A few days ago we marked the 200th day in lockdown in Melbourne. That’s 200 days over six periods of separate lockdowns not consecutive days.

If it was the latter, I would have gone mad already.

As it is, I look forward to the days when lockdown ends because it sends me in a frenzy to go get my hair cut, go to the shops to not really buy anything but simply just SEE people and talk to someone else. It’s also a chance to catch up with my friends and family and to go to cafes to enjoy a nice breakfast. Simple things that relate being out in society.

Being part of the whole.

Being seen.

Being a participant.

Overall, it’s to get out into the world and just speak to others. (I don’t mind speaking with strangers and gladly open up conversations with them and I have noticed that in-between lockdowns people talk much more freely maybe because we have just shared an experience?)

As such now, the time in between lockdowns are reducing as the variant worsens. It means it’s unlikely we will now get out of in two weeks. They’re saying 6 September but there’s a dawning realisation that it’s going to be much longer as numbers of cases increase. I don’t hold out much hope anymore. Im just taking it day by day.

Even though our lockdown is pretty strict already with curfews and limited hours outside, I do go to the supermarket and have an hour outdoors at the local park every day. However, they’re bracing us up for the potential of much stricter conditions (they’ll advise us today or tomorrow) and I’m finding myself thinking now that I may as well come to the terms of closing our front gate behind us until the end of the year and staying inside the house until then.

That means, no weekly supermarket visits, no 1 hour exercise at the local park. The only two reasons I left home during lockdowns.

Effectively closing myself off from the outside world. I’ll have everything I need delivered if need be. (Really, only food and maybe, some books although I have plenty to read).

It reminded me of a book review I did on “The Year of Wonders” by Geraldine Brooks on an English village, Eyam, during the 17th century, who locked themselves up to prevent the spread of a virus that was brought into the village by fleas in reams of fabric from another country. It then spread like rapid fire, the people suffering awfully before taking them and reducing the village population drastically. The priest of the village took on the difficult decision to close off their village from the rest of England thus preventing what could have been a pandemic.

Here’s some history about this village

They were in fact, heroes because they took on the decision to save England by doing the right thing for the benefit of others. True story. (I wish New South Wales government took the lessons learned from this village as what they have allowed to happen to the rest of Australia – and now New Zealand – I believe is negligence, incompetence and selfishness).

If you’d like to see the book review, here it is. It’s worth reading if you get a chance as it’s beautifully written but I do understand that you may not want to because it’s the last thing you need to read while we are in a pandemic ourselves.

So now I’m thinking I’m like that priest who has come to the hard decision to close myself off from the world now. I should be like Eyam.

Wish others would be like Eyam too.