Start over

I bought myself a little sunflower in a pot from the local fruit shop yesterday. Christmas week needs a little sunshine in it.

It was good to hear there were only 15 extra COVID cases in Sydney yesterday, though a bit of a worry that five people caught it at a hairdressing salon in Turramurra. COVID is such a sneaky beast.

Its created havoc in the UK. First the country cut itself off financially from Europe with Brexit, now it’s been cut off physically because of a new strain of COVID that’s 70% more contagious. Loads of countries have halted flights and the tunnel to France has been closed.

The NSW Government says returned travellers carrying the mutated form of COVID-19 have been detected in Australia, but the new strain is not on the northern beaches. Phew.

I’ve sensibly outsourced the COVID testing of the kids to their father, since it’s his family Christmas this year. I don’t fancy waiting in a queue for hours. So we will all be self isolating today.

A former colleague The Sharpest Pencil is furious that her son’s girlfriend was fined by the police while waiting in a drive-through testing queue.

She writes: “They sat in a queue for five hours in the car. Hardly moving but patiently waiting to get to the front of the queue. When they were almost at the front, a policeman knocked on the window. He asked to see her licence, as she went to get it he saw that her phone was plugged in to Apple AirPlay in the car. He fined her because you are not allowed to use AirPlay if you are on your P’s.

“I can’t help thinking that walking up and down a line of non moving cars in a queue to get a covid test in order to fine people is just a tad, I don’t know… unfair. There is no way I could sit in my car for 5 hours and not play on the phone while the car is stationary. Could you?”

I agree, that really sucks when we’re trying to encourage people to get tested.

In other unhappy Christmas news, Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced Queensland is reviving its hard border closures for Greater Sydney, with barricades going up on the QLD-NSW road border until at least January 8.

The Premier reckons people were doing the wrong thing and Queensland could no longer “risk it”. The state recorded one new case of COVID-19 yesterday, in hotel quarantine in an overseas arrival.

Yesterday’s video by Jimmy Rees doesn’t seem so funny now. Not that I was lucky/unlucky enough to have a holiday booked in Queensland.

Nah, it’s still funny.

I wonder what my Christmas will look like this year? If there’s one lesson I’ve learned in 2020 it’s not to plan too much. The kids are hoping to leave tomorrow. And then I might be a Christmas orphan for the first time in my life, as my sister may visit her husband’s family if the news improves.

It will feel a bit weird not to have any family around, but nothing about 2020 has been normal. Best to put it behind us and start over.