Day (12) 06 January: whoops

Two days to go and I have lost track of time hence no blog today.

Daily facts

Sleep: quality 70%, in bed 7h 44m, asleep 7h 34m

Breakfast: cereals (nothing cooked today, nothing wasted)

Lunch: paneer tikka masala NO DESSERT! (yummy)

Dinner: pizza herbivore, cake (chewy which is not a compliment)

Day (11) 05 January: being productive

My greatest fear coming into lockdown early in 2020 and quarantine over the past two weeks was that time would just idle away. Too easy to turn the telly on, scoff biscuits and become a fat, lazy, slob. By good fortune I picked-up a useful book at the end of 2019; ‘Productivity Planner’. A book dedicated to; ‘lifelong learners and doers’, just how I like to think of myself. In addition to numerous titbits and quotes on time management and motivation the authors encourage readers to adopt ‘The Pomodoro Technique’. Using the task and time based Pomodoro and templates provided in the book you plan your most important tasks of the week and day, and allocate time in 25 minute blocks. It’s not perfect, but has brought more discipline to my daily life and a sense of achievement. 

How I spent my time in quaratine

 Prior to travelling I wrote a list of tasks I wanted to do whilst in quarantine. Some tasks where open ended like ‘search for a new home’ and others closed such as ‘complete a FutureLearn course’. (Pedantic's will argue that an open ended task is an oxymoron - tough, I said it’s not perfect.) Looking back through my daily planner in which I logged 13 hour days I can now reveal how I have usefully filled my time in quarantine.  

Almost a third of my time was spent on breaks: three meals a day, coffee, the weekends and getting over jet-lag. Not too bad. Pleasingly next comes hobby time including writing this blog and completing a FutureLearn course on genealogy. The next two tasks relate to moving around the world, looking for a new home, re-arranging subscriptions and continuing to learn Dutch. As I mentioned in an earlier blog one of my most pleasing achievements whilst living in the Netherlands was learning a foreign language. I intend to keep my Dutch studies up, my evening class restarts on Friday at 5am AEDT and I have homework to do. As we are in the midst of Australia’s holiday season only a little bit of time went on networking and job seeking. I would have liked to have seen more time on well-being activities such as working-out and mediating. I will find out when I get on a set of scales whether or not I have skimped on exercise.

During quarantine I read, but have annoyingly misplaced, a news article on this very subject - using your time in quarantine. The golden nugget of advice was not to be over ambitious, nor to stress too much if tasks do not get done. This is probably not the time to force yourself to write that best selling novel you have long had in mind (unless you are on of those incredibly focused people). The Pomodoro Technique worked well for me, I made commitments every day and gave myself a pat on the back for making progress. Bring on the weighing scales!

Daily facts

Sleep: quality 95% (don’t believe it), in bed 9h 06m, asleep 7h 50m

Breakfast: bircher muesli (better than last week’s, not that that says much)

Lunch: avocado poke bowl (nice, with a 1208 delivery it could be a long time to dinner)

Dinner: peri-peri pumpkin (I think I got the burnt left-overs)

Day (10) 04 January: watching

Tenth day, double figures, only four more sleeps to go. 

Entering quarantine I committed myself to not watching too much TV. That would have been a waste of the quiet productive time to be found in quarantine. Nonetheless even rationing oneself to TV at meal times and in the evening a lot of time can pass in front of the LED screen. Psychologically TV seems to fill a need to hear the spoken voice, more so than radio or music because its a dialogue to be followed rather than a background sound. So here is a list of the series I have been watching (some I started during the Netherlands lockdown). ‘Staged’ is very highly recommended, it certainly appeals to my sense of humour. Numbers 2, 3 and 4 are well recommended; followed by 5, 6 and 7 that could have been in any order. No.8 is ok, especially if you are into F1. At the bottom 9 & 10 are not great - saying that about ‘The Crown’ may be controversial but there you go. I am just starting ‘A Very English Scandal’ on Netflix and enjoying Hugh Grant’s performance, this could be a late entry in the top 5.

Rank	TV Show	Channel	Review
1	Staged	BBC	Very funny, wonderful to see top cast playing themselves in lockdown
2	Big Little Lies	Apple	A mystery with many twists
3	Morning Wars	Apple	Workplace harrassment and sexism - very topical
4	Sex Education	Netflix	Slow start, becomes quite touching and educational without titilating
5	Downton Abbey	BBC	Faithfully British
6	Ted Lasso	Apple	Slow start that becomes a witty acerbic look at management
7	The Last Dance	Netflix	Reveals the personalities behind the Chicago Bulls
8	Formula 1: Drive to Survive	Netflix	Interesting though not as deep as The Last Dance
9	The Crown	Netflix	Some good acting lost to too much speculative drama on too recent events
10	Star Trek Discovery	Netflix	Too dark for Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic concept

Daily facts

Sleep: quality 82%, in bed 8h 34m, asleep 8h 24m

Breakfast: cereals and pancakes (so much for the no cooked food request, especially not served cold)

Lunch: penne napolitana (and I had a dessert saved from yesterday!)

Dinner: barley risotto with mushrooms, carrot cake (more mushrooms!)

Day (09) 03 January

What happened today? A lot and not a lot. According to my 15 minute journal I was quite productive exercising, blogging, studying and doing other useful stuff. Trouble is I can’t remember any of it.

Daily facts

Sleep: quality 75%, in bed 8h 51m, asleep 8h 40m

Breakfast: cereals and porridge (too much!)

Lunch: grilled mushrooms and salad NO DESSERT!!

Dinner: portabella mushrooms in bread crumbs, apple crumble (mushrooms seem popular, 2 desserts! someone in the kitchen                               must be reading my blog)

Day (08) 02 January

Today I decided to spend sometime discovering what other people have been saying about quarantine. For the uninitiated, the Australian government requires anyone arriving in the country to quarantine at a government run hotel for 14-days with few exceptions. This is amongst the toughest regime in the world compared to the many countries that specify self-quarantine at home. Using news reports and ABS data it would appear that there are about 10-12,000 people in quarantine at any one time. That might sound good for the hotel business but equates to only about 20% of the available hotel beds in the major cities and approximately a 97% drop in arrivals from overseas.

Flicking through Google search results it becomes apparent that most of the news coverage comes from March to July 2020 when Australia first implemented mandatory quarantine. Inevitably the news media focuses on bad news stories, over time these have tended to move from objections to the principle of mandatory quarantine to food and access to fresh air. It is not clear if the level coverage has dropped off because the news media has since moved on or the complaints have stopped. A consequence is that the occasional ‘escape’ can come across as a major incident and reflect badly on a system that overall seems to be working quite well.

Perhaps a more reliable and balanced source of experiential reporting are personal blogs and Facebook groups such as the one for guests of the hotel I am in. Here the comments are largely positive with compliments to the police and armed forces as well hoteliers. A few individuals highlight personal problems though many seem to get resolved satisfactorily. 

Despite the inconvenience I have to conclude that Australia has made the right decision and overall made a good job of implementation. Everyone travelling to Australia knows the situation and whether or not they had a choice to travel were still able to factor quarantine into their preparations. The reality of Coronavirus is that the virus is a moving target. Once we leave our confinement we will join a society living a relatively normal life, most of us having left countries in the midst of a Covid-19 crisis and facing extreme lockdowns. Our quarantine makes a crucial contribution to the pleasant life we will be able to enjoy after 14 days in isolation. Sounds like quite a good deal to me.

Daily facts

Sleep: quality 84%, in bed 8h 44m, asleep 8h 23m

Breakfast: cereals (hurrah)

Lunch: grilled portabella mushroom sandwich, side salad NO DESSERT!!

Dinner: teriyaki eggplant, very small cup cake (similar to yesterday, eggplants must be in season)

Day (07) 01 January

Almost halfway - if I wasn’t blogging I would not know this. It is extraordinary and worrying how you lose track of the day and date. Is this what retirement is like? I am not yet ready to find out, so must get my act together and write something more interesting for Day (08).

Daily facts

Sleep: quality 71%, in bed 8h 06m, asleep 7h 40m

Breakfast: boiled eggs, Turkish sides (an odd selection! Requested cereals                           in future)

Lunch: chicken biryani (vegetarian? I think not) NO DESSERT!!

Dinner: eggplant involtini, brownie (rather plain and very late in the                                     evening)

Day (06) 31 December: laundry day

Today appropriately was laundry day. Out with the bedsheets and towels and in with a fresh clean set. If only changing the year was as simple. Strangely the sheets are not long enough to tuck-in at both the head and bottom of the bed, and the duvet is placed between two sheets, not in a duvet cover.

The first really bad boredom set in today. Did a workout, read last weekend’s paper, stared out the window at the rain. It was a relief to get to bed with nice clean sheets. Woken at midnight by NYE fireworks - as I have mentioned before, these should have been cancelled.

Daily facts

Sleep: quality 80%, in bed 8h 34m, asleep 8h 10m

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, kale, mushrooms (really not into cooked breakfast.                           whilst living this idle life) 

Lunch:         Asparagus green bowl (another nice salad, lunch - best meal each                              day), NO DESSERT!!

Dinner: stuffed portabello mushrooms, NO DESSERT (ok, but lacked veggies                         and arrived very late in the evening)