Uncertain times

Well, here we all are, safe and healthy, but it is hard to be calm and relaxed when you read the news. Maybe I should stop reading the news? Probably not helpful. It's Dad's last day in Australia today - he thought about shifting his flights earlier when the news of the NZ compulsory self-isolation came in, but he decided to stick with the original flights and just do the 14 days at home. It was the stamp show after all, and you wouldn't want to cut that short! Particularly because he was originally going to go straight to the Auckland show, which is now a mere shadow of its former self because none of the international dealers are going ... so he may as well enjoy the Canberra one, skip the Auckland one,  head on home and spend the next two weeks putting the stamps in albums and going for long solitary walks.



We spent the weekend in a mostly solitary fashion re-varnishing the window frames. Our kitchen has been ripped out, floors jackhammered up and concrete slab ground, new cabinets put in and appliances delivered. They've measured for the benchtops so that should happen next week, the floors go down on Friday and then fingers crossed all the plumbing and electric happens smoothly (we suspect not, we think serious re-wiring is needed) and we will have a kitchen again in three weeks or so. We've moved the dining table into the lounge room and set up a temporary kitchen in the dining room - it's working reasonably well although washing up in the laundry tub is getting pretty old pretty quickly. Especially for our spoilt boys ... although I shouldn't be mean they are coping with very good humour. They just can't quite believe how often dishes need to be done! After every meal!



Refinishing the window frames was very satisfying - they were really grotty and now they're really nice and it wasn't too much work. One set down, eighteen to go. I've taken the day off work to hang with Dad - we will go into town and buy some coffee and try to find toilet paper. After refusing to join any panic buying we are now looking a little light on essentials - of course we've been running the pantry down for the past two months, so no food, and we had PANTRY MOTHS which are disgusting little beasts so most of it had to be thrown out anyway.

My husband was meant to go to Vietnam on Friday but didn't, thank heavens; my sister and brother-in-law made it back from Spain just in time; my niece who is still in Spain is in total lockdown; my brother got an earlier flight back to NZ from Sydney to beat the isolation rules but it didn't matter because the cricket he came to see was cancelled anyway; my husband's niece made it back from Hawaii OK ... so if Dad makes it back without any problems tomorrow I think that's the family in their own homes, or close to. And we wait!! So far they haven't cancelled Parliament but I think some sort of retrenchment will be inevitable - perhaps just get rid of the staff? A little working from home?