2020 JANUARY

The new year began with scary and depressing events. Much of Victoria and south-eastern NSW was on fire, well beyond the capacity of emergency services to manage.

We watched horrifying footage of the destruction of much of the isolated township of Mallacoota, where residents and holiday makers took refuge in the lake and where evacuations by sea and helicopter eventually took place. Back in the 80’s and 90’s, we’d spent some summers camping at Mallacoota, which made more real the scenes we were seeing.

With mobile phone services having gone down there, we had no news of son at Narooma, as the situation on the south coast became more dire, roads were closed and escape routes became increasingly limited. As was fuel – TV news was showing long queues for same. Then, late on New Year’s Day there was, finally, a text message, to say the family was safely in Canberra, having managed to get south to Bega and thence inland to the ACT – the only way still open. Son had the foresight to fuel up soon after reaching Narooma on Boxing Day, so they had not been held up trying to get fuel when evacuating. His in-laws, Narooma residents, had also evacuated the same way, and they were all heading for Melbourne. So, a small piece of good news amongst the gloom.

Another concern was the fate of stepdaughter’s holiday house at South Durras. At least we knew none of the family was staying there. The little enclave did survive.

Our Prime Minister, initially missing in action, on holidays, during the crisis, then managed to further worsen his image during belated visits to fire affected areas.

First flowers on our new Corymbia

Although we’d been subject to days of Total Fire Ban, and the area was really dry, the Bendigo region was one that did not have any major fire outbreaks this summer. We were, however, affected by the smoky air that covered the State for days on end, as eastern Victoria burned.

John and I differed on how we would respond to any local fire threat, since our suburb is largely surrounded by ironbark forest. My plan was to take dog, motorhome and Terios, and go park somewhere more central and built up – Lake Weeroona, or a big shopping complex. John’s intention was to stay home and fight and fire threat. Hmmm…I thought that approach had been rather discredited in Black Saturday?

A really good tomato crop was harvested. Most evening meals began with my home made Gazpacho – a great favourite. I couldn’t convert any of the neighbours to cold soup, though. Apart from eating a lot of meals featuring tomatoes, at this time of year, I was kept busy preparing and freezing same. Ditto zucchini soups, since John operates on the philosophy of why plant three zucchini plants when you can plant six – or more?

Plenty more where they came from…

Fruit on the apricot tree ripened. Despite its netting cover, some of the fruit was shared with parrots. Couey seemed to appreciate the fallen fruit, which disappeared quickly from the ground. I could only hope she didn’t swallow the pips.

We’d had a few sightings of blue tongued lizards (one or several?) in the gardens and meandering across the patio. At one stage, it seemed Liz might have begun snacking on John’s tomato crop, so I began putting out pieces of apple to try to divert the reptile. Then, when I went to pick some tomatoes, the mystery of the disappearing apricots was solved. In a nicely protected row between tomatoes, there were little heaps of apricot pips. Obviously, Liz had helped itself to the fallen fruit and retreated to cover to snack on same.

Another little lizard critter gave me a fright, when I discovered it hiding under a folding table I went to move. A pretty one. I hoped the resident reptiles were only of the lizard variety, and there were not snakes hiding anywhere.

Pretty little critter

The really hot days kept us confined indoors. John messed about with computer things and watched cricket on TV. Far too hot to work out in his shed.

 I started to assemble my second-ever quilt, having finished hand-piecing the top for it. Spent ages pinning the three layers – top, batting centre “sandwich” and backing fabric – together, using special safety pins that became a vivid reminder of my children’s days in nappies. Really sore fingers! I worked slowly, trying to delay the final stage of doing the actual quilting. After doing some damage to wrist, back when I hand quilted my first quilt, had decided that this stage would henceforth be done on a sewing machine. John had, before we left Melbourne, bought me a new machine for this purpose, more modern than my two decades old Janome. But I was lacking confidence in what would be a new technique, and thus reluctant to begin.

Further avoided tackling the quilt by completing a Hardanger embroidered runner, with which I was very pleased.

John decided that the air-con on my little Terios was not working well, so one early morning I drove it across town to be worked on. Was driven home again by the mechanic. After he turned into our road, he asked which was my house. I looked twice, blinked, then replied “Err – the one the kangaroo just hopped out of!”. Don’t know where it came from, hadn’t seen it before, but it hopped away up the road.

Mid-month, there were some really heavy thunderstorm rain events here. During one of these, the patio flooded – about 5 or 6 cms deep. After that, John called in a plumber, who attempted to bore out the pipes that drained that area, telling John the big ornamental pear tree at the front was probably blocking the drains and he wasn’t sure his efforts had fixed the issue. Guess time will tell.

Early last year, I’d noticed that the pittosporum trees that lined our front side fence, were infested with little black ladybird-like bugs.

 Google told me they were Pittosporum shield bugs, that needed to be eradicated for the health of the bushes. It also told me that spraying with soapy detergent water would do the job, so I had liberally applied same. The bugs disappeared – or died – and I had congratulated myself on a successful intervention. But it had gradually become apparent through the year that the bushes also hadn’t liked the soapy spray as they turned brown and dead. The law of unintended consequences was at work. I’d hoped spring might see new shoots, but not to be. Come autumn, there would have to be new plantings down the side fence. This month, I noticed the bugs were infesting the pittosporums along the back side fence. This time I tackled them by daily hosing with the strongest jet of water the hose could produce. Wouldn’t kill them, but might encourage them to fly away elsewhere.

With neighbours putting out lots of seeds for the local birdlife, we were also getting the occasional local rodent, so out went the rat trap cages. Didn’t catch any rats, but did catch Liz – twice. Curious critters, blue tongues.  Also slow learners…

Liz

Liz heading off into hiding – or after fallen apples?

For some weeks, we had been reading rumours of the outbreak of a new, virus in China, that was killing people. Initially, it was hard to really believe that this would be anything other than another flu-like virus, similar to a couple of similar events in the last decade or so.

Grandson returned from his overseas hockey jaunt on 18^th, via a stopover in Singapore. I met up with him and his mum, for a coffee, the next day. Told him – half seriously – to watch out for any cold or flu symptoms! He was fine. But we were later to find out that Australia’s first case of Covid, a man Travelling in from China, arrived in this country on 19^th. Three more China-linked cases arrived later this month.

Though we didn’t realize it at the time, this was the year our lives were to change, radically, and our nation – indeed, much of the world – was never to be the same again.