izmeina | Going Nuts (Reply)

It's a strange start to the new Goblin year. I got up early to go to the day job only to discover that the place is shut and nobody had bothered to pass the message on which they have always done in the past via email.
It is funny because last year the shop was shut from Wednesday 1st April and reopened on Wednesday 1st July. This time it was closed for 1st July but probably also yesterday and the day before too.

I suspected it could be closed on account of the lockdown since a second hand charity shop does not quite count as an essential service the way a chemist or supermarket does.

So I just pottered around the other shops nearby before catching the bus back to the Lair. I ended up waiting 30 minutes for a bus that usually turns up every 10 minutes. Then of course 2 of them turned up at the same time.
So I was back at the Lair just in time for midday and spent the afternoon sitting in the garden soaking up the sunshine, reading the paper, planting a weed or two and doing a few Duolingo lessons.

Tomorrow will be more of the same since both the nursery and the op shop are closed. There is no point actually going anywhere since all the cafes if not closed are take away only. Since for me the whole point of going to a cafe is to sit down for an hour, read the paper and watch the world go by, if I cannot do that then I just don't bother at all since it is not the caffeine that I am addicted to but the ritual.

It is so sad and weird seeing nearly everything closed. After the last year of on and off lockdowns, many businesses have long used up their reserves and each lockdown could mean death row.
Especially since the cafe, pub and restaurant industry were so happy that all Covid restrictions had been lifted only 2 weeks ago so they were all back at maximum capacity and looking forward to the lucrative school holiday season.

There is a giant shit show in Canberra on account of the federal government's complete Covid incompetence. OZ did very well last year keeping the death toll low. It was one of the big success stories of 2020. But no thanks to sQomo and his happy clappy mates in Canberra. Like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, they wanted to just let it rip and keep the economy going. They were dragged kicking and screaming back into the real world by the state governments who would be left burying the bodies.

The Feds have tried to piggy back off the success of the states but everything they touch turns to shit. Now there are giant shouting matches between the Feds and assorted Chief Health Officers and medical organizations about who should get the AZ vaccine because that crowd screwed up getting sufficient supplies of Pfizer.

I had AZ just over 6 weeks ago. If I had known that they would have extended the age group for Pfizer I might have chosen to wait. Mind you know that the virus is doing the rounds, a lot of vaccine hesitant people have changed their minds so there is an even bigger shortage than usual.