A bun dance




 Woop. Here we go. (With an abundance of caution.)

After my last day of work; I aimed to do as much as possible to cram in the people and beauty of this mask-free wonderland before entering Tier 5 lockdown and the tail end of British winter. I know it’s been incredibly hard for people there. 

North to my mums place, then south to Dunedin, lots of time in kitchens and talking and listening; hugs and walks along the coast. Lots of amazing food. It has been great; and topped off by fireworks on the Wellington waterfront, shuffling closer to a crowd of strangers to brace against the cool wind that I hadn’t bought warm enough clothes to defend against. I flew back to Auckland this morning.

Suddenly I am wondering how the Bluetooth function of the tracer app works.

Because now; level 3 lockdown (again.) I am a contact of a potential contact. Watching NZ kick into gear, feeling pride, getting a swab from nurses clearly working overtime at no notice, uncomplaining. I know we will contain this again. It’s good to be able to feel this confident. It’s easy to forget those who make this confidence possible.

And yet; that background wondering... how weird would it be to get the UK variant of covid before even arriving in the UK...




















 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to Cornwall

Image
 My very kind housemate took me to Tintagel today - where we were able to meet her parents and go for a walk.  I was post night shifts so half in a fug and not going anywhere in a hurry - but the track seemed made for that pace, ambling up and over ridges and gullies with the ocean horizon stretching wide from the GCHQ spy satellite outcrop in the north (Near Bude), past a wee island with puffins on (Lundy), and out to the vastness west from there.  (It was strange knowing that Ireland is somewhere "out there" *Waves arm*).  It was about an hours drive west from Exeter, a real treat to get out and explore without much brain power required on my part (but lots of careful planning from the master picnickers, Rebecca and her folks). Tintagel is a lovely wee tourist town that is pretty empty at the moment, awaiting the formal lifting of lockdown that will allow people to wander inside the sweet and craft shops, to buy crystals or pay for a photo of your aura (!). Tintage...
Read more

Attempts at Surfing in Newquay

Image
 Once again I was hosted by my housemates parents, incredibly kind people who used to run their house as a B&B and went all out to spoil us - with food and accommodation and kindness and insistence that we stay out of the kitchen and not worry about the sand that somehow would still flitter everywhere despite dusting everything off before we left the beach or entered the house. I felt like a teenager and ate like it too... We were booked into a two day surfing lesson with  Women + Waves , a company I can definitely recommend. I appreciated that on the second day when I was pretty much tapped out (I couldn't lift my body off the board anymore without pain), the coach was still encouraging but also didn't put pressure on. She had a good sense of humour and was really skilled, some of the folk were up out the back on green waves by the second day. It was just really nice to be in the water, seeing the sun strike through the waves, casting shadows and light on the sand below. ...
Read more

Otter (but actually beaver) town

Image
I feel very lucky to have housemates that are so keen on the outdoors. On another post-nights adventure, I got taken to Otterton, near east Budleigh where Eurasian Beavers have been re-introduced to Devon.   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_beaver https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/06/englands-first-wild-beavers-for-400-years-allowed-to-live-on-river-otter https://www.devonwildlifetrust.org/what-we-do/our-projects/river-otter-beaver-trial Even without the beaver-chewed trees, dams and promise of the large rodents; it was an incredible dusk to be out in. The sun set over the hills past some dairy farms, there were pheasants in the fields. Crows were gathering in the sky above a stand of huge trees full of nests and a cormorant came into land on the perfectly smooth water of the river that reflected the banks’ red dirt and white flowering bushes. People were walking down the wide dirt path, some clearly just doing their usual daily walk, others were ...
Read more