"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps . . .

       [I]n this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death."  (Wm Shakespeare's MacBeth).

We are lucky here in Australia that the pandemic was never allowed to get away from us and most cases in Australia came off cruise ships.  I have been in lock-down for weeks and life is getting tedious.  I made myself some masks but they are hardly needed since most of the shops downstairs are closed with only the two supermarkets and the pharmacies open, along with Bunnings Hardware and Zoo Pet Supplies, both of which are considered to be essential services.  I did break out to go to the doctor for my 'flu vaccination  -  travelling on an almost empty train.

I have been spending my time listening to The Rachel Maddow Show, looking at Facebook and sporadically cleaning the Apartment, ironing and reading.  I have not panic-bought toilet paper but sometimes shoppings is a sort of Hobson's Choice and you take what you can or, in extremis try again in a day or two.

The cats,and especially Parsifal, have been driving me crazy; they want to go for a run in the passage but cats can get the virus so I am keeping them in the apartment.  Parsifal has been trying to get into the TV to meet all the people there ( he does that every so often) and while looking for  my 'Miniscule' DVDs to keep him quiet I came across a set of "Music for Cats" so I am playing one at the moment and Poppy is entranced; even Parsifal has stopped shouting.

I now have Skype on my I-Pad so I can connect with D1 and D2 but D3 seems to think that I can contaminated her via radio waves and, having ordered me into quarantine has pretended that I do not exist.  And yes, I have phone her a couple of times but have to run the gauntlet of SIL1 who is the telephone answerer.

Enough of my complaints  -  the Limerick:-

There once was a bear at the zoo
Who complained he had nothing to do.
"It's boring, you know,
Just to go to and fro,
I think that I'll go fro and to,"

. . . and Little Captive Drop Bears

I have been in lockdown for over four weeks now and I am getting lazy.  I have lists of things which I should be doing but somehow I rarely get around to doing them and instead sit, knit and listen to the Rachel Maddow Show.  However, there is starting to be a dreary sameness to the news out of America; not enough medical equipment, unevenly distributed medical equipment and people dying for the reasons stated above.

Australia has instigated very strict rules about travel between states, regions and just simply out in public:  wear a mask, wash your hands, wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds and use a hand sanitiser if there is nowhere to wash your hands, do not touch your face, keep at least one metre away from anyone in public and wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds.  It is all very repetitive but seems to be working as 'the curve' is flattening.

As I have now been in lock-down for over three weeks I am in no danger to anyone and am thinking of starting to walk around the lake again (masked, of course and carrying my little bottle of hand sanitiser in my bum-bag) if my sore toes will let me and as the weather gets kinder to walkers.  Walking rapidly in 40 degree heat and humidity would be neither fun nor beneficial.

I have my bear in the window to signify that I am locked down and a couple of days ago I removed the label from around his neck, read it and discovered that his name was 'Dolly'.  He was never a Dolly and he now has a new name  -  Kovid Koala and, of course, he is a drop bear, one of the more fearsome sort but sadly lacking in gum trees to drop from.

I now have Skype on my I-Pad and chat to D1 and D2.  I still haven't tried it out on my MS Surface Pro1.  When I fired it back up and recharged it ready to go it took two days to upload all the MS changes  (literally two days).  All in all about 20 hours and I am fearful of finding out just how it will behave but Teckie phoned me to say that he can fix my computers remotely if they need fixing.  He has done that before but I fear that the Surface Pro might need more than that and I am too scared to try it as it will almost certainly be an "as new" computer after all its self improvements.

The Limerick:-

There was an old man in a hearse
Who murmured, "This might have been worse;
Of course the expense
Is simply immense,
But it doesn't come out of MY purse."

Covid-19 (Mk 3)

I have finally found the hidden treasure  -  a pack of toilet rolls.  I don't actually need any but it was too good a prize to pass up so I bought a 20-pack which I have stored away with my hoarded cat food.

D2, who is back at work in RPH Emergency was very insistent that I should activate Skype.  I have it on this desktop computer but with no mic or camera it was not ideal.  On my I-Pad I have Facetime which seems to simply be a Mac version of Skype and despite the fact that D2 has an Apple computer she refused to use it.  I have the Skype App on my I-Pad but it needed a fingerprint to load it and, as I have found to my cost, it refuses to read any of the fingerprints which I have registered.  It is a problem which I have had before and I had to go into the Apple Shop to load the last app which needed a fingerprint.  That is not an option now that I am in lock-down.

So I went online and asked how to bypass the fingerprint problem and these were the suggestions:  register a toe print; use one of my cats' toes or register one of my nipples.  What??

I was so angry that I started hitting the fingerprint icon rapidly and repeatedly and suddenly I was in.  I am not sure if I just managed to hit some magic spot which registered or if my i-Pad simply gave up the fight.  The silly part was that it already knew who I was as it had connected with the Skype on my desktop  computer and had all my details.

Anyway, D2 and I had a virtual afternoon tea yesterday and later D1 Skyped me which meant that I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn this morning to phone her in Sydney which is three hours ahead for six months of the year.

There was a session on homemade face masks during the TV news this evening.  The best one was a pair of bikini pants worn sideways. The crutch goes over the nose and mouth and the leg holes are over the eyes   I have some which I bought and which turned out to be a two-pair pack and the pair I first wore was extremely uncomfortable so this particular knicker was brand new, unworn and waiting to be given to charity.  I am going to keep it in lieu of my hijabs.  It might give someone a laugh.

The Limerick:-

I'm the very best scout in the troop,
And the very best cook in the group.
Bread I can toast
And lamb I can roast,
And I've tried but I cannot pee soup.

Covid-19 Mk 2

Self isolation with my e-book and computers is mostly what I normally do but I am taking my temperature morning and evening and using essential oils to monitor my sense of smell.  My diet is a bit erratic since I no longer just pop downstairs if I need something for dinner but there is fruit and vegetables in abundance.  Milk is rationed and butter is in short supply (are all the cows in lockdown?) and I am assuming that the New Zealand butter which I use will become unobtainable along with toilet paper and tissues which seem to disappear as soon as they hit the shelves.  Minor annoyances.

More upsetting is the fact that D2 will be back at work after some time on sick leave and she will be at the forefront of the medical workforce.  She is going into self-isolation and has asked me to fire up Skype so that she can see familiar faces but I threw away my earphone/mic set a while ago and there has been a run on them and none are available at the moment.  Hopefully there will be some more available soon or it will have to be telephone contact as we both have retro phones with very little display.

The trousers which I bought online are stuck in Singapore but they are safe and will not self-destruct.  The thing which I have been hoarding is kitty litter and cat food.  And I bought a teddy bear to sit on the window sill as a signal that I am self-isolating.  Not that any passing raven or white cockatoo will understand the symbolism.

The cats were due for their vaccinations this week and Parsifal had his turn on Wednesday, sedated but still managed to scratched me.  Poppy had her turn today, also heavily sedated and when I suggested to Dr L. that perhaps I could hold her still in the kitty carriage while she injected the vaccine and perhaps we could skip the health check she sounded very relieved so we all parted unscathed.

The Limerick:-

A crossword composer named Moss
At joking was quite at a loss.
When asked why 'twas true
He hadn't a clue.
He was two down to put one across.

Scamming Serenade

I normally receive two or three scam phone calls per day which I either hang up on or keep the scammers talking for as long as I can to waste their time as they so often waste mine.

However, my second call today was a bit different.  When I answered my phone I was entertained by a very shakily sung serenade in Italian.  I listened for a few moments because it was certainly different from the usual cold calls but eventually I interrupted to ask the caller who he was and how much he had drunk.  He stopped singing and told me his name (which I have forgotten) and said that he had not been drinking.  He denied either drinking or taking any enhancers and I received the impression from what he was saying that he felt that people should get some relief from scammers and instead be entertained.

We chatted for a minute or two and parted on very amicable terms.  I, at least, was vastly entertained by the whole episode.  In these days of toilet paper shortages and virtual lockdowns I think that we all need a little bit of comic relief.  

I have put myself into semi-isolation as I have all of the risk factors for Covid-19 but with the shops just downstairs I needn't shop for long and I have stocked up on cat food and litter.  We are in scary times and I am probably vastly over-reacting but I would prefer to wait a while before I risk getting infected.  D2 came with coffee and cake over the weekend but tried out her key and fob to make sure that she can get into my apartment if the need should arise.

The Limerick:-

When I asked an old crofter on Skye
What he did in the winter, and why,
I received an offensive
Obscene, comprehensive
Monosyllabic reply.

Covid-19

I am not hoarding toilet paper!  It would be futile to try as there is none available in Coles and although I haven't checked supplies in Farmer Jack I suspect that their shelves will also be empty.  Farmer Jack did have skim milk yesterday but not a lot and I snagged the last carton in Coles.  I normally buy four cartons at a time and freeze them so I am OK for a while but will be upset if yoghurt disappears.  Fruit and vegetables are fresh and abundant; probably locally grown.

The only thing which I have stocked up is cat food and litter.  If all else fails and they eat through my stock they will be reduced to eating anti-furball pellets which they do not like at all and which I have only because they refuse to eat them.  For litter they will have to make do with shredded newspaper if all else fails.

One of the local wine shops is advertising that they will give away one toilet roll with every bottle of wine they sell.  I think that is brilliant.  Senor B702 is here and safe.  I thought that he had gone back to Italy but he told me that he had been advised to stay here for now.  My only real worry is the air conditioning in this building.  It tends to blow through even when it is not turned on which makes me wonder how much air we are all sharing.

The stock market has gone bearish and so this morning I ordered four pairs of linen trousers from Shukr.com .  I obviously haven't yet let the Stock Market crash upset me too much.  I have sat out bear markets several times on the theory that I can't lose money until I sell, which I do not intend to do.

My main concern is D2 who is an emergency physician and will be firmly on the front line but hopefully things will not get too bad here.  I have been told that Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world.

The Limerick:-

There was a young lady named Smith
Whose virtue was mostly a myth.
She said, "Try as I can
I can't find a man
Who it's fun to be virtuous with."

Putting it all together

My great great grandmother, Rhoda, featured twice on the 1841 census in Cornwall, in consecutive houses (you would think that the census collector would have noticed) in a street of shoemakers.  Four days later she set sail for Australia on a bride ship, The Lady Kennaway and disembarked in Sydney where she settled down to earn her living as a milliner.


Five years later she suddenly upped and took a ship to Adelaide.  She was documented as she passed through the Port of Melbourne and again when she disembarked in Adelaide.  Three weeks later she was married in the Wesleyan Chapel in Gawler Place to a man who claimed to be John Sexton, Mariner.  As the couple were both “of full age” there is no record of their fathers’ names and I think that they may have lied about their ages.


I cannot find John Sexton and I have searched diligently for him; he is the one stumbling block in my genealogy research and I have formed certain ideas about his origins.


Having searched the census records and done numerous searches through Ancestry.com I decided that if he actually was a mariner that there must be a record so I contacted the Royal Archives in Kew, London.  They helpfully suggested which bus I needed to catch to go to Kew and do my own search and it was only when I told them that I was in Western Australia that they grudgingly looked for him.


Yes, there had been one John Sexton on record but he had spent his whole life in the navy and at no stage went anywhere near Adelaide  -  or Australia.

And here it all comes together for me.  Escaped convicts headed for South Australia, the one non-penal colony.  I searched the convict records and there were several John Sextons but they were either too old or were deceased.  New name and an occupation which could explain where he had been prior to his marriage.  I think that he reinvented himself but must have known Rhoda in Cornwall or why did she leave and move to Australia? 


Did she travel to Australia because he had been transported and did she move to Adelaide to marry him when he managed to make it there?  I’ll probably never know.

And the Limerick:-

Saddam Hussein, I dare say,
Has no fear of spiders today.
But he was like Miss Muffet
There on her tuffet
For both had some curds in their whey.