This afternoon as I was chatting to one of my good friends Prudence we were conversing about how we will cope in the coming days of ‘living in a bubble’. We briefly discussed the idea of writing a journal to reflect on our journey, when Prudence suggested “why not write a blog about it”. That comment instantly struct a cord with me, my imagination went into overdrive. I was excited. Not writing about what I was experiencing but how could I get you my readers to share your experiences and thoughts. We could create a little “online community” to help/support each other over the coming days – oh the potential, I’m excited. The next 28 days are days we never imagined would happen, well I certainly didn’t. How are we going to cope with the lack of social connection and interaction – that is what I see as my biggest challenge.
So, over the next 28 days I intend to record each day’s reflections, thoughts, and incidents, and I also would love to have your input, don’t be shy. This will certainly be a new experience for me, one I’m excited about!
Preparations
Over the last couple of days I completed my to-do list before lock-down. Buying paint to paint my garage door. Incidentally Mitre 10 had sold out of semi-gloss paint on Tuesday, so this morning I went to Resene Paints where I got the last tin of semi-gloss. They told me they had 300 customers yesterday! Obviously many people have the same idea and as I, the next 28 days will be an opportunity to get some maintenance jobs done. Filled up the petrol can for lawnmower and hedge cutter and of course got a few extra grocery items; I got the last packet of flour. It has been an eye opener going to the supermarket and seeing people bulk buy.
I checked on my over 70 yr old friends to ensure they are OK and re-enforced that I’m only a phone call away. Later this afternoon I got a bonus – a load of dry firewood was delivered; can’t wait to stack that under my new woodshed roof! At least I’m ready for winter.
What preparations have you done for your lock-down? What did your to-do list consist of?
The idea of “living within a bubble”
On the radio the other night I listened to microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles, love that red hair of hers. Her description of living in a bubble and what that actually means made sense to me. These are her words :
“You are in a bubble …. our own household is our bubble and you need to stay in your bubble and if you go out of your bubble you’re going to pop that bubble and that’s going to put us all at risk.
You can go for a jog with …. your bubble family. You can go for a drive to the beach with your bubble family. But you must not enter anybody else’s bubble.”
I’ll miss not cycling and socialising with my Tuesday and Saturday boys and of course miss my walks and catch-ups with my friends. But hey I’ll save money, hopefully get lots of jobs done and have plenty of time to blog!! AND the great thing from all this isolation is that we’ll stop this Covid-19 virus because we’ll be living in our bubble and not entering anybody else’s bubble!
Sure looking forward to hearing your preparation activities and your reflections on “living in a bubble”.
So take care, till tomorrow night – Goldcard Gal. 🙂
Good one, Heather.
It’s very early days but we feel as though life will go on, more or less, in the same way. We will miss coffee mornings, we’re disappointed to miss the dinner date set for tomorrow at your place, we’ll miss driving to the bach in Tairua, via the wonderful Paeroa Refinery Cafe, and I will certainly miss going to my local library.
However, with Gethin and Darius plus three grandchildren living on the back section we are a family unit, and we have offered to look after the children each morning while the parents work from home. (How can anyone work from home with three children to tend to?). This means that our day is cut in half, so I think we won’t have enough time left in our day to wonder what to do. I’d promised myself that I’d catch up on things I’ve left drag on. Now I’m figuring out how to ensure I can get this stuff done – certainly won’t be able to take up Hugh’s suggestion of a time-filler, i.e., trying sex in every room in the house.
Tairua Library is taking on-line requests for books and doing home delivery. What a good idea! Keep in mind that we can order books from The Book Depository with no shipping costs. Our friend, Susan, highly recommended Where the Crowdads Sing. I know that Auckland Library has seven copies of this book but also have 1064 reservations. I’ve ordered my copy for $15 odd from The Book Depository, and yes it will be delivered during NZ shutdown.
We are definitely keeping to Jacinda’s recommendations. Personally I’m not worrying that much. I was born in
1945 and already feel as though I’m swimming in shark-infested waters. If we all do as we’re asked and unite against Covid-19 then we’ll probably manage an Edmond Hillary.
Cheers.
Oh my goodness what a suggestion, glad Tony is not in this chat group. !!!!!! Although with the rain today I am probably not that safe.
Lockdown day 1.
Activities and observations and thoughts for today:
A sudden quietness like after a blanket of snow that has fallen overnight.
More birds than normal gathering on the verges and roadsides with no cars to scare them.
Then suddenly, that silence broken by some cats deciding to argue.
Not sure if it is over toilet paper, but I doubt it.
Dogs apparently now need two people to exercise them. The normal guardian, plus a bored unemployed spouse.
Weekend grass mowing starts early? Not sure why as the grass hasn’t grown for months but suddenly it urgently needs it today!
A mad neighbour who did not go on a crazy shopping spree yesterday, but brought home a complete trailer full of scrap timber. His plan, to trim and size this material into usable pieces using the noisiest equipment at his disposal.
Not that this is new, but it does not bode well for the new tranquillity that cloaked the suburb earlier. “Wife now angrily slamming close windows”!
Memories come back to me about New York decades ago when a severe snow storm resulted in major power outages.
People trapped in lifts for days.
Unable to travel home and often isolated with strangers.
Will we end up with a Baby Boom as we head into 2021?
Looking at reports about what to do trying to entertain kids! Should we have to?
My younger sister unfortunately contracted Polio in 1954. I was already at school but was quarantined in isolation as a possible carrier for some months. Allowed only into the garden, I was allowed to use my imagination and what resulted has stayed with me.
I built castles and ships from dad’s bean poles, old sheets and carpet, made forts and battled alone with injuns all summer long.
I had no time to be bored.
Schooling was just another casualty. In the fullness of time I think it had no detrimental effects.
This leads me to reflect on how my parents managed in those days.
No car and only public transport.
Not allowed to see my seriously ill sister except through a glass partition.
They had no supermarkets to gather within, and certainly no governmental support either socially or financially.
Oh, good! Some quiet again.
Mad neighbour must have heard my wife’s accompaniment on the window joinery.
Evening approaches and I see that New Zealand now has a total if 283 cases confirmed.
The curve seems to getting steeper!
Tomorrow I think I will get the wind trainer set up in the garage. No need to panic but wise to stay inside.
Unhurried In Hamilton:
Great idea Heather.
My mind has also gone into overdrive and I have had all sorts of thoughts about this event.
My parents and families endured the blitz and V rocket attacks in London, my wife’s lived through the battles and deprivations of the European eastern front.
Later my wife and her family became refugees that lasted in excess 12 months when escaping from nasty regimes. At times not knowing if they would be returned, nor where they would be sent.
Rationing in the UK lasted until well into my childhood, and austerity was the norm until jumping ship.
Isolation is what many elderly people in today’s society endure on a daily basis.
Contrast that with the unbelievable greed and avarice as reported about The Warehouse and other money making machines. With governments that clearly govern for economies and not the society.
Bloody hell! 28 days are what most of us take as annual holidays.
So with all that in the back of my mind I find myself thinking that how lucky we are to have ended up here in New Zealand.
One government to make decisions albeit sometimes slowly, instead of the continued State and Federal charade regularly exposed across the ditch, and over the oceans.
It is at times like these when taking citizenship perhaps takes on more value than to our born and bred neighbours.
So forward to the garden.
Lawns to dethatch, flower beds to clean and dig over, a workshop to clean and dust. All of this after the list that I am sure my bride is at this very moment composing.
I can do four weeks at home if medical, police and other essential businesses can do four weeks at the coal face. How very luck we are to live in NZ and I feel very fortunate to have a nice place to live in with plenty of trees and birds and vege garden and the wee chatter of my your year old neighbour across the fence.
We do air high fives. and someone suggested putting a teddy in the window for other children to see.
Hello from the South Island Isolution Wanaka branch: this started down here a few days ago when the borders closed and the tourist numbers dropped: the building at a great rate of knots has also slowed and now has like most things stopped. My wife is working from home now and I’m not going volunteering or to the Park Run on Saturday’s. We are also not going to the cafes. For us things will not change dramatically but for lots they will change heaps. This will be a first for a lot of people. One of our neighbour’s for example have a very social life and so it will be very different for them.They also are not returning to England as planned for 6 months in the UK before returning to NZ for the next 6 months. Our other English neighbour’s have not been able to return to NZ for various reasons. I have seen this morning people out walking their dog and now mowing lawns. I mowed the lawns for a friend the other day before the lock down. The growth has slowed so this will hold it for a month or……
I also had it all worked out for this weekend. I located a DOC hut 2 hours off the Cardrona road towards Lowburn. Beautiful clean water in the Meg Stream and lovely surrounding. Alas that idea has been put on hold. So we just going to go for a walk and keep busy around home. Until to the next time keep safe☺
Morning Heather, great sleep last night must have been the Gin and Tonic before dinner made the difference. We have enjoyed daily phone calls from Novalea and Nick and family, usually lucky if we get a call once a week! got to be a bonus. My task today is to try and set up some kind of video link so we can actually see each other. Knowing the extent of my computer skills that is going to be daunting. I am going to try and learn how to meditate, the numerous times I have tried I have failed because to try to keep on track seems to be an impossibility for me. I read a magazine that suggested starting small perhaps only 5 mins at a time and them trying for longer so I start today and will let you know how that goes. Stay safe and enjoy the bubbles we are all in what a great opportunity for busy parents to have quality time with their kids. Nick, Michelle and the boys are loving the time together. However Novalea did ask, tongue in cheek, could she come home as after just one day with only Bill for company he did not know how he would survive. No worries though as he has to work so all good.
Hello Heather, What an excellent idea you have had. I love the bubble analogy, particularly since there is a lot of vulnerability in a bubble, it is on its own, and it can pop at any time. So this is a good time to contact friends and family who are not nearby. We are so lucky to have computers, smart phones, and the internet to keep in touch and it is so important that we can keep up our friendships, while giving precedence to the social isolation requirements. There is no need to get bored with radio and TV. I plan to do some household tasks like decluttering and reorganising too. I still have my Brian to feed and make coffees for, but most of the time he is on conference calls or talking to colleagues over the phone. He is finding life more productive working this way. Does anyone else out there find this so too? What new initiatives are you going to introduce over the next month? I am certainly also going to sort my boxes of family photos and remember all the happy times I’ve had, today..
Hi Next door bubble!
I’ve been in mine longer than you! (bit of one- upmanship there!)
I do yoga stretches on the back lawn in my bubble – maybe we could make matching bubbles sometime!
And we are here anytime you need to see a face or hear a voice that isn’t on a device
Thanks Sue. Do you have any tips or advice for us who are only just going into isolation?
Limit your news intake to once a day!
Start to work out how many people you can keep meaningful contact with, and which friends/ family members need it most.
If like me, sleep needs ‘practice’, give yourself a good wind-down period in the latter part of the evening.
Boundaries can be valuable self protection, even in isolation
Thank you Sue, great suggestions and certainly agree with limiting your news intake to once a day. 🙂
my daughter and sister said our physical farewells today, we put things into our perspective…..our Poppa and father went to War not knowing he would spend 4 years in prison of war camps. What’s 4 weeks?
Looking forward to many burbles in bubbles!
Prudence
Thanks Prudence, yes what’s 4 weeks compared to 4 years in a prison of war camp.
So very true Prue, great example one to keep in the forefront of our minds as we get through each day.