March – May 2020 The Corona Virus hits

Its March 16th and we have been back from New Zealand a couple of days, the Corona Virus is all over the news, we were so lucky to return to Brisbane when we did. Adam and TJ were booked to go to Vietnam in a couple of days on Tj’s birthday but they don’t know what to do or what is happening? The night before they are due to go they decide not to risk going to Vietnam but they will be losing $3500!

The girls make a special breakfast for her and give her presents, we are all a bit sad that they are losing their holiday which was to celebrate Adams 40th birthday too next week. However, later in the day they received an email from the travel agent to say they have cancelled their holiday due to the Corona Virus Pandemic and they will be in contact soon with a voucher for the full amount. Whooooo.

The restrictions begin, and the shops are manic, soon we have empty shelves, can’t buy toilet rolls, flour, pasta and rice!! The majority of shops are still open but everyone is wary, Bob and I decide to self isolate because of my cough and our age but the incidents of the virus are very few in Queensland at the moment.

Adams 40th birthday comes and goes, we looked at going out for dinner somewhere special but restaurants are closed now so we have a nice takeaway and a film evening at home instead, maybe we can celebrate bigger next year instead?

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For the last 2 weeks the Government have been saying that schools will remain open but now they are closing them for everyone, except for those children of “essential workers”. Adam and TJ are working from home so I am volunteered to school Mia. Frantically TJ races round the shops for Educational Books and we scour the internet looking for subjects, resources, and any information we can find to put together a weeks worth of schooling! In the future, schools and government education departments will have resources organised and be emailing her work to us but for the moment its down to us. I must say between, Adam, TJ and I we have a good timetable of subjects organised for her.

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It begins well and Mia enjoys being at home but a week of one to one learning is very tiring for her and for me. Adam and TJ decide to share Thursdays to give me a day off and on Fridays TJ doesn’t work so we only do the minimum learning and spend the rest of the day playing games, crafting, painting etc. This gives Bob, who hasn’t played golf for a few weeks now, the opportunity to find a golf course that is still open and books a round for us both.

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We can’t go anywhere now, only the supermarkets, pharmacys and DIY shops are open so Bob, with Adams help when needed, sets about TJs list of jobs to do around the house. The girls Cubby house is in desperate need of finishing and when he has done it, the girls and I tart up the inside with a lot of fun throwing paint around inside! Then they add a deck below for the paddling pool and when the weather gets cooler, we put up hammocks for my afternoon read ??? or when the girls let me have a go !

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I am sewing when I get time, new Pjs for TJ and I, cushions and curtains for the girls cubby house. Among other things, I have re-covered a bench seats outside, the hall seat and a pouffe.

Every morning we try to go for a walk as this is allowed, just 1-2 kms with Mia to help settle her before schooling. We decide that it would be a good opportunity to get Mia riding her bike without stabilizers. We set a target of 1 to 2 weeks and take her to the local park, after half an hour of falling off and “I can’t do this crying” she actually peddled a short way on her own. Try again tomorrow…. Over the course of 5 days she got better and better and she was cycling in a more or less straight line on her own. Daddy said when she is cycling properly on her own he will look at buying her a bigger bike – yeh go Mia. After 2 weeks of almost every day practicing she is off like a rocket and Daddy is looking at a new bike.

With everyone at home all day and weekends, we have started Friday night games night with the girls. They love these activities and so far we have had Uno card games, Junior Monopoly and Junior Sequence – needless to say the girls often beat us hands down – to their delight and giggles -but we do have so much fun.

STA Travel Agents emailed me early in April to say that our flights have been cancelled for May 3rd and to contact them to organise replacement flights?? How on earth can we say when the virus will be clear and its safe for us to travel? I call them and ask if I can wait and see what happens and they said ok, give them a call towards the end of April to re-assess. Good job we went to New Zealand as our 6 month visa restarted and it is now valid until September 14th. Tj is so excited that we arent going home yet, so many more things she wants making ….

The laundry is very basic so Bob strips it out and paints it while Adam and Tj get some new worktop, sink and cupboards. I add a cheeky sign for the wall and now we have a much more user friendly laundry. Next he puts up cupboards on the wall of my craft and sewing corner, so much easier to find everything now. His next big project is to re paint the patio table and 6 chairs … pictures next time.

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The day before Good Friday I managed to find a dentist to look at a tooth that had been giving me some pain over the past couple of weeks. He x-rayed it and informed me that there was a crack down the whole length of it into the root. Under normal circumstances (pre -covid) they would have attempted to save the tooth but not knowing if they would have to close at any moment I decided to let them take it out ! I now have a big gap, will need to get it filled in the future.

Easter Saturday Adam put their tent up in the garden as the weekend away with the Scouts was cancelled. The girls were very excited to be having a “sleepover” in the garden and Adam and Bob stayed with them Saturday night and Adam and TJ did Sunday night shift. Otherwise it was a quiet affair, with everywhere in lockdown more or less, we did have an egg hunt in the garden and the house which took some time to find all the eggs (Mia did say last year it was too easy ??)

April 14th and drama — Mia’s 3rd and front tooth comes out leaving a big gap in her smile and some blood ….. Zoe has the most sensitive stomach and as soon as she sees the blood, she is heaving – poor Zoe, I have to take her away from it quickly.

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Anzac day is April 25th and a holiday, We are all outside the house at 6am for the dawn service. Mia and Zoe have made candle holders with painted poppies on them and Mia in her Joey Scout uniform, breaks the flag on her homemade flag pole. Only 1 other person was in the street that we could see but it felt good to be there for the minute silence. Zoe said she knew why we were being quiet – “to remember the soldiers ” she said.

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Adam and TJ have found a bike for Mia, its almost brand new but its 90km away on the Gold Coast, with restrictions of no more than 50km from home, we can’t go and get it but the lady offers to drive 40km and meet them just off the motorway. Its too good an offer to miss as its an expensive bike at a great price so off they went to collect it. When Mia saw it she was delighted and rode it perfectly as she tested it in the garden.

After the long weekend break we are back to schooling for Mia. Zoe’s daycare has stayed open throughout so she continues her normal routine of Monday to Thursday which has helped to concentrate Mia on her school work. We have made Elmer elephants out of milk bottles, for a school project she made a diorama model of a Panda habitat, we have learnt about money by buying and selling toys in the cubby house, using coins borrowed from Grandads purse and Grandad has done PE on the deck with Joe Wicks – far too fast for me !

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This week I talked to the travel agents and said that as our visa is valid until September 14th, we have no thoughts about travelling until its safe so can we leave it open? They say its ok, so now, instead of packing to come home, we could be here much longer . My hair is growing fast and I look a mess, can’t get it cut so Tj kindly offers to chop off some long bits – it felt so much better to tidy it up.

3rd May arrives, it seems strange to not be packing to go home, happy to stay but sad for Lucy and the family as they were looking forward to big hugs. Its a lovely day and restrictions on travelling and going to the park for recreation and picnics are lifted so we pack up lunch and cycle to the local park for some fun.

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Mothers day in Australia is May 10th and this year its a double in the house as I am still here so the girls treat TJ and I to breakfast in bed (normal not allowed food upstairs so this is a treat). There are presents and cards for us both and vouchers for foot massages, help in the house and shopping trips when we can. We start with the foot massage … Bob and Adam both decide to bake a cake for us, Bob a Victoria Sandwich and Adam a Chocolate Fondant Cake – had to try both to see who won… mmmm might have to test them again haha!

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The Queensland Government have said that children in Prep and Year 1 along with years 11 and 12 can go back to school on May 11th, it was a sad morning as we sent Mia off to school, the house was so lonely but I must admit it was great to get jobs done that we had put on hold while Mia was at home. There were a few tears from Mia going into school after 5 weeks away but she came home in the afternoon happily telling us all about her day. In 2 weeks the rest of the children can return to school, I’m sure lots of parents are very happy about this.

We are in the middle of May now and life is getting back to normal in that the girls are at school and daycare and Adam and TJ are working upstairs in the office so I can craft, paint or sew (or write blogs) while Bob is pottering in the garden. We have been playing 1 round of golf a week at the same course but as other courses start to open we have tried a different one, this week Hills Golf Course about 45 minutes drive away. The course was in good condition and although there were quite a few players, we managed to play without any holdups. On the last tee I spotted what I thought was a sprinkler head over in the longer grass? When I investigated I saw a long neck turtle who looked dead ??? I touched it gently with my foot and it moved – very strange creature !

Mia’s other front tooth is hanging but won’t come out ! Just before bed though, she jumped onto me to give me a goodnight kiss and her mouth hit the back of the sofa and knocked the tooth out – at last, but then there was a scramble trying to find it as it bounced between the cushions! Fortunately we did find it and the tooth fairy brought her $2 the next morning.

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We have a varied selection of birds in and around the garden, some Minah birds come regularly and one of them we have called Chunky as it cries for its parents to bring it food regularly but its bigger and fatter than them?? We have parakeets and pigeons too but the latest ones are Cockatoos. They are so loud and big and they have found the next door neighbour has passion fruit on a bush, they are stealing them and then dropping them all over our garden. We collected them up and put them on the girls table and very soon they arrived and flew off with them.

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The penultimate weekend of May and the activity is making beaded bookmarks with the girls, they were very inventive and made beautiful bookmarks.

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The government have lifted restrictions this week on visiting other families at home so we had the first visitors to the house since march, for a bbq on the coldest day for ages. Adam has a super duper wall heater on the patio and for the first time we used it – and oh boy was it good, we sat outside for a lot longer than we would normally have. This last couple of days we have been experiencing a cold snap (its snowing in South Australia!) Temperatures dropped so much on Friday night that I had to put on the winter pjs that Tj bought me for Christmas, which is something I never thought would happen.

The last week of May started with much needed haircuts, we are both very smart now, if only we had somewhere special to go. The week flew by as Bob tended the garden and washed the cars, cleaned out the gutters and drains ready for any winter storms. Adam and TJ are looking at having a carport put on the front of the house so we have been looking at options, walking around the area looking at what everyone else has and then talking to companies- who would think there were so many combinations ? Bob has dug out great lumps of concrete from the lawns that used to have fence posts in them ready for the carport posts. I have been cooking – a bread and butter pudding, a fruit cake requested by Adam and finally on friday, a carrot cake to take to friends who had invited us all for dinner. Unfortunatley it didn’t make the friends house because we ate it – the smell was just too much to resist – so there I was in the evening, baking a second cake for them. I have had some crafting time, making cards and painting, at the moment I am in the middle of painting a “Mural in the Garden” – don’t ask – photos to follow when it is finished. Bob is back to playing golf on Tuesdays with his friends and we play together on a Thursday as the weather is much nicer for golf now. Friday evenings are games night, this week it was Uno cards and then Sequence for Juniors, great fun all round. Saturday Adam spotted a bike for sale locally, its the same as Mia’s but with the stabilizers, it was a bargain so they snapped it up and a couple of hours later Zoe was out testing it.

And then it was June ………