By Catherine Watson
Monday, October 6
Low twenties, still and low tide at Harmers. I meet Michael on the beach – we are the only two – and marvel again at the annual migration to Queensland. The humans, we mean, not the whales. We talk about the summer ahead. How strange it will be without the city people, if they’re not realeased in time. Michael reckons a lot of them are already here but they don’t come out till after dark. I say I suppose they’re afraid of the knock on the door. “Like the movies,” he says.
Monday, October 6
Low twenties, still and low tide at Harmers. I meet Michael on the beach – we are the only two – and marvel again at the annual migration to Queensland. The humans, we mean, not the whales. We talk about the summer ahead. How strange it will be without the city people, if they’re not realeased in time. Michael reckons a lot of them are already here but they don’t come out till after dark. I say I suppose they’re afraid of the knock on the door. “Like the movies,” he says.
Tuesday, October 5
An email from Andrew, who is holed up in a Fitzroy apartment with only some river prawns and an axolotl for company. “They reopened the apartment swimming pool for one day, closing it the next after receiving “new instructions from the state government”. And I now have a primary school teacher, a teacher of English to foreign students and an aerobics instructor all working within 10 metres. Then there are the one-sided conversations you hear yelled across the common area about ordering this and that or telling so and so to get stuffed. At around four every day the common area fills with screaming kids who run around while their parents chat. Two of them, Tilly and Charlotte — “we’re four” — clamber up my fence and ask me how old I am and what I’m doing. I showed them the worms through the palings and they said they had a worm farm at school. Nothing impresses young people these days, they are thoroughly jaded.”
Wednesday, October 7
Laura and Terry are over from the island filming for their Coastal Connections project, in which Bass Coasters write and talk about their favourite places. I introduce them to Harmers. So often when we introduce our friends to the people and places we love, they are a little disappointed and disappointing. But Harmers is on its best behaviour today – still, grey, tranquil. I feel a touch of pride at its beauty.
Thursday, October 8
An email from Margaret in the US. COVID ravaged her part of Massachusetts in March and April but Margaret rarely mentions COVID these days. All her energies are directed at the election. She has had to take up guided meditation to cope with the mental distress of living in a country ruled by a buffoon. “We seem to careen from crisis to crisis. I read something earlier in the year that people vote for the person who is the least exhausting to them. I so long to not have to worry about the political state of this country but no matter who wins, we’ll never go back to a peaceful way of life. The rise of the right is happening …. “Honestly, if Trump wins, I don’t know how I’ll survive another 4 years of this profound chaos.”
Friday October 9
Cold and wet, a perfect day for the judges’ conference on the Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction. Forty-four entries from all over Gippsland. Try lining up an epic poem against a learned essay on fire behaviour. For two hours, over biscuits and coffee, we battle for our favourites, before reaching an amicable decision. No fisticuffs or bad language, just admiration for the skill and tenacity of so many Gippsland writers.
I visit Kate, Ian, Abby, Tom and Leah. Statistically this is the perfect household to have in your bubble because you get five for the price of one. And they enjoy one another’s company. Kate and Ian are just back from seeing the Great Ocean Road. It was practically deserted. They saw the Twelve Apostles without crowds of people taking selfies!
Saturday, October 10
An email from Hlengiwe in Zimbabwe. She had just started her teaching career when schools were closed because of COVID. Now the Government wants to reopen the schools but the teachers are now on strike because there is no PPE in the schools. Hlengiwe sends me a list of their complaints and demands to the Government. “Shocked by some acts of 'benevolence' in the form of food handouts by some misguided elements who want to hijack the teachers' incapacitation for personal aggrandizement … Therefore, we, the undersigned teachers' representatives, do hereby reiterate that no amount of force or threat can capacitate teachers who have all tested positive to poverty. The employer should swallow her pride and do the right thing.” Brilliant!
Sunday October 11
After months of waving at her mother through a window, Maxine is now allowed to visit her mother in Grossard Point Aged Care. “I’ve had three face to face visits with mum once a week for 1 hour in her room – masks on and no touching! It’s so good to sit with her. The staff are great but mum has progressed. No contact with family has taken some toll. It's very hard for people with dementia to understand where the one thing that is familiar seems to just disappear. She asks me how I found her, thinking she was lost. I am grateful to be able to go in and see her, but it's heartbreaking leaving her behind. I hope it's not necessary for another full lockdown. Fingers crossed.
Monday October 11
An email from Catherine R, just back from visiting friends in Harcourt: “So very nice to get away to dear old friends, who live in that beautiful granite country. We walked, drank fine wine, ate like special people, and visited the Buddhist stupa near Bendigo … Then Melbourne - eerily quiet, and the Burnley tunnel which was especially confronting - empty except for my car.”
The evening is so lovely I go out for a bike ride. I’m swooped by two noisy miners. I mean I’m swooped twice by different birds. To all you sentimental bird lovers, they were NOT defending their babies since they chased me up the street and around the corner. They are evil. I’ll show `em. Next time I’m going to wear a helmet and they’ll bang their noses.
Tuesday, October 12
I have election fatigue. I’m mixing up my Jacindas with my councillors. I have to vote in the NZ election by Saturday and in the Bass Coast Council election by Thursday. One electronic (and requiring a witness), one postal; one voluntary, one compulsory. No wonder I’m confused.
A visit to the council offices. I fill in my name and my temperature is checked … by me. I have to point the temperature gun at my own forehead. 28.4 degrees. I’m about to write it on the sheet when I notice everyone else is in the 30s. I try again. 27.8 degrees. Perhaps I’m already dead and just don’t know it.
Wednesday, October 13
An email from Lenice: “Just heard on News you are in a state of Disaster. Things have gone from bad to worse in Victoria. Holy Heck. Thinking about you.” If we are, no one seems to know about it. Only the Premier saying he might have been a bit over-ambitious aiming for five. Still, it’s nice to have your friends be solicitous about you, even when it’s not deserved.
An email from Andrew, who is holed up in a Fitzroy apartment with only some river prawns and an axolotl for company. “They reopened the apartment swimming pool for one day, closing it the next after receiving “new instructions from the state government”. And I now have a primary school teacher, a teacher of English to foreign students and an aerobics instructor all working within 10 metres. Then there are the one-sided conversations you hear yelled across the common area about ordering this and that or telling so and so to get stuffed. At around four every day the common area fills with screaming kids who run around while their parents chat. Two of them, Tilly and Charlotte — “we’re four” — clamber up my fence and ask me how old I am and what I’m doing. I showed them the worms through the palings and they said they had a worm farm at school. Nothing impresses young people these days, they are thoroughly jaded.”
Wednesday, October 7
Laura and Terry are over from the island filming for their Coastal Connections project, in which Bass Coasters write and talk about their favourite places. I introduce them to Harmers. So often when we introduce our friends to the people and places we love, they are a little disappointed and disappointing. But Harmers is on its best behaviour today – still, grey, tranquil. I feel a touch of pride at its beauty.
Thursday, October 8
An email from Margaret in the US. COVID ravaged her part of Massachusetts in March and April but Margaret rarely mentions COVID these days. All her energies are directed at the election. She has had to take up guided meditation to cope with the mental distress of living in a country ruled by a buffoon. “We seem to careen from crisis to crisis. I read something earlier in the year that people vote for the person who is the least exhausting to them. I so long to not have to worry about the political state of this country but no matter who wins, we’ll never go back to a peaceful way of life. The rise of the right is happening …. “Honestly, if Trump wins, I don’t know how I’ll survive another 4 years of this profound chaos.”
Friday October 9
Cold and wet, a perfect day for the judges’ conference on the Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction. Forty-four entries from all over Gippsland. Try lining up an epic poem against a learned essay on fire behaviour. For two hours, over biscuits and coffee, we battle for our favourites, before reaching an amicable decision. No fisticuffs or bad language, just admiration for the skill and tenacity of so many Gippsland writers.
I visit Kate, Ian, Abby, Tom and Leah. Statistically this is the perfect household to have in your bubble because you get five for the price of one. And they enjoy one another’s company. Kate and Ian are just back from seeing the Great Ocean Road. It was practically deserted. They saw the Twelve Apostles without crowds of people taking selfies!
Saturday, October 10
An email from Hlengiwe in Zimbabwe. She had just started her teaching career when schools were closed because of COVID. Now the Government wants to reopen the schools but the teachers are now on strike because there is no PPE in the schools. Hlengiwe sends me a list of their complaints and demands to the Government. “Shocked by some acts of 'benevolence' in the form of food handouts by some misguided elements who want to hijack the teachers' incapacitation for personal aggrandizement … Therefore, we, the undersigned teachers' representatives, do hereby reiterate that no amount of force or threat can capacitate teachers who have all tested positive to poverty. The employer should swallow her pride and do the right thing.” Brilliant!
Sunday October 11
After months of waving at her mother through a window, Maxine is now allowed to visit her mother in Grossard Point Aged Care. “I’ve had three face to face visits with mum once a week for 1 hour in her room – masks on and no touching! It’s so good to sit with her. The staff are great but mum has progressed. No contact with family has taken some toll. It's very hard for people with dementia to understand where the one thing that is familiar seems to just disappear. She asks me how I found her, thinking she was lost. I am grateful to be able to go in and see her, but it's heartbreaking leaving her behind. I hope it's not necessary for another full lockdown. Fingers crossed.
Monday October 11
An email from Catherine R, just back from visiting friends in Harcourt: “So very nice to get away to dear old friends, who live in that beautiful granite country. We walked, drank fine wine, ate like special people, and visited the Buddhist stupa near Bendigo … Then Melbourne - eerily quiet, and the Burnley tunnel which was especially confronting - empty except for my car.”
The evening is so lovely I go out for a bike ride. I’m swooped by two noisy miners. I mean I’m swooped twice by different birds. To all you sentimental bird lovers, they were NOT defending their babies since they chased me up the street and around the corner. They are evil. I’ll show `em. Next time I’m going to wear a helmet and they’ll bang their noses.
Tuesday, October 12
I have election fatigue. I’m mixing up my Jacindas with my councillors. I have to vote in the NZ election by Saturday and in the Bass Coast Council election by Thursday. One electronic (and requiring a witness), one postal; one voluntary, one compulsory. No wonder I’m confused.
A visit to the council offices. I fill in my name and my temperature is checked … by me. I have to point the temperature gun at my own forehead. 28.4 degrees. I’m about to write it on the sheet when I notice everyone else is in the 30s. I try again. 27.8 degrees. Perhaps I’m already dead and just don’t know it.
Wednesday, October 13
An email from Lenice: “Just heard on News you are in a state of Disaster. Things have gone from bad to worse in Victoria. Holy Heck. Thinking about you.” If we are, no one seems to know about it. Only the Premier saying he might have been a bit over-ambitious aiming for five. Still, it’s nice to have your friends be solicitous about you, even when it’s not deserved.