Yesterday, 3636 infections and 14 dead — today 4107 and no new fatalities.
The state’s Chief Medical Officer says he’s ‘pleased’ with the result because the numbers appear to be stabilising.
Have we peaked? I hope so; anyway, this blog is not about the virus, it’s about the secondary malaise currently affecting billions of otherwise healthy people worldwide: boredom.
I said yesterday that I’d be prospecting today, but the ever-unreliable Bureau of Meteorology warns of biblical (not quite) rains so I’ll defer until tomoz. Besides, us gold-hunters welcome flooding rains because eluvial deposits get washed down the hill to become the alluvial ‘placer’ gold we hunt in the waterways. I’m champing at the bit to get amongst it, but I can wait a day if the promise is more and better gold.
So, what do do instead?
Update my blog, firstly.
With my wife WFH on the desktop ‘puter, I’m sitting in bed on the laptop with a nice strong coffee at hand, maintaining sanity by pouring my thoughts onto the virtual page.
People blog for different reasons, some seek adulation, others seek company, plenty monetise their platforms; but for me it’s none of that. If I wanted an audience I’d be out there gushing insincerely in exchange for return traffic, the ubiquitous likes and all that hollow praise.
Nup.
I’m here for the writing practice, and to diarise the fleeting moment ‘ere it be lost.
After the blogging, I plan to take my Burgon and Ball ‘weeding finger’ and attack the native violets swamping our back garden. Not sure why its called a finger, unless your hands resemble the hooked talons of some mythical harpy, but it seems to work.
The cats will join me and we’ll play silly games (Harry in the bucket) until they spot a lizard and dash off, or get tired and curl up beneath the grevillea.
We’ve had enough rain to soak the garden, but the hanging pots, vertical fern garden, our potted herbs and assorted lovelies will need a drink. My wife is ready to prune (imagine all of our plants cringing) but some are still in flower thanks to a lingering summer, so they’re probably safe for another week.
I reckon getting your hands dirty is a powerful psychic balm for these troubled times.
That will get me through to lunch.
Unfortunately, I have to step out into the poisoned world to buy some bread. I don’t own a hazmat suit, so basic self-precautions will have to do the trick. Travelling from and to a virus-free biome, I’ll need to avoid touching my face while I’m out in the world. I’ll take my shoes off at the door and store them in the garage. Wash my hands immediately. Clean the bread packaging with a sterilizing wipe. Then have lunch.
I might not feel much like eating, but its important to keep healthy, especially now when the good oil suggests (as always) that those with impaired immunity and/or other co-morbidities are at greatest risk of catching the virus and dying from it.
I can’t do much about my diabetes, but I can keep myself strong with a good diet.
After lunch there may be a window for some book reading or a video.
My wife likes to relax with some Netflix (Ozark season 3 – yay!) and a glass of wine, so maybe a book. I read quick, so I could get a couple-hundred pages into something I’ve been putting aside for several weeks. The Mind’s Eye by Henri Cartier Bresson has been winking at me all morning, and it’s only 105 pages long. I could do that in one sitting, and it feeds the photographer’s itch I’m feeling badly at the moment.
Except in a short while the Prime Minister’s direction about not leaving your home without some official excuse will begin to bite, and I would feel like a trouble-maker gliding around taking photos when I ought to be bunkering down. I could ask my lovely wife to pose, but I don’t think she’s feeling too posey at the moment. Too busy trying to safeguard her job.
And that should get me through to Wine O’Clock.
The rest of the evening will tumble into raggedly half-images: wine and nibbles, more wine, perhaps a sneaky G&T, our vegan dinner feast, a desultory effort mid-evening to maybe catch up on the news of the day or begin another book, both of which will end up with me slugging off to bed fairly early, packed and ready for a very early start tomorrow, my compass pointed to all the fresh new flood gold waiting in Dark Corner Creek! You know what the next post will be about, don’t you.
See you soon (if I’m not dead).
PS: that’s iron pyrites, not the real stuff. Shiny, eh!