Spring forward, fall back. That’s always the way I remember what happens with the clocks with Daylight Savings Time. Last night, the clocks went back an hour. I (for some reason) decided to wear my pyjama bottoms and t-shirt to bed. It kept me nice and warm for the coldest parts of the night, but by morning, I was overheated and soaking wet. My last dream was about my parents consoling me about having to leave them to come back to New Zealand. In real life, it’s one of the most overwhelming things I have to face every time I visit home, and it stalks me in my dreaming life too at random intervals.
I got up early and took my time in taking a shower and getting ready to face the day. Today was my brother Jeremy’s birthday, and our family secretly set up a time to FaceTime him together to surprise him. No one except his partner Annie, her kids, and their pets could celebrate this year due to COVID-19 lockdown, so this was the best way to wish him a great birthday.
It was nice. I wasn’t as engaged as usual because it was a bit overwhelming and I was still waking up. But we enjoyed ourselves and got to wish Jeremy a happy birthday too. The cutest part was where Annie (Jeremy’s partner) brought out a cake with candles on it for us all to sing “Happy Birthday” to him while the candles were lit. I don’t think Jeremy was expecting that. It was very nice.
After that, I told my husband I needed to get outside. We hadn’t gone for a walk for a while — mostly due to me being paranoid about any sort of exposure to anyone or anything at all — but he agreed. It was a sunny, yet windy, day outside. The sun was warm and the wind was cool: a good combination.
We have a nature reserve a block from our house. It is a little bit of a longer walk to get to the access point into the reserve as there is a fence along the perimeter of the reserve bordering our subdivision to keep cats and other predators out and to protect the native wildlife within. So we had a walk of a few blocks down to the sliding door on the “airlock” to enter the space.
Overall, the walk took us about 45 minutes. It was nice to blow out the cobwebs. On the way, we pass lots of nature, a lovely river (clear, clear water), and a lake full of various types of ducks and geese. The sun was radiant, the sky was a beautiful blue, the leaves were changing and rattling in the cool wind, and we marched valiantly on.
I broke my own rule. When I got home, I did more work. I felt anxious about getting it done, so I started up on it again. I got a bit done by the time it was time for dinner.
We got some good news today. It looks like the curve is flattening in New Zealand against COVID-19. They are doing extensive testing and are still getting the same number of cases (approximately) per day. The more impressive figure is that even though we had around 89 new cases today, 49 of them were confirmed and 40 were probable. Cautious times, sure, but we are levelling out. Let’s hope all this hard work and isolation are for something rather than nothing, and we and our Government can severely cripple, if not eliminate, COVID-19 from New Zealand completely.
And let’s hope a comprehensive and safe vaccine is developed and deployed relatively quickly so life can get back to as normal as possible as we can.
I’m tired — my body thinks it’s past midnight when it’s now only 11:30-sh here — so I will leave you at that. Stay safe.
Beam Me Up, Scotty 