So I thought, why not start with photos? We covered a lot of ground in March, though the much mooted road trip to Mount Gambier wasn't going to happen. The truth is, by halfway through the month, Dave actually could have handled it, but --
-- by the mid-point of March, the impact of the appalling war in Ukraine was starting to bite hard even in SA. The price of fuel was waaay past the point where a driving holiday looked realistic. It wouldn't even have been tasteful, with so many people putting away the car and taking the bus! On top of which, there's always the risk of Covid.
Now, we're all triple-vaccinated -- but. Even triple vaxed, you can catch Omicron; about forty thousand people a day do, nationally. And even though the chances of actually perishing with it are vanishingly small for triple-vaxed people who're not yet entirely geriatric (ouch), the risk of Long Covid is rather alarming. Averaged across the population as a whole, Long Covid attacks about 10% of people; but in certain age groups, the percentage is far higher. Wouldn't you know it? No one in this house is young enough to laugh off the threat. Truth? Long Covid would finish me off, and I've only just begun to clamber back to my feet! So --
Soooo ... we stuck close to home, stayed out of hotels, kept to the outdoor dining areas on the occasions when we went to cafes as diverse as Long Shot at Old Noarlunga, Flower Cellar at McLaren Vale, and The Aldinga Aerodrome. We did just two day trips, using less than a tank of fuel each time -- budgeted for, at over $2 a litre (which will sounds absurd to my ears, though I've seen the news from Western Sydney, where they're paying $2.30, and from the Top End of this poor country, where they're paying well over $3).
In fact, it's been a great month. Barossa in the rain, the Coorong, the Adelaide Hills, parks and gardens, a few nice cafes, a lot of quality time spent chilling and relaxing. I read some good books, binged some great TV, and come home with a lot of very good photos. Going through them will be fun. I'll post more in the coming days and weeks.
Now, what the heck happened to my muse? Why can't I seem to put fingers to keyboard and actually write something ... like a story, or even a poem? I don't even seem to be able to glimpse an image that inspires me to create art. So, for a while let's blog, play with photographs, and see what happens.
Life goes on. One watches the stories of war with disbelief; one worries about the future of this country, and its people, who're struggling in the teeth of an economy gone bonkers. The 2022/23 budget was handed down last night, at Federal level ... to my eyes it looks like a lousy joke. The kind of budget that will bankrupt small business, land thousands of families on the street, with nary a rental available anywhere ... mind you, the country apparently can afford about sixty billion for defence spending, while the mega-rich don't appear to pay tax at all. Argh. The plight of people in Ukraine is haunting; our own east coast is being blitzed by Mother Nature; and Covid is on the rampage. Sigh.
In light of all this, when I look at our own lives -- living where we do, as safe as we are -- it occurs to me that one needs to take stock a little, count one's blessings, just settle down and wait this situation out. Because nothing is as sure as the fact this will end. Even the Second World War ended, though its death throes didn't come one day sooner through grumbling, complaining, or impatience.
So here I am, settling down, courting patience and setting out on a quest to find my muse. Autumn has come to South Australia, and Dave ... is off to work!
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