Long rambling post on coming out of lockdown

Have started to update this 14 February 2021, now in a new lockdown, hopefully only for five days. This is a work in progress which blogger is being completely weird about so I can't fix it right now but will leave it here just for a change

Originally published 24 November 2020 -  Haven't written anything on here for ages so thought I might do some kind of long rambling blog post about coming out of lockdown and everything I thought about writing over the last few months, partly to have a record, even if very imperfect, of a historic year.

What a year it's been. Started so positively for me with my visit to Myanmar (Burma) and travelling home over land and sea, as discussed a few posts back. Then the Covid pandemic really got going. Today Victoria has no new cases and no active cases, after an extended and pretty hard lockdown. How do you write about that experience? 

The thing I often wanted to do was a kind of photo essay on parks, and nature, because it was so important. So here is is, probably a bit random, but maybe I can use it as the basis for something more developed one day. 14 February 2021 - started adding captions

Coming home, just before the pandemic really got going: Overland Train from Adelaide to Melbourne 1 March 2020. The Overland was due to close, then got some more funding from Vic government (I think?) but could not run in 2020 due to pandemic and border closures. Was due to start in early 2021, not sure if it did, but as of now (14 Feb 2021) SA has again closed its border to Vic.

Community garden: it was great to get back to the community garden, but access was restricted shortly after I came home, due to Covid19, and became more restricted in the second lockdown (from late June in this area, as this suburb was a 'hotspot'). Even when we could only go down one at a time, for essential food purposes (maintaining and harvesting) it remained a great source of comfort, as well as food.

As autumn set in, people still wanted to use their gardens. Family members invested in a fire drum, which the kids loved, particularly toasting marshmallows.

Late harvest of tomatoes from the community garden. I used some of these to make a Burmese tomato salad with peanuts, which I'd learned in Myanmar. Highly recommend. 

I'm not entirely sure where this is 😀 but I think it's in Royal Park? I walked there a lot, especially after golf was prohibited and the golf course became available to walkers. Walking on the golf course in Northcote became so popular that when we came out of lockdown late in 2021, there was a movement in that area to keep the golf course for walking. Unsuccessful I think but interesting.

In the shorter days of autumn and winter, I walked often in the afternoon and saw many many sunsets. This and the next picture is Royal Park golf course (I wish it had an Indigenous name!) in the late afternoon

Not a great photo, but captures a lovely conjunction of colour with the Rainbow Lorikeets in the sunflowers. Rainbow Lorikeets are a native species that have adjusted well to urban life and as such are possibly pushing out other native species. But who could entirely mind when they are so beautiful? People became very interested in birds. When we were only allowed an hour of outside exercise, baby Tawny Frogmouths in the Northcote golf course area became a highlight of people's day.

More sunsets in autumn

Masks were not mandatory at first, but became so later. This is me trying out my first mask. I asked my grandkids (on social media) what superhero I could be, and one said 'Zebra woman'.

In May, the first lockdown was loosened. I was able to go for a walk along Merri Creek with my daughter and grandsons whom I hadn't seen 'in real life' for a while. We saw a kookaburra.

In June, we were briefly able to go outside Melbourne and visit regional areas in Victoria. I went to Ballarat for a short holiday with a close friend who lives in that area, to celebrate my birthday. This is from our walk around the lake.

Birthday flowers from dear friends who gave me a 'high tea'. I was very lucky that my birthday fell in that brief period before the lockdown started again

The Tawny Frogmouths in Northcote.

One of my lockdown projects was to fix my courtyard on the southern side of my place. The white lattice is to make it brighter in winter and reflect light through my window. These orchids bloomed prolifically in winter and gave me a moment of happiness each morning.

Trying out my hand at good photography for once! These are all harvested from the community garden or donated by gardeners from their backyards. It took me a long time to do this, but I think it captures some of the beauty.

Note sure if this is Merri Creek or Darebin Creek, but if it's Darebin Creek it must have taken during the brief period in mid 2020 when we were allowed to go further than 5 kilometres from our homes. I normally walk with a friend once a week, and we often go along the creeks or the Yarra River, but we had to suspend our walks for most of 2020.

This is in late winter in the White calendar, or the beginning of the Petyan season, the season of flowers, in the Kulin calendar. The Hardenbergia (I don't know its Indigenous name) is one of the earliest flowers to appear. July to August was the hardest time in Melbourne, cold, short days, in lockdown but with Covid19 infections still rising. Even after infections started to go down, the sad toll of deaths in aged care continued for some time. The flowers were a reminder that the natural world is still beautiful.

Coburg Velodrome was one of the places where kids could enjoy themselves safely, even when playground were closed. Throughout the lockdown, there were always people exercising in the parks, walking, playing games, rollerskating, riding bikes, skateboards, scooters and all sorts. They did my heart good.

My oldest grandson emailed me a really good picture of a bird that he had drawn and challenged me to draw one. I took this photo of a magpie, but it was a while before I got around to drawing it.

A hop bush blooming along the Moonee Ponds Creek path.