Iso

Having returned home from New Zealand during the global pandemic, Elizabeth and I were placed into home-based quarantine – isolation, or “iso”. This meant we could not leave our house except for a medical emergency, and could not even go out onto our own nature strip, only our close front garden and back garden.

I decided to keep a journal.

Day 1 – 23 March

We came home from New Zealand on Sunday (day zero), clothes off in the laundry, showers and washing hair.
The day was spent washing everything, wiping down our cases etc, putting out electrical cords and things too hard to wash into the seven days isolation spot.

Then onto some church stuff, a good distraction. Oh, and important too. Multiple phone calls. We had booked ourselves to listen to Pr Simon’s broadcast talk at 2pm, but other calls intervened. We are aiming now for 3pm today. Why do this? A sense of routine and things to look forward to (better be good, Pr Simon).

Day 2 – 24 March

The day started in the vegetable garden. That’s right, I dug the vegetable garden. Don’t act surprised, I did it once before too.

I emptied two compost bins, watched a rat run off, killed about five redbacks, and loaded compost into one super vegetable bed so full of goodness that any seed planted there will spring into vigorous life*.

Then I recorded a short video for Church. First time I have ever recorded myself. There was the usual surprise that I look and sound like that. You might be used to me, I’m not. Even my hair (such as it is) was parted on the wrong side, compared to my usual mirror view.

Finally got to listen to Pr Simon’s talk “Come closer”. He’s not bad, you know.

And now it’s 4:15pm. I wonder what the bandwidth on Netflix will be like…

* actual results may vary, past performance is no guarantee to future outcomes

Day 3 – 25 March

We have jobs every day. I vacuumed the whole house this morning. All that stuff about joy in the simple chores? Overrated.

There was a possum living between our rolled-up outside blind and our bedroom window. Note past tense.

Both Coles Online and Woolies Online will not accept an order until a delivery date is selected. There are no delivery dates available. (Not asking for help, no issue yet, and we have family). You do this wonderful shop, even adding violet crumble bars for special occasions (such as when we visit the vegetable garden and relive old times, like when I dug it), then put in your payment details, and you get a greyed-out ‘Submit Order’ button – with the helpful advice to choose a delivery date first. Later on, there’s now a spot to say I’m a special case. I always knew I was a special case.

We have found some vegetable seeds in the cupboard to plant. They were in a tin marked “Hemp”. I’m not making this up. Yes officer, these are “vegetable” seeds, really they are.

But we have decided to let the new garden bed rest for a week. Sounds vaguely scriptural: rest for the land; maybe Leviticus; maybe it was for a year; maybe we just don’t feel like planting today. Mañana.

Made a sign for the front door, saying ‘leave deliveries here and run away’. I may have worded it better than that. We have a bell at home. I tried ‘bring out yer dead’, but this was not received that well, neither my next attempt: “unclean, unclean”.

We had a delivery of Easter Eggs from Elizabeth’s sister, she was driven here by Alex S. She has flown halfway around the world (before quarantine date) and gets to leave a bag on our doorstep and shout to us from the street. She has a flight back to London, so far. Anyway, tried out my bell with “unclean, unclean”. Alex thought it was hilarious. Great sense of humour that guy.

Day 4 – 26 March

So, I found the rat again. He had created a hole under the compost bin. There was a flat piece of timber leaning against the metal fence, via which he had created a path (or “rat run”, if you will) leading to a hole under the fence. Using my trusty full-bore hose nozzle, I cleared the entire path (he didn’t appear) and then blocked off the under-fence access with stakes. The stakes will come in handy for the upcoming zombie apocalypse. Or was that for vampires?

Anyhoo, a sense of having created the Maginot Line of rat defence. Actually, that Line didn’t turn out that well, the panzers just went around the other way. History helps in understanding the rat wars.

Planned the planting of the vegetable garden. Elizabeth tells me that my personally-created 20cm x 20cm gridded graph was overkill. But where was she when the rat wars were on? Yeah, sometimes you’ve just gotta plan in detail. The Prussian General Moltke said that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. So where are the Prussians now? Exactly.

Did some more church stuff. We are cooking up some fun things. Pr Simon can introduce them when we’re ready.

In other big news, Woolies has reviewed my special case and decided that I am indeed special. So special that when I log onto their website I get to choose delivery times and dates. That’s more special than most of you, I’ll warrant.

“I’ll warrant”? Where did that come from? Sounds like Elizabeth Bennet passing some ill-informed rash early judgement on Mr Darcy.

I ate sardines on crackers for lunch. These old tins that have been hiding down the back finally get their day in the sun. Sardines do not look like fat rat’s tails at all. Not in the slightest.

Day 5 – 27 March

Planted the vegetable seeds. They are supposed to come up in 7-10 days. Green sprouts will be the sign of impending release from solitary. Is it still solitary if there are two of you? Binary? “You are hereby sentenced to 14 days binary confinement.” Sounds like marriage. But shorter.

I decided that my piano party piece – The House of the Rising Sun – actually went out of style in the late 70s. I wanted something cooler. What better time than now to remember that I once could sort-of play the piano. I have chosen ‘Misty’ as my new party piece. Turns out those chords are out of my limited experience. Give me about a year.

Elizabeth bought a ‘Review’ dress online. What, only for me to see? I asked. No, she said, it is her civic duty to help stimulate the economy. She has always had a strong sense of community responsibility.

I went to Bunnings Online in response. Civic duty people. CIVIC DUTY!

Elizabeth has been putting teddy bears in our windows. It’s a bear-hunt thing for kids walking the streets. If they are allowed to; not sure. Perhaps they can take out binoculars and scan the streets from their house. Great, people scanning our house with binoculars: there they are, those two weirdos in binary confinement.

Or worse, the David Attenborough view: “The natural realm of the Beggs is in the homes that they create and no amount of coaxing will see will them come out; they place imitation bears in their windows to ward off predators. The male of the species will bristle if any animal attempts to walk on his lawn, but will only mutter under his breath in response – an ineffective and futile gesture. The female responds to this by rolling her eyes, signalling to the male that she has had just about enough.”

Day 6 – 28 March

Our food parcel arrived today (or ‘Woolies order’ if you would like to be less dramatic and less fun). We had planned our response. Firstly, we were not allowed to open our door until he was gone. I have a massive packet of disposable gloves, left over from some project, so why not use them. Grocery bags straight out to covered courtyard where they will sit for a while, fridge stuff fridged. Overkill? I have no idea.

The Woolies order had to do some substitutions. Somehow not getting your favourite brand seems less relevant than before. Who cares if your usual toothpaste has been replaced by ‘Star Brand Tooth Cleaning Moist Substance – made in the People’s Glorious Democratic Republic of Gravelstan. Turns out it’s their major export, even gets a mention in their national anthem:

Gravelstan Gravelstan we pledge our life to thee
Our rocks are good for grinding stuff
Our soil is sparse and free
We make the finest cleaning dust
Our tooths are bright and few
So raise a hand, and give a cheer
Gravelstan for me and you.

I have begun aerating our back lawn. With a garden fork. I have not done this for at least three decades. Our lawn may no longer be the subject of neighbourhood petitions. Elizabeth’s father won the champion lawn of Canberra in 1952. I have a way to go to live up to her expectations.

I am reminded of this guy. This was the blitz. Interesting fact: when London was bombed every single night, people handled it far better than when it was random. We hate uncertainty. The terror by night.

And they obviously still got milk deliveries too. On the other hand, although our deliveries are sporadic, we aren’t dealing with bombs raining down from the sky. So there’s that.

Day 7 – 29 March

Halfway. Where are all those things I was going to do? I did some. It is enough.

Ordered pizza last night (now with added “contactless delivery”). Poor guy put the pizza down at arm’s length on the doorstep, nervously watching me through our glass door for any signs that I might open it and rush into a man-hug with the only non-Elizabeth human being I have seen in a week. Instead I did a silent applause thing, with that sideways smile and twinkle that Leonardo diCapprio does in The Great Gatsby (“old sport”). At least that’s how it was in my head. He left quite quickly, I noticed.

Church online today. We seem to have seamlessly moved into the new world. Of course there’s a lot of work behind the scenes. Well done, all.

I started another vegetable garden. Not easy, it had been invaded by roots from a very healthy looking ferny thing. I created a massive pile of fern roots on one half, and tried to get all the soil into the other half. We are going to plant garlic, from an unused garlic bulb Elizabeth bought from the market ages ago. A rare find indeed, to be hidden and guarded. But only at the level befitting a garlic bulb – I read on the news that Americans are buying more guns; I’m sure that will work out well.

Anyway, got onto Bunnings Online: needed compost, manure, mulch. Got them all into an online basket and the site crashed. Later.

There is going to be more work for more IT folks, I reckon. Woolies site is holding up well, Coles not so much. And now Bunnings has crashed. And lets not even talk MyGov, which thankfully I don’t have to use, but which is clearly buckling under the load.

Elizabeth has been keeping online booksellers in business, she reads history like there’s no tomorrow (see what I did there?) and can compare any current event to historical precedents at the drop of a hat. It’s hard work keeping up, and I am very careful putting my hat on the hook.

Tried Diggers Club Online for seeds, and decided to leave that to Elizabeth, the reason being she knows what actual vegetables we need. On the good news front, I made an account at Seniors Art Supplies. Surprisingly easy, but bound to be the next rush if others end up at home like us. Though, to be honest, haven’t lifted a brush all week. Next week.

We coordinate our diaries at Sunday lunch:

Monday? Mandatory isolation.
Me too.
Tuesday? Mandatory isolation.
Me too.
Wednesday?
Alright, let’s not do this…

Day 8 – 30 March

We have a division of responsibilities. I wash up and also unpack the dishwasher. I do not dry the washed up dishes. There are a number of things that I just don’t know where they belong. Unpacking the dishwasher exposes this deficit. But I have a cunning plan, if I manually wash up these items, rather than putting them in the dishwasher, then it becomes Elizabeth’s responsibility to put them away. I’m now not sure whether I have gamed the system or it has gamed me.

I started a painting today. It’s from a photo I took. Up until now I had been congratulating myself on its composition: edgy, interesting, unusual. When I looked more closely, it has a helicopter in it. Now I don’t know whether I was snapping a helicopter and fluked this composition, or was lining up this composition and fluked the helicopter. Going with the latter.

We cleaned the pond and filter today. The one and only fish (Fat Archie) flashed his golden scales lazily at us, as if to say ‘about time’. He doesn’t have to worry about gaming the dishwasher or handling deliveries. And he’s been doing social isolation successfully for years. Good old Archie, king of the pond, master of the circular patrol, lord of the casual fin-flick, serenely swims to his next feed of algae growing there every day just for him.

I went out to the vegetable garden. It’s been three days since I planted it. Still nothing. It’s almost as if the times they said on the packet were true. Experts. With their knowledge. Just trying to show me up. Grumble. Anyway, I think I have seen the rat off at least.

Day 9 – 31 March

Woke up to an eerie quietness, punctuated by occasional birdsong; lovely. The sound of cars, groups of people, machinery and aircraft – all gone. I expect to see deer and kangaroos at some point; maybe even the occasional wild rat roaming free, the wind in its whiskers, the sun glinting from its yellow teeth.

Started ironing my shirts again. Too easy to let one’s standards slip. Not so sure about shaving though. My hair is due for a cut. I threatened to take a “Number 1” to my whole head. Turns out Elizabeth is not yet ready for me to do this. I don’t have a head-shaver in any case – it was always a hollow threat.

I’ve noticed an uptick in misinformation. My wise insight: those things that say “share this with everyone you know”, don’t actually have to be shared with everyone you know.

Elizabeth got to open yesterday’s parcel (yesterday’s because of 24 hours isolation of things that arrive at the house). Her Review dress. It was made in Wuhan. Oh goody. But weeks ago. Hung it outside for further virus degradation. Overkill, but doesn’t cost us anything. I was going to try the Aliens approach (nuke it from orbit, just to be sure), but relied instead on expert advice. It’s a nice dress. We’ll let it virus-degrade for a while further.

Various cruise ships are stuck in ports that don’t want them. Elizabeth (history buff, remember) told me about the plague ships around the time of the Bubonic Plague. The term ‘quarantine’ itself arose from these times, coming from ‘quaranta giorni’, Italian for “forty days,” which was the length of time ships from infected ports had to anchor in Venice during the 14th century before being allowed to disembark. This period was arrived at by trial and error (they started with 30 days) and was highly effective.

Some small shoots in the vegetable garden. But are they weeds or vegetables? Let’s give them time to reveal themselves. The good husbandman both irons his shirts and is first partaker of the produce. The good husbandman is also patient, and does not nuke things from orbit.

Day 10 – 1 April

My lawn edger arrived today and went into the 24-hour sin bin (or quarantine area as the proper folks say). I don’t think I have ever edged a lawn in my life. Time at home magnifies small issues. You just get to that point where a scruffy lawn edge is too much. If you think that’s a first world problem, wait until you hear about my espresso machine.

Here’s what I have noticed. Sometimes the espresso comes out nice and slow, a small trickle of pressured water fighting its way through the freshly ground goodness of good coffee beans (thank you Simon C). Other times, it just seems to bolt through, not picking up enough coffee on the way. I have set the grinding setting nice and fine, but still on occasion it happens. Now I have learned about ‘channeling’. If you don’t tamp your coffee down evenly, creating a lop-sided effect, the pressurised water finds that easier channel and goes mostly that way. It’s obvious once you know. Physics and such. So this is why the experts tamp carefully and uniformly. To my third-world friends, I apologise for raising this most first of first-world problems.

The rat returned. Persistent little fellow. Not having any chicken wire, I staked the perimeter of the plastic compost bin with lots of garden stakes. Prior to this I had used the fork to do a random stabbing, followed by a good hosing. However, during this attack I left an escape route – Sun Tzu (The Art of War) was right: “always give your enemy a way out. If you totally surround them, they will fight even more fiercely. With a way out, they will not.” He wasn’t there in any case (the rat, not Sun Tzu). Maybe he keeps coming back for the coffee grounds. Maybe he’s a caffeine addict. Not me, just two cups a day. It’s enough for me; I already enjoyed my random stabbing too much. Not a good look.

Day 11 – 2 April

Good drop of rain last night, so loud it woke me up. It’s a restful thing, though, a good steady rain, feels like money going into the bank. We are all connected more than we know to the harvest of the soil, the rhythm of the rains, the streaming sun, the hidden promise of the seed. Vegetable gardening has clearly awoken my inner primary producer.

Good to hear Pr Simon at our virtual meeting last night, with those comments coming in from all around the world. Some of you must have been watching at locally odd hours. Sitting in your at-home clothes in a lounge chair with a cuppa is certainly different to a normal meeting – whatever that is these days. The anointing is within, though – this has always been the ace in the hole.

Did some more of my painting, working on the upper reaches of the mountain. I’m sure people who paint professionally just show up and work. I seem to need the muse to be stirring. Having got going, I then get on a roll. So, having completed the next bit of mountain, I decided to “fix” the sky. I was already tired. Big mistake. I now have a sky with a lovely graduated cobalt blue with streaks of ultramarine over it. Because. Because I have no idea, that’s because. All I need is a bit of red and it could be an apocalypse sky. The best thing about oils? – just wait a couple of days and paint over it.

Bread came today. The usual dump and run. The word may have gotten out about the man in number 36. No screams, though. Anyway, bread, just coming to your door – just because we moved some electrons and bits around on a screen. This is why it’s easy to become disconnected; but somewhere in the background someone sowed that seed, harvested that grain, kneaded that dough, baked that bread. And sure, we don’t live by bread alone, but it’s still better when it’s fresh.

Day 12 – 3 April

Did ever a rat achieve such fame? Perhaps the first one to say, boy these fleas are annoying, I might just go scratch myself in that European city nearby the dock. Yes, he’s back. I have now completed a fortress around the compost bin, a forest of stakes holding in stones and barriers, covered in eucalyptus leaves and doused with eucalyptus oil. This was preceded by the usual fruitless ritualised stabbing of the heap. We will see, we will indeed see. Indeedy we will.

Did some edging with my new edger. Concrete paths do look neat when they are edged. But it does take us from the informality of wild growth to the effect of an English country garden. The thing about those English country gardens was that their owners had gardeners. Forelock-tugging men with wheelbarrows who said things like: “arrr the begonias be going t’seed and I’ll be turnin’ the heap out back if yer lordship pleases, oh and mind the rats yer lordship, they be big hairy ones they be, I’ll get me shovel, that’ll take care of em, cheeky blighters, they won’t be survivin’ the turnin’ of the ‘eap, not if I gets me way they won’t”. But I’ve thought this through. If I was back then, I wouldn’t be the lord, I’d be the gardener. So here’s to egalitarian society, I say.

Fixed the sky. Not the one above you, the one in my painting. Back to a flat graduated blue punctuated by wispy clouds. It looks uninteresting, but it’s only the backdrop to the mountain and, soon, the foreground trees and undergrowth. I need it to be easily pushed back as the foreground appears so I don’t want it to be too textured. I am amazed by people who can do a painting in one go. I always need a couple of days of pondering my next move.

After today, only two more full days and we are released. Released into what – the same locked down world you are in, I suppose. But at least we can go out in our group of two for exercise. I really really need to do some long walks. Three weeks ago my daily step count was up to 40,000 (Milford Track), now it’s a couple of thousand a day. Looking forward to Outdoorland. Soon.

Day 13 – 4 April

Second last day. Oh yeah. Is this how it feels after doing a stretch, after a bit of porridge, after being a guest of Her Majesty? What if I have become institutionalised? What if I can only walk 20 steps without feeling the need to turn around and walk back? What if I can’t break the daily routine? What if I find that I miss the rat? I’m willing to find out.

People out there in the real world tell me that the moment you walk out the door, your face becomes itchy. I mentally designed the not-yet-patented face scratcher. It is made of bamboo, about the size of a parfait spoon. It’s business end is kept within a small bottle of a solution of 70% alcohol and 30% water. The handle has the screw top lid incorporated into it about a third from the business end. Face itches, whip it out of your bag, unscrew it vertically, scratch at that spot, screw it back in. Drawback: you end up smelling like an alcoholic. Needs work*.

Did some more of my painting. It occurs to me that there is a very long history of folks wanting to represent the things they see and feel. Art in its broader sense – painting, poetry, music, theatre, writing, photography, sculpture, architecture and more – all resolves down to communication. The idea of expressing something of your inner world in a way that touches the inner world of someone else. Great art is not merely technically good, but tugs at the inexpressible, cracking open the shell of our outer conscious selves, hinting at depths and ideas not yet surfaced or even fully understood. Me? I just want to get clouds right. I’m sure the rest will come eventually.

Off to a wedding now. Virtually at least. See you tomorrow for the final isolation report.

* This is not serious advice, it has not been medically tested, it may not work, or it may have unknown drawbacks that compromise your safety or that of others. You may get alcohol in your eyes causing you to scream, rub your eyes with your infected fingers and create a scene. If you don’t get humour, best to avoid social media which will only be a minefield of misunderstanding for you.

Day 14 – 5 April – Final Day

I finished my painting. Well I’ve noticed that one never really finishes, but instead lectures oneself to leave it alone.

At midnight tonight our mandatory isolation will end. I’ve never been confined to home for 14 days before. Thank you for listening to my ramblings. It’s been helpful to have a number of regular things to do, and this was one of them. We will both be going for a *long* walk tomorrow, from our house, in accordance with the movement allowed in Victoria (purpose: exercise).

Although we get limited release tomorrow, it’s not over yet. The worst is still to come, at least globally. When I think of previous generations, the requirements on us are small and manageable.

Nice to see Pr Simon at online church today. Great thoughts. We are never alone. He’s keeping himself clean-shaven too I see, unlike someone (no names, no pack drill).

Thanks all. Normal service from me (whatever that means) will resume shortly.

Oh. And the rat’s gone.