Lockdown Lane

The wonderful thing about being a writer is that you can synthesise what might seem like random things into a coherent whole, well that's what I do as a corporate historian.

So, let's get this post going.

I'm listening to Eric Clapton right now, Lay down Sally. It has a kind of link to Lockdown Lane don't you think? (I just want someone to talk to).

I live in what I call Sydney COVID central...Woollahra, right next to Bondi Junction, Sydney. As a result, I've been in lockdown light for a few weeks already and now, like much of the rest of Sydney I'm in lockdown heavy.

Heavy is a good word to describe the increasing sense of weight you feel when you have less and less freedom to choose what you do. In a way I am very fortunate. I've been working from home/shared office space in the CBD for years so in a way working from home is my normal. That said, I'm no longer taking the 200 Express bus into the city a day or two a week . . . which I did for most of the first lockdown in 2020.

It's serious, so I am being serious. And we're about to be locked down even more (cripes, better get to Bunnings before I can't).

5 ways to lighten the COVID load

As an optimist I've decided to lighten the load and share some of the thoughts/ experiences and comments I've been sharing with my friends and clients. Let me know if any of these resonate with you and if you have some others you'd like to add.

1. Every day feels like Wednesday

Actually, it does. Get up. Put tracky daks on, read paper, turn on computer to check what ‘meetings’ I have. Groan if I have some as that means changing, putting on make-up, setting up background, getting head into gear…making sure the cat is fed so he doesn’t stomp across the desk/screen (he’s worked out that the screen is competition).

Day at the desk/computer.

Resist the urge to put the washing on, fix the wonky painting, delve into family history on Ancestry, read pile of books, The Monthly, the pile of AFR papers (yes I get an actual paper delivered still and cut out articles).

Wait till dinner time before opening the bottle of wine.

Cook dinner, eat dinner, wash-up after dinner . .think about what I'm going to have for dinner tomorrow night, the next night and next night so when I do my weekly shop at Coles I get a weeks worth.

2. Netflix brain

I was a very late-comer to Netflix having been an early adopter of Foxtel. And boy, when I worked out that I never watched anything on Foxtel it took at least 3 months and multiple ‘we care about you’ phone calls to disconnect Foxtel, including a cumbersome ‘return the set top box’ procedure.

Ahh…Netflix. So late to this party so much to catch up on. Where to start?

First lesson. You can stop watching any time…you don’t need to sit there till 1am in the morning as the next episode just rolls around. I limit myself to two episodes a night.

Second lesson. I've realised I can watch some truly ordinary, badly dubbed period dramas. So not my thing . . . well, apparently they are now as Netflix keeps suggesting more for me.

Insight: I was taking one of my allowed 1 hour walks yesterday (with a friend) and was raving about a Netflix series I’d just watched. Could I tell her the name of it? No.

Could I tell her what it was about? Sort of.

This now has a COVID-related condition. Netflix Brain.

What I can tell you is 1983, Occupied, Start up and The Serpent are great shows. And let me have your best recommendations for political/crime thrillers, way more fun

3. Zoomba

Yes, you read this right. It’s not a mis-spelling of that early 2000s fitness fad Zumba. Who ever really did this? Who is still doing this?

And no, it’s not Adriano?Zumbo of Croquembouche Patisserie fame, Australia’s own version of Willy Wonker, until the croquembouche came crashing down owing its major lender ANZ, the tax office, employees and suppliers over $10 million.[1]

Zoomba is that feeling you get when you’ve started your fist Zoom meeting for the day totally up for it. That’s when you’re saying it like Zoom-bah! Excited, pumped that you haven’t had to drive into work (saved an hour or so).

Zoom-bahhhh is what you’re saying one hour into a meeting, or on your fourth or fifth Zoom of the day.

Mazda might have excited us all about Zoom Zoom but the Zoom we’re all is screen hell. Contact me if you want the Zoom Bingo sheet I've created. So much fun!

Here’s a tip. No more than 3 Zooms a day. And no Zoom over 1.5 hours.

MY best tip. Whenever you can pick up your phone and call the person you want to talk to. They’ll be so grateful they don’t have to change their daggy top, brush their hair, pretend to be at their computer, organise their backdrop, feed the cat, tie-up children…whatever.

4. MasterChef mania

Gotta go, the final is on.

Back now…and the winner is Justin!

Now what to divert my attention from the increasingly strict lockdown measures and the nightly purgatory of watching Gladys deliver more bad news, then throw a hospital pass (pun intended) to Kerry Chant.

Australian Survivor not going to do it for me. I and many of my colleagues and friends are in their real life version of Australian Survivor so we don't need to watch a bunch of people having fun in the Outback when our version is an open window, deck or garden.

As for The Batchelor . . . I think the only reason the guy is on the show is because he doesn't have a job any more. Richard Branson might be able to hum Fly me to the Moon with some joie de vivre but pretty much no one else can (other than Jeff).

Hmm, OK Grand Designs, Grand Garden Designs might have to do instead.

And, I have to admit though that I got sucked into the Coles/MasterChef promotion for pots and pans. Now have a garage full with the whole range. My reasoning for becoming so fixated with FlyBuy points and ‘saucepan equivalent’ is that am collecting them for when my 26-year old son moves out at the end of the year, having moved back in due to COVID.

Thinking about this perhaps this yet another good reason for people under 40 to get vaccinated. Forget interstate or overseas travel. He might not be able to rent an apartment. BTW he's received his first dose of Astra Zeneca and is alive and well.

5. I am not ‘you old’

Back living with adult children. My son ‘came back home’ at the beginning of this year. It was a big call as he’d left home at 18 and has been living independently (sort of) since then. But it made sense in many ways for him to move back in.

I love it. I’ve spent several years with Eddie the cat (well son’s cat that I inherited). To have your adult child back home, being an adult is a new experience…for both of us.

It’s working out. We’re like flat mates. I try not to be his ‘mother’ he tries not to be ‘my son’.

We give each other lots of space. I don’t tell him what to do, we share cooking duties occasionally, I wash (don’t iron), we both work hard at our work...me writing and working with my clients, he on university study and Coles warehouse packing home delivery orders - they're manic at the moment.

That said, he wants to move out and I would like him to (and I've got all the pots and pans, knives and glasses he could possibly want) although I do treasure the chance meetings in the kitchen and my study when we shoot the breeze and talk about ‘whatever’.

It’s like I am having the casual, confident, respectful and interesting conversations I wished we could have had several years earlier. We’ve both grown up. Actually I think I’ve grown down. I am less consumed with what I want to achieve (still have BIG goals but I’m way more confident about how to achieve them on my own terms); recognise that I can’t control things…that’s it’s better to let go than push and shove; slow down enough to enjoy the conversations.

No, Hugo, you’re not 'me old' but I get what you’re saying.

I remember being 26. It was the year before I moved to Australia.

I remember wondering what I’d achieved by this time, if I’d wasted it, some if it. What could/should have I done? Then realising that I just had to step into what was next.

This is where you are now. What an amazing future you have ahead of you, if we're every allowed out of the house.

I had no idea what the future held for me when I arrived in Australia in April 1987.

What I did know was that it was an opportunity and that whatever happened I’d be OK as I had and have the love of my family and friends.

Now I have the love and friendship of my family, friends, colleagues and clients. This is how Lockdown Lane is surviving and thriving through the latest lockdowns.

Just don’t ask me what I’m watching on Netflix.

[1] wing its major lender ANZ, the tax office, employees and suppliers over $10 million. The same month he also sold his Balmain home for $1.7 million.

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