - or decent and honest. I don't believe the promises and claims. I want cooperation and collaboration. At least this result is clear-cut. That makes a bit of a change in SA. I'm hopeful we will all now get on with doing the very best possible for our community. Today at the hairdresser I overheard several conversations from the adjoining barber - middle-aged men born in Eastern Europe, sharing their fears, knowledge and hope in the face of the Ukraine crisis -geographically removed, but utterly connected.. It strikes me we need to draw on the depths of experience and understanding in our diverse community to find workable solutions to both local and global issues - we are in this world, this State, together.

On Thursday night I had an idea that sent me back to Create in Stitch again the next day for a large wooden hoop. 5 members of my Adelaide family were still in lockdown. Because they had isolated as a family, rather than make the infected member isolate in their room alone, they had 14, rather than 7, days of isolation. The infected member, on the other hand, was free to leave the house once negative. It was hard to be missing school, work and sporting finals. So I designed and worked a little tribute for their release from quarantine today.  

That took up most of Saturday and Sunday along with making a couple of moussaka and an eggplant parmigiana (bought too many eggplant!). I delivered them to the lockdown house in the hour that our water was off due to the installation of new taps in the basement carpark. 

My neighbour called me late in the afternoon because she had a leak in her bathroom roof - I'm not sure how plumbers in the basement results in leaks in the roof, but hopefully it will be solved soon. The same neighbour had called in last Friday to talk to me about her experiences growing up in Adelaide in the 1950s - triggered by reading Conversations with Baby Boomer Teachers. 

After she left on Monday, I was enticed again by the bats - the dots high in the sky,

 

then a discernible shape 

and my favourite - curved shape  on an almost impressionist landscape.

Today's hairdressing visit took a while but I'm happy with the result. My hair is thinning and the grey is increasing, but I will pass with a push, as my mother would have said.   

I'm now finishing off the Mosaic Carpet Bag, and setting up the Aesop Frame which I will be working on for weeks to come. It's time.

Post 266 A strange and sad day

There was a line of cloud over the Hills this morning. Perhaps an omen.

It has been an extraordinary day on many fronts. 

I had a wonderful 2 hour phone conversation with my friend Deirdre in Lismore, NSW. We have been friends since high school and remain on the same wavelength. There was a lot to catch up on and the time flew by. Somehow we get to the things that really matter.

By the time I got off the phone, South Australia's Premier had announced the end of our lockdown from midnight Saturday. The exercise and dog-walking restrictions have been lifted immediately. There were three more positive cases today and still more expected. What has changed is the admission by one of the original contacts, that he lied to contact tracers. Rather than buying a pizza from the transmission hub, he had in fact been working there as a chef. The contract tracing has been highly effective and swift, but the level of contagion from that hub was a major factor in the lockdown. While this gives contact tracers another whole set of data to collect, it is no longer the level of contagion feared.

This has, of course, caused both rejoicing and recrimination. From midnight on Saturday we go back to our previous level of restriction - 4 square metres of space in restaurants, 100 at religious gatherings, 10 in homes, etc etc. My Sunday morning book club is back on. 

I'm really grateful that our State government has been open and upfront about this. It is terrible that businesses and workers have lost money and been restricted, but good it has been curtailed in the light of this information. It's also good that our contact tracing has been so professional and thorough and based on the best available information. Presumably the lie was related to how legal the employment arrangements might have been - and that needs to be addressed in a number of ways. 

I haven't, to date, discussed Covid arrangements and the debates around them in this blog. This extraordinary development  dominated today to such an extent I couldn't ignore it.

Within, it seemed, minutes of the announcement of the lifting of the outdoor exercise ban, there were people walking and riding in the parks, beaches and streets - but keeping distance and mostly wearing masks. The traffic, however was very quiet for a Friday night.

While following the developments throughout the day I finished the Stag. I'm pleased with this piece. I tried it where it is to go on the chair, along with the Rabbits piece of the same size.

I have started on the Oak Apple Tree which is to go between these two pieces. Once this is done, and these pieces attached, I am only left with the two pieces ordered for the back of the chair- and any gap filling required.

This was where this post was going to end. There was, however, further unexpected, un-ignorable development. 

Jennifer's partner, Susan Monks, died unexpectedly this evening. She had been admitted to hospital earlier this afternoon and had a fatal heart attack tonight. Jennifer was with her. She is, understandably, distraught.  Susan was an extraordinarily intelligent and capable woman and educator. 

It has been the worst possible year for Jennifer. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Post 264 Lockdown

Before the bombshell of a 6 day lock-down  within 12 hours hit around lunchtime, I was relaxed and thinking about desk covers, the first thing those of us who were in primary school in NSW in the 1950s made in our sewing classes. They were rectangles of headcloth, with embroidered hems and embroidered motifs. No one I know of ever covered a desk with one. 

Recently I have thought about those desk-covers each time I've been at the Guild in a class or session that includes lunch. With the kitchen closed under our Covid Safe Plan, we eat at our work stations, moving our embroidery away. Each time I wish I had that desk cover to spread out before opening my lunch box.

Today I dug out a pair of Japanese Sashiko napkins I embroidered a couple of years ago when friends bought them back from Japan for me.  I reckon they fit the bill, so I'll be making them part of my Guild kit.

I was watching a crane loading timber beams from a crane on the building site next door, when I decided I'd better check in on the midday news bulletin. I tuned in just as Professor Nicola Spurrier, our Chief Health Officer, was explaining the 6 day lockdown announced by the SA Government from midnight tonight. All schools,  universities, eateries (including take-away), hotels, gyms, pools closed. One person from each household can leave once a day for essential food  or pharmacy shopping. No exercise outside the home. Masks to be warn outside the home. 

My first thought was that I did not have enough tomatoes for my lunches for six days. I had made a shopping list this morning, which included ingredients for next Monday's family dinner. I figured I should go to my favourite tomato shop straight away, before the rush started, and then call at the butcher. 

It appears everyone in Adelaide had a similar thought.

On the way to the car I realised there would be no Monday family dinner!

At the North Adelaide Village, a shopping complex where I have never seen more than 50 people, the queue to get into the supermarket snaked around the atrium. I estimated about 40 people in the queue, waiting for others to come out of the supermarket so they could get in. 

 Around the corner, in the greengrocer, there were two queues, one to get into the shop and one to pay. The line around the back wall is the paying queue. It went around two walls and out into the atrium - again, up to 40 people while I was in it. The shop has 4 checkouts, each with a packer as well as a cashier. The wait wasn't too bad. It was, however, astounding to see. Adelaide doesn't have queues. Four shop assistants were working constantly to replenish the stock.                                                  People were focused, but cheerful. There was a lot of smiling and sympathy for the young woman who started work there today in her first job. A day she won't forget.

I had thought I might buy a couple of crumbed French cutlets from the butcher but although, when I had paid at the greengrocer,  the queue did not extend outside the butcher's shop door, the meat display was severely depleted and I didn't bother. These food shops are essential services under the lockdown and will be open throughout the six days. I can, if necessary, exercise my once a day food excursion option if desperate. 

By contrast to the shopping centre, the streets were relatively deserted on the way home.  The photo on the left is Frome Rd near Brougham Place and Lefevre Terrace at North Adelaide on the right, both usually much busier.

Since arriving home I've had a few calls and messages checking I'm OK, which I certainly am. These are the toughest restrictions so far in the country. It seems contact tracing data indicates this particular strain of the virus is replicating itself every 3 days. Those contracting it are infectious within 24 hours. Contact tracers are now tracing the 5th generation from the initial infection (which arrived in Adelaide from the UK). The speed of transmission without symptoms is what has epidemiologists worried.  As Nicola Spurrier has said, this is our one chance of a relatively normal Christmas. So hard and early it is.

I posted another Baby Boomer Teacher Conversation today. I  also ordered two more printed linens from The Crewel Work Company after measuring the space left on my chair and calculating what I will need after I add the Aesop Frame.  I've also set up the small stag in a hoop to give me a break from hexies. This one is for the skirt at the front of the chair.

Jennifer has sent a photo of her finished Mr Twizzle, which is another part of a community fundraiser. She is so good at creating at these fabulous figures.

By 11pm I had found the wools I need for the stag and made a start. Plenty of time tomorrow - and more interesting than attaching the hexies to my quilt!

From Adelaide: Stay Safe!