What Day Is It?

We move out of Level 4 on Tuesday 31st August, midnight. That's the official time, unofficially we're out in our heads cos we've got no Covid. Kahu gles off to see his mate Sam. Their age group find staying at home difficult. I'm sick of groundhog day myself. I want to move around, see people and pass days outside of the fence line. But I bend not break the rules: Kahu's driving lessons, buying and selling on Marketplace. Small transgressions in my view. One of many. 

I get through another week of online teaching, mucking up my Year 13 zoom meeting again. These students are at the bottom academically but they're the most gracious human beings. They don't complain and they don't blame. One patiently e-mails to tell me I've got it wrong again. Aroha mai, excuse me, sorry. Very few of my students do any work. I pay it lip service myself as I've done my bit and I'm losing inspiration myself. No-one will die from leaving school work till tomorrow. 

On Friday I take Pete some baking and catch up. He's slowly winding back up and has all the time in the world. I drop in on Leah mowing her lawn from the bean bag. The mower zooms placidly around her back yard nosing its way around the edges. Leah gives me some carpet to protect my floor from the wheel chair. 

I post an old school pic on the Old Te Anau facebook page. I've named everybody and from a perspective of 52 years that's kept names with faces. They're people I haven't seen in a lifetime but many respond to the post. We're all out there somewhere. 

I spend Saturday doing Saturday jobs then Sharyn and I taxi to Lis's. I half expect Alex, Sharyn's taxi driver to tell us he can't take us, ie we're not allowed. It's good to sit in someone else's house, introduces a feeling of normality. My social life is important to me. 

Behind the Fence

It's official- we've got Delta, the game changer. The variant wrecking havoc because it spreads so easily and no-one is spared. Youth beware, it will get you too. But we're relaxed in our corner of Aotearoa because there are no cases.  Covid free for over 300 days. I'm enjoying time and space. I wield the garden fork, spade and trowel and get digging. There are plants, trees and flowers to move which I saved pre-demolition, and my garden consists of others' cuttings I split year by year. Tui's and Marie's from the high country. And plants I've bought from Oderings and the Blue Mountain Nursery in Tapanui. I used to park Lionel there after lunch at the Top Nosh Cafe. Those days are gone already though I can still see Lionel perched in front of a pie with a cup of tea. And they make the best custard square in Te Wai Pounamu. Best in Enzed. 

So I dig and I transplant and spend days building up the garden along the south fence. I retrieve grasses plonked in odd places and create a border, there's a punga I separate from a mother plant outside the kitchen. Homage to the fertility and multiplicity of gardens. I'm not an ordered gardener; I go for the lush look. Weather's grey, misty and moist. I work and work listening to Te Irirangi o Aotearoa, New Zealand on Air. I learn a lot about the world beyond my fence. Covid cases increase around Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland, but here we're safe and sleepy.

Online learning is predictable. Papanui kids were not that engaged at school, they barely lift a finger at home. I zoom into morning briefings, getting there early to chat with the other regular early birds. We're creatures of habit. I get better at Google, the hard way and it takes all Monday and part of Tuesday to sort my junior classes. Learning for next time. I tune into 1pm briefings with Jacinda Adhern and Ashley Bloomfield. We watch TV on Demand and I drink wine. And make a Pina Colada with Kahu's Bacardi. He tells me not to drink any more. He's wanting to break the lockdown and hang out with friends. I say no and he listens.

The penny drops that there's barely any traffic so I pluck up courage and take Kahu for driving lessons. The first one is tense and we argue. His cornering has me gripping the seat and yelling at him to slow down. By the end of the week we're more relaxed but it feels too fast in the passenger seat. Sharyn comes back and we check out the paint job at her house. A timely visit for colour choice.

I try to sell odds and ends on Marketplace but buy more than I sell. Mainly for the garden but I'm fixated on picture frames. Greg says supply is getting dire due to Covid. I sell Lionel's vinyl. They're 50's and mainly orchestral. On collection day I realise I'm attached to them, personal, and keep more than I wanted to. They're going to decorate a small restaurant and I think Lionel would be pleased. They get another life and so do we in lockdown. We're buying time. 

                              

 

 

Locked Down Once More

First week of lockdown and I'm enjoying the free time. I organise basic work for the kids and wait. They didn't do much last time and I'm not expecting a lot this time. It's hard to get motivated and hard to keep motivated. Let's see....

We're encouraged to wait and see in fact. It's almost like we're in lockdown but not really. Not in Te Wai Pounamu where there are no Covid cases. But that's another wait and see. We'll know for sure next week, especially with people working in the North Island, Auckland in particular, coming home to go into lockdown. In the meantime it takes a while to adjust to this new way of life and I go into school to organise resources. I get out my phone and scan my Covid tracer app for the first time in ages. Like many Kiwis I've become complacent and use it hardly ever. 

The community outbreak is being traced and more and more sites of interest around Auckland and the Coromandel, where the first case had taken a weekend break, being posted online. I'm aware I've mixed with Auckland teachers at the I and O conference and as the week goes on school students are diagnosed positive. How easily it could spread.

I watch the 1pm updates, set school work and get out in my garden. This time is a godsend to get the outside organised. Spring is here, the weeds are growing, and sap is rising in the trees and plants I need to move. A finite window of time gradually diminishing. And an overwhelming job. I start weeding and digging, needing to see space to organise. And think. It works. The overwhelm quietens. I tentatively dig up and transplant, prune and trim, look at growth.

This time we wear masks. The mall's nearly deserted and I slip in and out of the corn chip, chocolate and dairy isles. My freezer is overfull. I call my last lockdown mate, Chris. He's in a bubble of two with Biff, his 90 year old mum. My bubble is 3...Kahu, Sharyn and me but Sharyn's parents pick her up on Saturday. It will give us all a break. The floors are getting more marked by the wheel chair and we're at our wits end trying to figure out how it's happening.

Kahu tidies his room, a nieghbour mows the front lawn and I borrow a mower to give the back a much needed haircut. I'm more in control and sit back with a pinot noir to listen.

Pictures in reverse order.