View from our verandah – Wellington Airport, Kilbirne, Evans Bay and Hataitai.
One thing that I’ve noticed over the last few weeks is the silence. Outside at night you can hear – nothing.
With virtually no cars on the roads and even fewer planes coming and going, the constant background city buzz has gone. To be replaced by silence, and at night, the call of our local Ruru.
Bella loves to bark at people passing our front gate. She sits and waits to hear someone approaching – then when they are level with the gate she lets loose – barking, barking barking.
Every morning and evening people on the way to and from work give her a “target rich environment” but in lockdown it’s different.
Here she is siting patiently, waiting for someone to walk past on Wednesday evening. But no one came.
Thank you gentle readers for the additions to the lockdown playlist. Happy lockdown day 9. And the extended playlist is:
Alone Again, Naturally – Gilbert O’Sullivan
The Chain – Fleetwood Mac
Need You Now – Lady Antebellum
Don’t Stand So Close To Me – The Police
It’s Oh So Quiet – Bjork
I Think We’re Alone Now – Tiffany
Staying Alive – Bee Gees
Is There Anybody Out There – Pink Floyd
So it’s day 7 of the Covid-19 lockdown. Our medical community is braced for an influx of virus sufferers and I’m ensconced in the safety of my home. What could possibly go wrong?
Quite a bit it seems.
It only took 7 days but I’ve done it – produced a sequel to the “nail through the foot” incident of last year. All it took was a blown lightbulb and a step ladder – well a kitchen step ladder to be honest.
Yes, another foot injury. This time it’s torn ligaments along the side of my left foot, swelling, pain and embarrassment – in equal measures.
I fell from the bottom step of the ladder and managed to sprain my foot to such an extent the doctor was impressed. “The bottom step? Really? The bottom step, are you sure?”, were his words while examining my swollen and rapidly blackening foot.
One x-ray later and I’m in a moon-boot with enough pain killers and steroids to treat a horse. Easy.
I’ll be spending the next week with my foot elevated, garnering as much sympathy and as many cups of tea as I can.
Top Tip: If you do something silly like this, now is an oddly good time to do it. When Jean called my doctor as I lay groaning on the ground she advised me to visit the after hours clinic (in Newtown for me) as they are “very quiet”. Apparently all the usual maladies that fill the clinic’s waiting room have mysteriously been cured. At 1pm I was the only person in the waiting room and when I had my x-ray I was the radiographers second customer – that day.
After 6 days of having us at home, Ellie has run out of things to keep her occupied. There’s only the office chair left.
Day two of the lockdown and it’s quiet out there – too quiet. Time for some music, and what could be better than a curated playlist to suit these odd times.
And, of course, anything by Small Spaces. All suggestions for additional songs are welcome.
We live in extraordinary times. In the next 24 hours we will give up our freedom willingly (for at least 4 weeks and possibly longer) and retreat to the relative safety of our homes, isolated, socially impotent and very likely bored out of our minds.
Today and tomorrow are the days to tidy things up – to sort all that life admin that needs to be done for a month in isolation. Not wanting to appear shallow, but top of my list was to purchase some of the delicious SmokeHouse Salmon Pate that New World stock. Ok, not earth shattering but just something that seemed important at the time.
Of course if I’d thought for another moment I’d have realised that it was possibly the least important thing I could have done in the day. But my brain ended up fixated on this damn pate.
So off I went to Chaffers New World to buy my limit of 2 pots. A llimit we can blame on all those who panic bought toilet paper, hand sanitiser, coffee, chocolate, baked beans and whatever else was panic buy of the day over the last few weeks.
I was expecting the supermarket to be chaos, queues out the door, police in attendance, possibly some tear gas being fired around but – no. It was quieter than any time I’ve been there recently – from a certain angle the store almost seemed empty.
Never one to miss an opportunity, I went in for some good old fashioned panic buying – well as much as you can do with a two item limit. When Jean saw my purchases she said I’d missed the point.
Poor women, she’s now stuck with me for 4 weeks – alone, together.
toscanakiwi 