As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and in an effort to ‘level the curve’ we have gone into social isolation.
From a personal point of view there are good and bad aspects in being forced to become a hermit.
The case for:
If you are a recluse like me, isolation is rather welcome – now I have an excuse not to socialise.
Our years of travel, especially in countries with a foreign language, have taught Thea and me to become dependent on each other’s company. We may have been in bustling cities like Barcelona, or Bucharest but in essence we were on our own.
Teaching myself new skills has been a lot of fun.
I love T-shirts and except for the rare occasion, wear one every day.
I also like to create my own bespoke designs, with graphics that are verbal, visual and hopefully amusing.
In the very early days of the lockdown I started to develop a range of tees featuring the facets of our new norm. No hand shaking, no touching and lots of hand washing.
Developing the graphics for these was challenging and rewarding and taught me a lot. See my previous post ‘It’s gone viral’
Trying to help some of my Bravo Tango Bravo (BTB) clients, to weather this pandemic storm, has also been a bit of fun and stretched the mind.
Also through BTB I re-engineered the T-shirts and they were presented to a poster company. The ideas were offered free of charge with the suggestion that they run them as a community service.
I have even approached some new businesses to see if I could help. A hand sanitiser concept for Bad Shepherd, a local craft brewer and a repurposing of reusable coffee cups for Think Cups in Sydney.
They all fell on very deaf ears.
My brother-in-law Mark, not a man to sit around and do nothing, decided to distil some 100-proof alcohol while in isolation. From this he is making Limoncello and a Botanical Gin.
Naturally he needed some labels.
I modified my own Limoncello label for him and designed a new one for the Gin.
In researching the history of Gin I discovered an interesting story.
During the Eighty Year War (1568–1648) in Holland, English soldiers drank it to calm their nerves, this gave rise to the name, Dutch courage.
This surprising fact naturally found its way onto the label. After all, everyone loves a ‘I didn’t know that’ moment.
Our holiday house at Sorrento has always been an enjoyable retreat. Over recent months, since our last overseas trip, we have been spending two to three days a week there.
Now it’s almost become our home.
The roles have been switched between Sandringham and Sorrento.
We are truly isolated there.
The house is open, spacious and on a large block of land. There are only a couple of neighbours and they are a fair distance away.
But best of all there are many more places to walk and the tracks are varied and very often almost empty.
We have got to know the back streets of Sorrento and Blairgowrie very well and seen parts of the amazing coastline we didn’t know existed.
Before we made the move to Sorrento we were also finding interesting new walks in Sandringham. This was in an attempt to keep away from the crowds that were now overrunning our favourite beach paths.
These walks were made more interesting by trying to spot rainbows and teddy bears.
As part of a British idea to keep kids occupied, while in lockdown, they were encouraged to create rainbows and put them up in their windows or draw then on the footpath outside their houses. They then had fun finding them in their neighbourhood when they were allowed out for a walk with their parents.
Another similar idea, this one from New Zealand, was to put teddy bears up in places so they could be again spotted by the local kids.
I did spend some time drawing a teddy and a rainbow so friends could print them off and put them on show.
While in Sorrento I have been forced to become a handyman, or sorts, making repairs rather than having it done for me.
In Sandringham I even helped a new owner install a key safe. She thought that I was very good, while I was just happy that I didn’t stuff it up.
The downside to this is my toolbox is rather meagre, so every new task I undertake seems to require a new piece of equipment.
Fortunately hardware stores are still open.
Usually when were at Sorrento we would visit the video shop, in the cinema, and get a DVD for the nights entertainment.
Yes, there is still a video shop in Sorrento.
Due to the pandemic the video shop closed so we were forced into buying a new ‘smart’ TV, in order to avoid watching ‘Free-to-air’. Now we can, almost seamlessly, continue watching the same series we were watching in Sandringham.
I say “almost seamlessly” as the TV we have in Sandringham operates on Apple TV while the new one in Sorrento is an Android.
One is a Mac and the other a PC – how ironic.
Reading is another boost to my entertainment format.
I have been through about six novels since lockdown, not all of them great, but they do help to fill in the day and night.
Owning a Kindle means that as soon as one book is finished, I can easily download another one – without ever leaving the house.
It’s the perfect quarantine library.
I get more BBQ time at Sorrento.
The grill is on the back deck and out of the weather. So most nights, when it’s not raining and the menu requires it, I BBQ.
We even invented Scarborough Fair Chicken. Naturally it’s stuffed with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, all of which are now grown in our ever expanding herb garden.
I no longer carry cash.
With so many businesses rejecting hard currency, I’ve gone digital. I’m now using an app to pay most bills – large and small.
I’ve had $25 in my wallet for at least nine weeks.
As international travel is off the agenda for the foreseeable future, I have started to revisit some of our past adventures.
In recent years, as we have done so much travelling, my blogs have become an electronic diary rather that an expression of my thoughts, attitudes and ideas.
Now is the perfect time to reflect on what we have seen and done. So I have been going through many of my blogs and updated them with dates to make them more succinct.
The case against:
For a time there, when we were walking, people didn’t like you touching their dogs. This was rather a bore, especially when you are a ‘serial dog patter’ like me.
Living 30 metres from a supermarket makes you complacent about planning your shopping.
If we needed anything we could just walk over the road and get it.
Now when we are in Sandringham we are trying to restrict time spent out of the apartment, so we have been forced to plan our menus. This isn’t easy, when most of our shopping has been on impulse.
At Sorrento we are limiting our shopping to once a week, rather than four or five times per day as we have done in Sandringham. This has forced us to plan a menu rather than just come up with something on the day.
What a strange time it is.
In December I got the VicEmergency app because of the bushfire danger. Then, come April, I’m downloading COVIDSafe, for obvious reasons.
As I have mentioned I welcomed social distancing, as it was a confirmation of my nomadic tendency.
Then everyone discovered Zoom.
Now People are meeting more than ever, even if it is in the cyber universe.
Many have found comfort in daytime TV and discovered programs that they would have never seen before.
Sadly, the only daytime TV we watched was the live streaming of a funeral.
The advertising and marketing industries have been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn associated with COVID-19 and Bravo Tango Bravo is no exception.
I do miss the work I get from BTB, it has always been stimulating and an opportunity to develop new skills and keep up with contemporary marketing trends. Over the years I have worked on a variety of interesting clients and have learnt a lot about trucks, tradies, machinery and engineering.
Social distancing has forced the closure of sporting venues, bars, restaurants, schools, factories and a myriad other places, including airlines and even counties.
I must admit that I am missing the Friday night drinks we used to have at Hobsons in Sandringham and the odd meal out at a local restaurant.
However the biggest negative to this whole disaster is not being able to travel.
Again this year we had planned to spend several months in Europe and the US, starting in May. This new adventure was built around the wedding, in Italy, of a mate’s son and his partner, plus celebrating our granddaughter’s first birthday in Granada. This has now been cancelled and we have no idea when we will be able to reschedule our trip.
But to be very honest, this is a first world problem and we must consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to live the way we do.
There are millions around the world who aren’t as lucky and will be effected in ways we couldn’t possibly imagine.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, June 16th, 2020 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Comment.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Isolation.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and in an effort to ‘level the curve’ we have gone into social isolation.
From a personal point of view there are good and bad aspects in being forced to become a hermit.
The case for:
If you are a recluse like me, isolation is rather welcome – now I have an excuse not to socialise.
Our years of travel, especially in countries with a foreign language, have taught Thea and me to become dependent on each other’s company. We may have been in bustling cities like Barcelona, or Bucharest but in essence we were on our own.
Teaching myself new skills has been a lot of fun.
I love T-shirts and except for the rare occasion, wear one every day.
I also like to create my own bespoke designs, with graphics that are verbal, visual and hopefully amusing.
In the very early days of the lockdown I started to develop a range of tees featuring the facets of our new norm. No hand shaking, no touching and lots of hand washing.
Developing the graphics for these was challenging and rewarding and taught me a lot. See my previous post ‘It’s gone viral’
Trying to help some of my Bravo Tango Bravo (BTB) clients, to weather this pandemic storm, has also been a bit of fun and stretched the mind.
Also through BTB I re-engineered the T-shirts and they were presented to a poster company. The ideas were offered free of charge with the suggestion that they run them as a community service.
I have even approached some new businesses to see if I could help. A hand sanitiser concept for Bad Shepherd, a local craft brewer and a repurposing of reusable coffee cups for Think Cups in Sydney.
They all fell on very deaf ears.
My brother-in-law Mark, not a man to sit around and do nothing, decided to distil some 100-proof alcohol while in isolation. From this he is making Limoncello and a Botanical Gin.
Naturally he needed some labels.
I modified my own Limoncello label for him and designed a new one for the Gin.
In researching the history of Gin I discovered an interesting story.
During the Eighty Year War (1568–1648) in Holland, English soldiers drank it to calm their nerves, this gave rise to the name, Dutch courage.
This surprising fact naturally found its way onto the label. After all, everyone loves a ‘I didn’t know that’ moment.
Our holiday house at Sorrento has always been an enjoyable retreat. Over recent months, since our last overseas trip, we have been spending two to three days a week there.
Now it’s almost become our home.
The roles have been switched between Sandringham and Sorrento.
We are truly isolated there.
The house is open, spacious and on a large block of land. There are only a couple of neighbours and they are a fair distance away.
But best of all there are many more places to walk and the tracks are varied and very often almost empty.
We have got to know the back streets of Sorrento and Blairgowrie very well and seen parts of the amazing coastline we didn’t know existed.
Before we made the move to Sorrento we were also finding interesting new walks in Sandringham. This was in an attempt to keep away from the crowds that were now overrunning our favourite beach paths.
These walks were made more interesting by trying to spot rainbows and teddy bears.
As part of a British idea to keep kids occupied, while in lockdown, they were encouraged to create rainbows and put them up in their windows or draw then on the footpath outside their houses. They then had fun finding them in their neighbourhood when they were allowed out for a walk with their parents.
Another similar idea, this one from New Zealand, was to put teddy bears up in places so they could be again spotted by the local kids.
I did spend some time drawing a teddy and a rainbow so friends could print them off and put them on show.
While in Sorrento I have been forced to become a handyman, or sorts, making repairs rather than having it done for me.
In Sandringham I even helped a new owner install a key safe. She thought that I was very good, while I was just happy that I didn’t stuff it up.
The downside to this is my toolbox is rather meagre, so every new task I undertake seems to require a new piece of equipment.
Fortunately hardware stores are still open.
Usually when were at Sorrento we would visit the video shop, in the cinema, and get a DVD for the nights entertainment.
Yes, there is still a video shop in Sorrento.
Due to the pandemic the video shop closed so we were forced into buying a new ‘smart’ TV, in order to avoid watching ‘Free-to-air’. Now we can, almost seamlessly, continue watching the same series we were watching in Sandringham.
I say “almost seamlessly” as the TV we have in Sandringham operates on Apple TV while the new one in Sorrento is an Android.
One is a Mac and the other a PC – how ironic.
Reading is another boost to my entertainment format.
I have been through about six novels since lockdown, not all of them great, but they do help to fill in the day and night.
Owning a Kindle means that as soon as one book is finished, I can easily download another one – without ever leaving the house.
It’s the perfect quarantine library.
I get more BBQ time at Sorrento.
The grill is on the back deck and out of the weather. So most nights, when it’s not raining and the menu requires it, I BBQ.
We even invented Scarborough Fair Chicken. Naturally it’s stuffed with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, all of which are now grown in our ever expanding herb garden.
I no longer carry cash.
With so many businesses rejecting hard currency, I’ve gone digital. I’m now using an app to pay most bills – large and small.
I’ve had $25 in my wallet for at least nine weeks.
As international travel is off the agenda for the foreseeable future, I have started to revisit some of our past adventures.
In recent years, as we have done so much travelling, my blogs have become an electronic diary rather that an expression of my thoughts, attitudes and ideas.
Now is the perfect time to reflect on what we have seen and done. So I have been going through many of my blogs and updated them with dates to make them more succinct.
The case against:
For a time there, when we were walking, people didn’t like you touching their dogs. This was rather a bore, especially when you are a ‘serial dog patter’ like me.
Living 30 metres from a supermarket makes you complacent about planning your shopping.
If we needed anything we could just walk over the road and get it.
Now when we are in Sandringham we are trying to restrict time spent out of the apartment, so we have been forced to plan our menus. This isn’t easy, when most of our shopping has been on impulse.
At Sorrento we are limiting our shopping to once a week, rather than four or five times per day as we have done in Sandringham. This has forced us to plan a menu rather than just come up with something on the day.
What a strange time it is.
In December I got the VicEmergency app because of the bushfire danger. Then, come April, I’m downloading COVIDSafe, for obvious reasons.
As I have mentioned I welcomed social distancing, as it was a confirmation of my nomadic tendency.
Then everyone discovered Zoom.
Now People are meeting more than ever, even if it is in the cyber universe.
Many have found comfort in daytime TV and discovered programs that they would have never seen before.
Sadly, the only daytime TV we watched was the live streaming of a funeral.
The advertising and marketing industries have been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn associated with COVID-19 and Bravo Tango Bravo is no exception.
I do miss the work I get from BTB, it has always been stimulating and an opportunity to develop new skills and keep up with contemporary marketing trends. Over the years I have worked on a variety of interesting clients and have learnt a lot about trucks, tradies, machinery and engineering.
Social distancing has forced the closure of sporting venues, bars, restaurants, schools, factories and a myriad other places, including airlines and even counties.
I must admit that I am missing the Friday night drinks we used to have at Hobsons in Sandringham and the odd meal out at a local restaurant.
However the biggest negative to this whole disaster is not being able to travel.
Again this year we had planned to spend several months in Europe and the US, starting in May. This new adventure was built around the wedding, in Italy, of a mate’s son and his partner, plus celebrating our granddaughter’s first birthday in Granada. This has now been cancelled and we have no idea when we will be able to reschedule our trip.
But to be very honest, this is a first world problem and we must consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to live the way we do.
There are millions around the world who aren’t as lucky and will be effected in ways we couldn’t possibly imagine.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2020 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.