Strange Notations From a Laborious Life

Well, we are in quite the mess aren’t we? I leave my blog alone for 6 months and when I come back the country has turned to custard. Hubris, arrogance, and a leadership vacuum at national level has left us all a little exasperated, no? Nothing more to do than march on and suck on it.

We have been lucky in Canberra. No cases for 12 months, no masks or lockdowns but I guess our luck had to run out eventually especially given prevalence of the new “Delta” strain and the maladroit way the government of NSW has handled their latest outbreak. Everything in this country seems to run out of Sydney so it’s no wonder we have “covid creep” and an outbreak that seems to be on the precipice of spiraling out of control. Politics has played it’s part but at the end of the day not listening to the experts and learning from mistakes of others generally leads to disaster. NSW has reached that point to the detriment of the rest of the country.

Reality may have bitten tonight. People leaving greater Sydney will require a permit from now on. Far too late but better late than never. Let’s hope they get a handle on it from here. If they don’t the wild, infected wastelands once known as NSW will be permanently blackballed by the rest of the Commonwealth until they get their act together. And the ACT being smack bang in the middle of the state will have to pay a price too.

It’s been interesting to watch the other state premiers take matters into their own hands. Apart from the recalcitrant lawmakers in NSW the rest of the state jurisdictions on both sides of the political divide elsewhere have been quite decisive in making hard decisions. Western Australia in particular seems to be enjoying it’s autonomy. We may need to authorize the army to take it back when all is done!

So, Canberra? Yes, first day of a seven day lockdown is finishing and I must say nothing much changed for me. Working for a cleaning company I have found myself to be an essential worker and thus can still get out and about. During our lockdown of twelve months ago I found the denizens of the unit blocks I was working in to be particularly grateful of our efforts, many going out of their way to thank us-which of course is nice but we are hardly in the same league as doctors or nurses and I often felt a little embarrassed by such praise.

The best thing about lockdown, if there can be such a thing, is the lack of traffic on the roads in the morning due to the majority of Canberrans being forced to work from home. On Fridays I work in the suburb of Watson, which for those not familiar with the geography of Canberra is the last suburb heading north out of the city. I live far to the south so it takes me half an hour or so of travel to get there, a drive I don’t mind but is generally quite busy with several choke points along the way where people need to merge onto main roads. But today-beautiful! Like a Sunday morning drive. A little bit of traffic but nothing like the motor derby a drive on the Monaro Highway at 8.30am usually is.

It has it’s downsides too of course. People being home from work and kids home from school make foot traffic through my work area more prevalent and I suggest you try walking up a couple of flights of stairs with a face mask on and see how you like it! Lucky I like the active work.

What lockdown has achieved for me on a personal note is that it encouraged me to finally book an appointment for a Pfizer jab. Within a month or so I will be fully vaccinated and I hope everyone will listen to the overwhelming positive advice from medical professionals and join me in getting vaccinated.

Take care of yourselves and remember we have to look after each other.

Cheers.