- I have an appointment with my oncologist, Dr P. in a week’s time. Yesterday I was feeling quite anxious ahead of this appointment, and was quite tense and emotional. This anxiety always seems to dissipate when I have the blood test that precedes the appointment.
- So I was quite happy to set out early this morning to have my blood test. There was only one patient in the queue ahead of me; he was wearing a mask. I always find there is something soothing, somehow, about the ritual of having a blood sample taken. It could be partly the contact with the pathology assistants, who are always pleasant and matter-of fact. (We all know our roles in this drama and what is expected of us.) I had drunk a couple of glasses of water before I left, and one of assistants exclaimed approvingly: “Look at your lovely plump vein”.
- After I got home, we went out for the morning to get out of the way for our cleaning lady. We had had quite a bit of rain overnight, and some of this was still around when we set off. My beloved had the idea of driving to a large park, Summerhill Park, in Glen Iris and going for an hour’s walk. This would take us past a nice cafe where we could get a takeaway coffee. There is a covered area in the park opposite the cafe, with several tables and benches; we planned to have our coffees there if the rain persisted. (There was quite a queue at the cafe, however, so we decided to have one at our next stop, in Camberwell Junction.) There was quite a number of people walking along the path in Summerhill Park, and the one it connects to further to the west, Ferndale Park. Many were out with kids in prams, dogs, or both. It was a friendly atmosphere; people seemed a bit more aware of social distancing than in Wattle Park, our usual hangout.
- My beloved then drove to Camberwell Junction, where we stopped for a coffee. The cafe is on a walkway between the car park and Burke Road; there are several seats along this walkway, and we sat on one of those. It was a little bit breezy, but we were equipped for a cool day. The coffee was very good — my first for the day. After that my beloved headed off to the supermarket for some groceries, while I sat in the car, read my emails, made some phone calls, and listened to the radio for a while.
- We got home with the groceries, whereupon my beloved headed off to her workstation for a while. I made us some lunch and we watched an episode of Deutschland 86. I hadn’t liked this series quite as much as its predecessor (Deutschland 83) at first, but I am enjoying it now. The second series is set supposedly in South Africa, Angola and Namibia, as well as in Germany. The photography of all these places is beautiful, and exploits the contrasts between the harsh light of the African countries and the dull, rather drained look of Germany.
- My beloved returned to work for an hour or two. (She had received a call from a colleague just before lunch, which made me realise she is part of the “always available” workforce.) I downloaded an app from Telstra which allowed me to draw a map of our wifi coverage. This map, and a couple of different tests of our upload and download speeds, confirmed my impressions of the still fairly new NBN service. In a place the size of ours, our (basic) plan allows us to watch streaming video in high definition and browse the internet, with only occasional dropouts. Given that there is one more person using the wifi, for four or five hours a day longer than before the isolation began, this is a pretty fair result.
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