While Not Working

Today's effort is all about the pictures.  Sister and I mended rapidly from Covid: Roger not so much.  We filled him with pills, plied him with inhalations, and packed him off to bed with the cat while we went walking to test the extent of our recovery. We cheated a little bit though, driving down to Belair National Park so that we wouldn't have to walk up any hills to get home. Belair NP was quiet on a Friday morning, just the odd jogger or dog walker out and about. We wandered along the Valley Loop, beside the empty creek. All the wildflowers were dying off, the gum tree blossoms were tatty and worn, and the creeks were dry. A kangaroo and joey eyed us warily before taking themselves off to less populated pastures. Black cockatoos posed in the trees overhead, and people with far more energy than us jogged up hill and down dale through tunnels of leafy green. We saw new leaves, and old blossoms. Rainbow lorikeets clustered at the base of one particular tree, fighting and squa...

Sister woke sneezing and spluttering and soon it was official: we had all joined the Spicy Cough Club. Official Days Off were declared, in effect immediately and until such time as we were all fit to go out in public again. Being the least spluttery person, I put on my N95 mask and did a quick run to the shop for essentials such as Panadol, Iboprufen, herbal tea, and chocolate. Roger drank his lemon and ginger infusion and declared it tolerable in the circumstances. And then we stayed at home. We napped, played Quiddler, and swam in the pool. After a day or two everyone was sufficiently recovered for cabin fever to be setting in, so we declared ourselves capable of open air social distancing and took ourselves for a drive in part to share some of Adelaide with sister and in reality to look for ice cream. And of course looking for ice cream means going to Glenelg, so there we went. The summer crowds have largely gone, which makes for easy social distancing. Glenelg was suitably empty fo...

Well it had to happen. Here I was blaming two days of crushing fatigue and a snotty nose on my much-maligned sinuses. It wasn't until the lurgy struck Roger with much sneezing, spluttering, and a high temperature that he did a test which confirmed his case of covid and, by proxy, mine.  The advisory website informed us that we should, as a matter of best practice, isolate until symptoms had gone.  "But I feel fine this morning," I declared, happy that I could still attend the tour of Hans Heysen's studio, home, and garden which I had booked for 2pm that afternoon.  Off I went then, sister in tow, leaving Roger to share his misery with the cat and a packet of Panadol. We left early for touristic purposes, visiting the top of Mount Lofty to appreciate the panoramic view of Adelaide to which every new visitor must be subjected. Despite being overcast and cool, the view was quite clear.  I could see the container ships out to sea beyond Semaphore. In the foreground the c...

We booked a unit beside the sea at Semaphore. It was an upstairs unit with a view over the ball drop tower and out to the jetty and the cargo ships lined up to enter the outer harbour. As an added bonus it was directly above the Copenhagen ice creamery, setting us up for temptation every time we went anywhere. Semaphore jetty,  the sky awash with contrails. Cloud iridescence over the Semaphore surf lifesaving tower. The ball drop tower was directly opposite our unit, the drawback being that the floodlights stayed on all night long.   My sister came to visit, bringing summer with her for a week and even going swimming in the waters of Semaphore (although she very sensibly allowed other swimmers to go further out than her, an effective shark net as it were). Dabbling her toes in South Australian waters.  "It's not that bad!" she declared, and went home to put on her togs. She's made of tougher stuff than me. Watch out for sharks.   We explored Port Adelaide,  admi...

Roger, in his capacity as chief dog walker and person with less paid work to do, drew the short straw and got to stay in Victor Harbor to vacuum, mop, do the laundry, and make sure that everything was shipshape for the return of our house owners. Dog, realising that something was up, ran around making a nuisance of himself and trying to savage the vacuum cleaner into submission. He's watching and waiting...   Subject to the demands of work, remote though it may be, I settled into a luxury cabin in Goolwa. We got the cabin on a special deal for 40% off, and we wouldn't have wanted to pay any more because while it was perfectly adequate,  'luxury' was certainly a misnomer. It had a grand total of one power point which I shared with the air conditioner, and luckily that was all I needed given I travel with my very own power board for circumstances just like this.    It'll do as an office. The chair could be comfier though  I worked all day and when I needed a break...