April-the start

I’ve managed to go ten days without posting anything, which was breaking up a good run of writing. Hopefully I can get going again.

At our house we are doing okay for the moment. The Scientist continues to work from home and is both lucky and unlucky that he and a coworker are still on full hours due to urgent need of their projects. My work has come to a bit of a halt. I am still supporting my client but we aren’t meeting face-to-face right now. I think we may start up some more minimal activity soon with one of us (support workers) meeting with him each week. I’m still getting paid but it’s not the ideal type of support right now. The boys are doing okay and life carries on fairly normally for them. Except that Lego Lover isn’t doing shopping with me at the moment.

Which leads me to the next thing, going out in public. I was really good over the past week and only went out once during the week to top up a couple of things. But Thursday I had to do the shopping and it was mentally and physically exhausting. Playing dodge-em in the shops was a crazy pursuit. I washed myself down well when I got home as I felt rather icky from being out in the world. I didn’t go to the pharmacy at all during the week, which was good. But I should have gone yesterday as Lego Lover needed a refill of one medication. Just I didn’t know it when I was out. Sigh…Today, the Scientist and I went to see about getting the refill but the pharmacy was closed. So tomorrow I will go back and get that taken care of. We also need eggs so that Lego Lover can do his traditional decorating and then we can do a egg hunt inside as normal. The regular stores were all out on Thursday and most stores were closed today. So tomorrow it will have to be done. Plus there’s a need to start hunting down toilet paper soon. We have about a week’s worth, I think, but in case of increased usage, I’d like to have a few rolls extra before then.

We’re coming into the middle of April and we’re having a heatwave right now. Three days of hot temperatures that are highly unusual for this time of year. Tomorrow is expected to exceed 37C where we are (100F) and then we go back to more normal temperatures. It’s weird because our summer was kind of mild after we had a particularly warm/hot spring. So when there were all the reports about Australia having record temperatures, it didn’t apply here most of that time. But we may well set an April temperature record tomorrow.

I’m keeping up my exercise for the most part. I’m alternating long and short bike rides with some combined bike rides/ walks at nearby Whiteman Park. It takes me close to 30 minutes to ride to a place where I can park my bike and then I walk for about an hour most of the time. There’s one trail that works well for that. My favorite walk goes quite a bit longer so I haven’t done that one much lately.

I’ve been adding to the challenge on my bike rides the past few times by trying to pedal while standing up while I go uphill. It does make for better riding but I need to keep at it a while to build up the muscle and slow down the racing heart a bit. Today I found it particularly tough at a couple points, but maybe that was related to the heat more than anything. I will point out that it was reasonably pleasant but quite dry outside so my main concern was hydration. I pushed through the first half of my trip without stopping and I had to stop for a few minutes to get my heart rate back to normal and to drink one of the bottles of water I’d taken. (I had three with me). I also have managed to start riding using the last set of gears and it’s working out pretty well. I am missing my swimming but that will just have to wait a while.

I’ve been playing my Animal Crossing game every day since it was released so far. This is the fourth incarnation I’ve played and it’s looking to be the best of the lot. I’m finding it amusing to see so many people are getting hooked on this game as though it’s a new thing when it’s been around in other forms for quite a long time. I’m still hoping there will eventually be a restock of the Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch. Thanks to the shortage, there are a lot of scalpers about, getting 3-4 times the true value of the machine. This is the only special edition console that has ever interested me and it figures it would be released at this particular time.

I finally got a message from the airline about a refund on my tickets. It seems they have put through refunds of the seat fees but it might be a while for the regular fare. So long as I know it’s coming, I’m okay with it. It’s weird to think next Tuesday is the day I was supposed to be travelling but now it’s going to be an ordinary day.

Which reminds me that our tai chi class is proceeding for the moment using the Zoom platform. It has some limitations but it’s been really good to handle our group so far. We should be able to catch up a couple classes that didn’t happen during the usual break time.

For me, the isolation isn’t too terrible at the moment. I’m still able to go out on my bike and to walk near home so I am not stuck inside all the time. But that suits my personality a bit more. I am mostly affected by limitations on going out to take care of usual stuff and having to think through ways of consolidating on trips. It’s not so easy for some though, like the Scientist, who has a much higher need for human contact than the rest in the this family. I do wonder how I will feel in a month when we start getting cooler weather and more rain that keeps me indoors a lot more.

Here in Western Australia, the numbers have been dropping recently so I think we are “flattening the curve” pretty well. Most of the recent cases seem to be related to cruise ship activity here, which is a frustrating situation which doesn’t seem to get improving a lot. I heard talk of a couple more ships coming here soon. I honestly don’t understand how so many ships carried on after this pandemic was declared. It’s been weeks now, and it hasn’t improved. I remember it was early March when the Queen Mary 2 was here and they cancelled all itineraries while here. The cruise ships aside, I guess the fact we are so isolated in the country really helps a lot.

Anyway, our weekend ahead is going to be a stay at home thing. Well I might go out to exercise tomorrow but otherwise will be home. Hopefully we can engage the family in some games of some sort over the next day or two. Or maybe some other activities.