Well, It's Been Interesting

That's me trying to be positive which is not easy when there's all out war between Russia and the Ukraine, we've just sweltered through the hottest summer on record and there is the worst flooding in recorded history in Queensland and northern New South Wales. All these are things I can do nothing about unfortunately any more than I can about the rapidly rising numbers of Omicron which have hit the state. We've been largely protected from COVID until now by our hard border policy but this variant is so virulent that once someone brought it in  - who knows how - it's spread like wildfire. The border restrictions are soon to go there being no point in the community being isolated when the virus is already here. It's expected to peak at the end of this month and as our vaccination rates are very high  - the majority of people like Pisces and me are triple vaccinated although there are still some holdouts - this should mean most who get it will get it mildly. Let's hope this and the mask and social media distancing mandating will work.

To add to our woes the federal government is in election mode - even though the date for the election hasn't been announced. It will have to be done soon because the election needs to be held no later than 21 May which doesn't give much time for actual electioneering. We can be sure that it's coming sooner rather than later because with the government having had a less than successful time in the final sitting week of Parliament distraction is at work. We were treated to the PM at home with his family recently during which he strummed a ukulele apparently unaware of how that reminded many of us about how he holidayed in Hawaii while Australia burned under wildfires in the 2019-2020 summer. He's not the only one giving us a glimpse into his family life with the leader of the opposition party doing a photo shoot for a popular women's magazine and there will no doubt be more of the same right up until election day.

In something even less entertaining I have spent some time looking at my poor garden. Although Pisces has tried he's not a gardener and that combined by wave after wave of temperatures in the high thirties and low forties Celsius, almost continually since the week before Christmas until now, means the garden is a disaster area. Before everything went pear shaped the garden was looking the best it had in years. I'd got a number of different heritage vegetable seeds and they were already planted out and starting to produce, various cuttings I'd nurtured had also been planted out and everything looked green and lush. Now it looks like someone took to it with a blow torch. My brother had warned me that it would be bad - burned to a crisp was how he described his garden and he and his wife had been nurturing theirs, but mine is even worse. I hardly know where to start with it but, on the bright side, now my knee has stopped folding up on me and my back and leg pain have eased I can actually, albeit slowly, start doing something out there. I've brought plants back from the brink before. There's no reason why I can't do it again, is there.

In more positive personal news I've been writing every day and since Christmas I've added two more first draft stories to those I'm writing about the women of ancient Greek mythology. I started the first story back in about September and got three stories done to first draft before I got stuck on one story I really wanted to tell. I finally finished that a couple of weeks ago which freed me to move on to the new ones and I've now started a third. Where these stories will end up I have no idea but I'm having a ball writing them.