It pays to think about the background before your Zoom meeting. By Catherine Watson
Saturday, May 16
Harry and Maddy decide to do their civic duty and get tested for COVID-19. Harry says their tester was no Florence Nightingale. “He rammed the swab up my nose – it felt like the beginning of the brain. It was very painful. I would have confessed to anything.” Maddy got a blood nose. They both felt worse afterwards than when they arrived. The good news is they were both negative, and the results came through two days later. Unlike in London where some people waited weeks and others never received their results.
Saturday, May 16
Harry and Maddy decide to do their civic duty and get tested for COVID-19. Harry says their tester was no Florence Nightingale. “He rammed the swab up my nose – it felt like the beginning of the brain. It was very painful. I would have confessed to anything.” Maddy got a blood nose. They both felt worse afterwards than when they arrived. The good news is they were both negative, and the results came through two days later. Unlike in London where some people waited weeks and others never received their results.
Sunday, May 17
A joyous reunion between Vilya and Martin and their grand-daughters Esme, 4, and Clem, not quite 2. Vilya was a little apprehensive about the first meeting in two months but says Esme took charge. “She jumps out of the car, does a dance of excitement, the elbow comes out, she blows kisses and tells us, wagging her finger, ‘No kissing and no hugging’. She set the tone and was very disciplined.”
I catch a train from Cranbourne to the city. The train is almost empty – perhaps 20 people on board by the time we reach Flinders Street Station. On the way home, I fill up at a service station in Cranbourne. 83.9 cents a litre. Total $27.57. I feel giddy. Have I travelled back in time to 1985?
Monday, May 18
COVID policing must be a thing for little girls. Evelyn, 5, has taken up the role in her family. When she first sees her grandmother after the lockdown, she shimmies along, back to the wall. "Oh no Grammy, the corona!" When they are walking the dogs and someone approaches, she takes a very wide berth to the edge of the nature strip. "Grammy, social distancing," she instructs.
I hear someone on the radio talking about the importance of calling friends and family to check in and see that they’re okay. I’m dubious, since I hate phone calls, but something makes me call P, a new friend I met just before the lockdown. P answers the phone and says, “Hang on, I’ve just been crying.” He lost his partner a year ago and says the loneliness of the lockdown is bringing back the grief. I’m glad I rang. And at least now I can visit him.
Tuesday, May 19
Patricia tells me she had her first Zoom meeting with her book group. Her daughter ordered her to do a practice run first to check out any problems and to make sure she has a suitable background. Patricia chose her bookcase. She was pleased that she had put in the effort and looked her best, which she couldn’t say about everyone! Most important is to have the webcam at eye level, or people will just see your wrinkled neck and up your nose. “There you go,” she says. “A free Zoom lesson.”
The first Zoom lesson at Bass Coast Adult Learning’s Certificate in General Education for school leavers. An anxious time. BCAL has supplied many of the students with laptops and set them up for online learning. Everyone has logged in and connected – so far so good. And then the BCAL connection drops out. Panic stations – while the teacher attempts to re-establish the connection he gets a phone call from one of the students. “Don’t worry, Bill. We’re all still here and we’re working together. Just come back online when you can.”
Wednesday, May 20
Finally, a haircut! It’s been about three months between cuts and I’ve been tempted to hack at it myself. Lynne’s only taking regulars at this stage, and spacing them out. No magazines and no cups of tea or coffee. It’ll be BYO for a while. While I’m there, two people call in on the off-chance and one phones. After each visitor, Lynne must wipe the door handle with sanitiser. A bonus: my local café is open next door. Only takeaways at this stage, of course, but it feels like the world is opening up again. The sun is shining and people are smiling.
Thursday. May 21
I run into Nola, the Post's resident birdie, at Woolies. We stare longingly at the library across the road but the doors are resolutely shut. You can’t even drop off books because the after-hours shute is locked. Nola says she noticed the lights on for the first time and went across to ask if they were opening soon. One of the librarians came to the door. “We don’t know. Hope it won’t be long!”
Evelyn, 5: “Mummy, this corona virus just came along and butted right into our lives, didn't it?"
Freed from her usual social whirl, Vilya has found the time to watch a Saunders case moth caterpillar which is migrating slowly around her garden, dragging its case behind it. Vilya has accepted a commission to file an exclusive report about this amazing visitor in the next issue of the Post.
Saturday, May 23
It turns out that Victorians are the country’s best dobbers, with almost 70,000 calls to the hotline and 6000 fines issued for breaching the restrictions. With a very nosy neighbour constantly peering through the curtains to check on them, Danielle has had to be extra vigilant. With the easing of restrictions, she breathes a sigh of relief.
My young neighbour Toby stands at the gate between our two properties. He wants to know where my dog Matilda is. I explain that she’s injured her leg and can’t walk on it. “It’s not her leg,” he points out. “It’s her arm.” Aged four, Toby was due to start kinder until the lockdown scuttled plans. Now he’s desperate for company. He loves a chat when I'm outside. When I go inside, sometimes I hear him calling: “Excuse me! Excuse me! Are you there?”
Sunday, May 24
A friend and I walk on the Inverloch beach and I’m staggered by the number of people and dogs. It’s like the St Kilda promenade. With cafes, bars, markets and playgrounds still closed, I guess people have to go somewhere. Families are lounging on the new geotextile sandbags in front of the surf lifesaving clubhouse. A couple of hundred metres further and kids clamber over a massive rock wall that’s being built to protect the road to Cape Paterson. As a result of the new rock wall, Wreck Creek has changed course, leaving a new sand spit that is being rapidly devoured by the sea. There's a tangled mess of newly felled coast tea tree. On a beautiful sunny morning, it’s a sobering, depressing sight.
Monday, May 25
Matilda’s still on three legs, or arms. Dr Google informs me she’s probably torn her cruciate ligament. Ouch! That's what happens to football players. I ring around the vets. Inverloch, Koo Wee Rup, Korumburra and Cowes are booked out. All those people in lockdown over-exercising their dogs! Finally I get an appointment at Wonthaggi. Due to the COVID thing, I’m not allowed to accompany Matilda into the surgery. The vet leads her away and I try not to listen to the piteous howling that follows. The vet emerges a few minutes later and reassures me: that wasn’t Matilda howling, it was the dog in the next cubicle. They’ll need to sedate Matilda to x-ray her. A few hours and $589 later, unexpected good news. No tear, perhaps a hairline fracture. The treatment: 6 weeks complete rest. Now she sleeps beside me, high on methadone, twitching occasionally as she dreams of running through the sand dunes.
Tuesday, May 26
A trip to Monash with Beth so we have plenty of time to sort out the world’s problems. A construction-led economic recovery is well and good, Beth says, but where are the women’s jobs? “You see a woman holding a stop go sign but that’s still about it in construction.” She would like to see a teacher’s aide in every classroom looking out for students who are getting stressed. Relieve the teacher, relieve the stressed student, relieve the other students from distraction and create jobs. What a sensible idea, and zero chance that it will happen.
The teachers and students return to school, at least the younger and older ones. The overwhelming impression, says first-year teacher Caroline, is how happy the kids are to see their classmates. The lockdown has been an unexpected period of professional development for all teachers. “We were thrown in the deep end but we’ve all learned so much.” Even more so for Caroline who was only a few weeks into her first teaching job when the schools closed in early March. She says it’s clear that some students thrived in the online learning environment – and not always the ones their teachers expected.
Brett concurs. His son, in year 12, loved studying from home. “He’s shattered that he has to go back to school. He struggles at school but he really thrived at home.”
Wednesday, May 27
I attempt to join my first Zoom meeting. It doesn’t go well. I haven’t got a camera on my computer but I thought I might be able to listen in. In fact I can see the other participants but I can’t hear them. I log out and go and plant some leeks.
News Corp announces it will stop printing 100-plus papers regional and rural newspapers and close another 14 altogether. Most are over a century old and communities around Australia are mourning their loss. How lucky we are that our three local newspapers are privately owned. The South Gippsland Sentinel Times and Great Southern Star went online during the lockdown but both will start printing again next week. Somehow Phillip Island Advertiser editor Eleanor McKay managed to bring out her paper right through the crisis.
Reactions are mixed when Liane suggests a meeting of the ArtSpace Committee. Lynn has no hesitation. “Anywhere – anytime!” she says. She’s ready for action.
Cate is ordering reusable masks online. $15. Do I want one? I haven’t thought about it but I suspect we’ll need them to use public transport or go into a cinema. Okay, yes. I also buy my first bottle of hand sanitiser. I’m a little dubious but it’s 70 per cent alcohol so I can always drink it if things get desperate.
Thursday, May 28
Toby tells me he starts kinder on Monday. “Yay!” He says there’s a toy castle and he’s going to have lots of new friends. Oh for the confidence of childhood!
Libraries are re-opening. No browsing at this stage, only collecting books ordered online, but one more step forward.
Sam’s enforced break is drawing to a close. She had a month of picking grapes before the JobKeeper allowance kicked in. In the early days, she had a baking phase. “It’s the end of the world, I’ve got to do something!” So she made banana bread. But that passed. She’s done lots of walking on the beach and drawing. “It’s been a really good break, actually.” Now she’s had a call from her manager at the RACV Resort. They’re starting up on June 23, unpacking everything and setting up the restaurant again. She’s nervous about returning. There will be new routines to learn, encompassing social distancing and extreme hygiene measures.
Everywhere I hear the same refrain. People are looking forward to the return of some aspects of normality “... but we don’t want to go back to the way it was.” Some of them are talking personally, about reducing their own busy-ness, others about the growing inequality in Australian society, others about the environmental damage we see all around us. Laura says: “All the atrocities we’ve inflicted on creatures, the First Nations people, the Earth. Something really profound is being asked of us, and it’s not a matter of fiddling at the edges.”
Some names have been changed.
A joyous reunion between Vilya and Martin and their grand-daughters Esme, 4, and Clem, not quite 2. Vilya was a little apprehensive about the first meeting in two months but says Esme took charge. “She jumps out of the car, does a dance of excitement, the elbow comes out, she blows kisses and tells us, wagging her finger, ‘No kissing and no hugging’. She set the tone and was very disciplined.”
I catch a train from Cranbourne to the city. The train is almost empty – perhaps 20 people on board by the time we reach Flinders Street Station. On the way home, I fill up at a service station in Cranbourne. 83.9 cents a litre. Total $27.57. I feel giddy. Have I travelled back in time to 1985?
Monday, May 18
COVID policing must be a thing for little girls. Evelyn, 5, has taken up the role in her family. When she first sees her grandmother after the lockdown, she shimmies along, back to the wall. "Oh no Grammy, the corona!" When they are walking the dogs and someone approaches, she takes a very wide berth to the edge of the nature strip. "Grammy, social distancing," she instructs.
I hear someone on the radio talking about the importance of calling friends and family to check in and see that they’re okay. I’m dubious, since I hate phone calls, but something makes me call P, a new friend I met just before the lockdown. P answers the phone and says, “Hang on, I’ve just been crying.” He lost his partner a year ago and says the loneliness of the lockdown is bringing back the grief. I’m glad I rang. And at least now I can visit him.
Tuesday, May 19
Patricia tells me she had her first Zoom meeting with her book group. Her daughter ordered her to do a practice run first to check out any problems and to make sure she has a suitable background. Patricia chose her bookcase. She was pleased that she had put in the effort and looked her best, which she couldn’t say about everyone! Most important is to have the webcam at eye level, or people will just see your wrinkled neck and up your nose. “There you go,” she says. “A free Zoom lesson.”
The first Zoom lesson at Bass Coast Adult Learning’s Certificate in General Education for school leavers. An anxious time. BCAL has supplied many of the students with laptops and set them up for online learning. Everyone has logged in and connected – so far so good. And then the BCAL connection drops out. Panic stations – while the teacher attempts to re-establish the connection he gets a phone call from one of the students. “Don’t worry, Bill. We’re all still here and we’re working together. Just come back online when you can.”
Wednesday, May 20
Finally, a haircut! It’s been about three months between cuts and I’ve been tempted to hack at it myself. Lynne’s only taking regulars at this stage, and spacing them out. No magazines and no cups of tea or coffee. It’ll be BYO for a while. While I’m there, two people call in on the off-chance and one phones. After each visitor, Lynne must wipe the door handle with sanitiser. A bonus: my local café is open next door. Only takeaways at this stage, of course, but it feels like the world is opening up again. The sun is shining and people are smiling.
Thursday. May 21
I run into Nola, the Post's resident birdie, at Woolies. We stare longingly at the library across the road but the doors are resolutely shut. You can’t even drop off books because the after-hours shute is locked. Nola says she noticed the lights on for the first time and went across to ask if they were opening soon. One of the librarians came to the door. “We don’t know. Hope it won’t be long!”
Evelyn, 5: “Mummy, this corona virus just came along and butted right into our lives, didn't it?"
Freed from her usual social whirl, Vilya has found the time to watch a Saunders case moth caterpillar which is migrating slowly around her garden, dragging its case behind it. Vilya has accepted a commission to file an exclusive report about this amazing visitor in the next issue of the Post.
Saturday, May 23
It turns out that Victorians are the country’s best dobbers, with almost 70,000 calls to the hotline and 6000 fines issued for breaching the restrictions. With a very nosy neighbour constantly peering through the curtains to check on them, Danielle has had to be extra vigilant. With the easing of restrictions, she breathes a sigh of relief.
My young neighbour Toby stands at the gate between our two properties. He wants to know where my dog Matilda is. I explain that she’s injured her leg and can’t walk on it. “It’s not her leg,” he points out. “It’s her arm.” Aged four, Toby was due to start kinder until the lockdown scuttled plans. Now he’s desperate for company. He loves a chat when I'm outside. When I go inside, sometimes I hear him calling: “Excuse me! Excuse me! Are you there?”
Sunday, May 24
A friend and I walk on the Inverloch beach and I’m staggered by the number of people and dogs. It’s like the St Kilda promenade. With cafes, bars, markets and playgrounds still closed, I guess people have to go somewhere. Families are lounging on the new geotextile sandbags in front of the surf lifesaving clubhouse. A couple of hundred metres further and kids clamber over a massive rock wall that’s being built to protect the road to Cape Paterson. As a result of the new rock wall, Wreck Creek has changed course, leaving a new sand spit that is being rapidly devoured by the sea. There's a tangled mess of newly felled coast tea tree. On a beautiful sunny morning, it’s a sobering, depressing sight.
Monday, May 25
Matilda’s still on three legs, or arms. Dr Google informs me she’s probably torn her cruciate ligament. Ouch! That's what happens to football players. I ring around the vets. Inverloch, Koo Wee Rup, Korumburra and Cowes are booked out. All those people in lockdown over-exercising their dogs! Finally I get an appointment at Wonthaggi. Due to the COVID thing, I’m not allowed to accompany Matilda into the surgery. The vet leads her away and I try not to listen to the piteous howling that follows. The vet emerges a few minutes later and reassures me: that wasn’t Matilda howling, it was the dog in the next cubicle. They’ll need to sedate Matilda to x-ray her. A few hours and $589 later, unexpected good news. No tear, perhaps a hairline fracture. The treatment: 6 weeks complete rest. Now she sleeps beside me, high on methadone, twitching occasionally as she dreams of running through the sand dunes.
Tuesday, May 26
A trip to Monash with Beth so we have plenty of time to sort out the world’s problems. A construction-led economic recovery is well and good, Beth says, but where are the women’s jobs? “You see a woman holding a stop go sign but that’s still about it in construction.” She would like to see a teacher’s aide in every classroom looking out for students who are getting stressed. Relieve the teacher, relieve the stressed student, relieve the other students from distraction and create jobs. What a sensible idea, and zero chance that it will happen.
The teachers and students return to school, at least the younger and older ones. The overwhelming impression, says first-year teacher Caroline, is how happy the kids are to see their classmates. The lockdown has been an unexpected period of professional development for all teachers. “We were thrown in the deep end but we’ve all learned so much.” Even more so for Caroline who was only a few weeks into her first teaching job when the schools closed in early March. She says it’s clear that some students thrived in the online learning environment – and not always the ones their teachers expected.
Brett concurs. His son, in year 12, loved studying from home. “He’s shattered that he has to go back to school. He struggles at school but he really thrived at home.”
Wednesday, May 27
I attempt to join my first Zoom meeting. It doesn’t go well. I haven’t got a camera on my computer but I thought I might be able to listen in. In fact I can see the other participants but I can’t hear them. I log out and go and plant some leeks.
News Corp announces it will stop printing 100-plus papers regional and rural newspapers and close another 14 altogether. Most are over a century old and communities around Australia are mourning their loss. How lucky we are that our three local newspapers are privately owned. The South Gippsland Sentinel Times and Great Southern Star went online during the lockdown but both will start printing again next week. Somehow Phillip Island Advertiser editor Eleanor McKay managed to bring out her paper right through the crisis.
Reactions are mixed when Liane suggests a meeting of the ArtSpace Committee. Lynn has no hesitation. “Anywhere – anytime!” she says. She’s ready for action.
Cate is ordering reusable masks online. $15. Do I want one? I haven’t thought about it but I suspect we’ll need them to use public transport or go into a cinema. Okay, yes. I also buy my first bottle of hand sanitiser. I’m a little dubious but it’s 70 per cent alcohol so I can always drink it if things get desperate.
Thursday, May 28
Toby tells me he starts kinder on Monday. “Yay!” He says there’s a toy castle and he’s going to have lots of new friends. Oh for the confidence of childhood!
Libraries are re-opening. No browsing at this stage, only collecting books ordered online, but one more step forward.
Sam’s enforced break is drawing to a close. She had a month of picking grapes before the JobKeeper allowance kicked in. In the early days, she had a baking phase. “It’s the end of the world, I’ve got to do something!” So she made banana bread. But that passed. She’s done lots of walking on the beach and drawing. “It’s been a really good break, actually.” Now she’s had a call from her manager at the RACV Resort. They’re starting up on June 23, unpacking everything and setting up the restaurant again. She’s nervous about returning. There will be new routines to learn, encompassing social distancing and extreme hygiene measures.
Everywhere I hear the same refrain. People are looking forward to the return of some aspects of normality “... but we don’t want to go back to the way it was.” Some of them are talking personally, about reducing their own busy-ness, others about the growing inequality in Australian society, others about the environmental damage we see all around us. Laura says: “All the atrocities we’ve inflicted on creatures, the First Nations people, the Earth. Something really profound is being asked of us, and it’s not a matter of fiddling at the edges.”
Some names have been changed.