Don’t know how to start this blog as a year later the same shit show is still going….
Anyway, back from New Zealand the corona virus news was everywhere. Watching in horror how it was spreading in China we carried on with our life.
Alice had a dentist appointment, went to Tunks park, charity shops for the next few days but started to feel increasingly uncomfortable going out….
At this point we made a new friend in the park, Katelyn and her two daughters and got invited for dinner. Had a great evening, nice to know more of the locals and a promise to meet up again.
But then the news got serious, corona became pandemic and restrictions came in place. Suddenly nobody was aloud to go out unless it was food shopping and our world shrank to nothing.
We stayed on the boat, doing school and afternoons was spent in the park for few hours. Chris was the only one who went shopping, hand gels became part of everyday life and people eyeing everybody else suspiciously. Panic buying started with shelves stripped bare of food but most peculiar was the panic buying of toilet paper. It was a joke!
We got another SIM card to make sure we had enough data for games and movies as Netflix became a lifeline. Our scheduled weekend to go and see Tracey and family was cancelled. We couldn’t go to friends houses and nobody could come onboard….
So the creativity started. Alice got into tie dying with Charlie, James got finally in to sushi making, our optimist got launch as the kayak and we also grew plants. Charlie got a whole lot of basil growing which looked amazing sitting out on the deck and we got a lot of compliments from it. James grew chilli plants and Alice a strawberry plant although no strawberries as it was getting colder. Autumn was on the way.
At this point we met Jackie and her daughter Lily. They lived in one of the houses opposite where we were moored and use to kayak over daily.
So life continued as school, park, food shopping, movies, gaming, started doing the killer 100 steps as a excise, Chris trying to finish off our rigging, more movies, park and on it went. Same, same, same!
Alice asked me one night: Mummy, “what are we doing tomorrow!“
“ Sweet nothing” was my answer….
All borders were closed, we were desperate to get to Queensland where things was better but couldn’t get a pass. So we just had to sit tight and wait. And wait we did.
Going out for car drive became a highlight and a respite. I went into some kind of mourning, I felt so sad that our freedom was gone, everybody’s freedom was gone, the world was in chaos, everything was shut, nowhere to go, nothing sensible to do….my birthday was spent on the boat….at least we had a beautiful lasagna, Prosecco and cake…..
Finally after two months everybody was aloud to meet up with few friend at the time. We got invited to our Magic friends, Alisha and Mads for dinner. What a feeling, so nice to see them although we were super careful with washing hands, gels and no hugs. We also finally got to go to Jackie and Lily’s house as well and the girls got to play followed by a dinner invitation.
We started to go a bit further afield like Balmoral beach and different parks. Some museums opened up again, I also secured a housesit for a weekend to look after two dogs, so exciting as that meant lot of tv for me!
Alice’s 8th birthday came up and that weekend we finally got to go over to Traceys as well for the night and again very careful with hand washing etc. Had quite a few drinks and fun!
Finally we heard that Queensland border was opening. Chris was finished with the rigging, we were ready to go. All good timing as a grumpy old fart hole who lives in one of the big houses and had complained about us being moored outside his house was getting on my nerves! He was complaining about noise ( none), using our generator ( you couldn’t hear it up there as I checked that one out from Jackie’s house) had the water police come over to have a chat to us ( nothing he could do due to COVID) so we were SO ready to leave. Leaving party in the marina with some lovely people we got to know over this time was a hoot tinged with sadness. One final sleepover for Alice around Lily’s house, one final dinner around Magics place where Mads made his most amazing pizzas, one final Prosecco with Jackie ( had few of those in the past month) and a final goodbye to Katelyn we were ready….and sail we set all the way to Pittwater! About 25 nautical miles north😂
moodyfinn 