Yrae Chronicles

Have new phone, which is neither green nor waterproof, but it was cheap, so that'll do. Ankle also healed! I can do the fitness again! Which has meant Walk Week happened as planned last week! This was a thing I made up after having had this list of walks printed and mapped out for about two years now. I've done a couple of them here and there, but for Walk Week I made to do one a day for the week, particularly picking that week because of the public holiday Monday and also daylight savings is still in effect, making most use of time after work. The idea was to basically replicate as best I could when I was in Japan, where despite eating any deep fried dough on a stick that I came across, I still lost two kilos because there was so much walking.

Day 1 (last Sunday) was at Mount George and, because that went more quickly than I'd expected, the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens. Mount George looked gorgeous, stunning views across the Hills, but it was so close to the freeway that there was no point where I couldn't hear it. One of the best things about bushwalking is being entirely enveloped in nature, and when there's this constant sound of traffic it sort of takes the serenity away. Botanic Gardens were as delightful as ever.

Day 2, public holiday Monday, was Noarlunga South to Moana, which was suitably dramatic. I walked along the clifftop on the way south then along the very wide and occasionally very rocky beach on the way north again. These berries which I know nothing about were growing all along the footpath. I figured, if they were poisonous, they wouldn't be so prevalent so I gave one a taste. More like a tiny plum, with the shape of the stone inside, and somehow sweet, salty and sour all at once. Odd little thing.

Day 3, back to work and fitting my walk in before sunset, here's the Marion Coastal Walk. Everyone who's been a student in SA has been to this park. Just look at all the geology going on! Sugarloaf! Giant boulders dumped on the beach by an ancient glacier! Layering of sedimentary rock and folding and colapsing! Also nice sunset. Which mostly happened while I was on a sodding detour through suburbia while the footpath was under maintainence.

Day 4, Andrew's Walk in Andrew Perry Reserve, very close to work. This one was odd and I don't know how it made a 'take your breath away' list of walks. I'd made it barely a kilometre in and came up against a quarry that I couldn't get around. I tried following the creek but it was just suburbia, so I gave up and went to the Himeji Gardens instead. It's tiny and hence not fitnessy but it WAS gorgeous, so I felt better about that =3

Day 5, covering two closeby walks in the Adelaide Uni loop (not sure how that made the list, when the whole of Linear Park was already on it) and the Folks on the Hill walk in North Adelaide, an historic walk looking at some classic houses and buildings. I felt like a proper tourist in my own city doing this one! Right down to scaffolding covering one of the landmarks. If you've ever been on holiday with me, you'll know I'm cursed with this kind of thing.

Day 6, the Waterfall Walk at Belair National Park, which I'd kinda wanted to hold off on until there was actual water falling but I've run out of walks near me that I can do after work. This one was kind of disappointing because of all the weeds. That first one of the waterfall (well, cliff)? All the green at the bottom of the cliff, ALL down that valley, it's blackberry. Finally get out of the blackberry and up away from the creek and you get into the bush, then back down again at the end and there's heaps of hawthorn and olive trees. Belair National Park requires that you pay if you're going in with a car (I parked out the front because I'm here to walk, so let's walk through the park), which I'd always assumed went towards, y'know, protecting the park. It's still ridiculous since all parks are maintained by the government anyway. But to see all the weeds? Especially knowing they'd just done some burning off at the top of the hill in November, it was disappointing.

Day 7, my triumphant finale, Linear Park! Following the River Torrens from its mouth at Henley Beach into the city. I started feeling it by the time I got to the city, rested a bit for lunch, then the way back was made of ow. My feet absolutely caned. Left foot had three blisters, somehow the right had none. But I made it! And then Mum and I went out to dinner to Apoteca, not technically as celebration, but it felt it! We decided to have a girls' night out while Dad and Colin were having a boys' weekend in Melbourne. It was awesome.

So over the course of that week I walked 93.25km (on actual walks, I'm sure I cracked 100 by just generally getting around) and lost 1.5 kilos! Victory! I'm so proud of myself for achieving this, especially when it was looking like my ankle would be stuffed and I wouldn't be able to do it at all, so to actually do it every day... I'm stoked. I even felt excited to do each walk, even Linear Park, as intimidating as it was. MADE IT. Next challenge, I'm going to do the Kayla Itsines thingo, because shuddup that's why. Next two weeks I'm gearing up for that. I've been jogging on the beach to build up endurance and also make sure my ankle is indeed healed. So far so good.

In other news: the bleedingly obvious. Yesterday I went shopping for the first time since the panic buying started and... that was an experience! I already knew about the TP situation, obviously, and knew it'd largely extended to pasta and tinned food, though there was at least some of that still on shelves. Of flour, which I needed plain flour (or thought I did, turns out I already had a bag I hadn't yet emptied into the jar thank GOD), there was one 500g bag of fancy pants wholemeal self raising flour. Fresh veggies were all business as usual. Some of the missing stuff was weird, though, like milk. There were a few 1L cartons and half a shelf of Pura 2L but the rest was GONE. How even? How do you stockpile fresh milk? What are people doing, keeping it in the freezer? Milk doesn't freeze well, also it'd take up a hell of a lot of space. Also, I needed coathangers. There was one three-pack of fancy wooden ones for $6, which is way more than I'd like to spend on coathangers. Why coathangers? Went around the corner to Target and got some there in a 5-pack of wire ones for $5, much more like it. I did have to get the last two bags of fancy pants kitty litter, though. I'm sure Rory'll know the difference.

Finally, after years of meaning to do it and not getting around to it, I booked flights to Sydney to see Vivid! Vivid is now cancelled. Go figure. Still going to Sydney, though, and also Brisbane. This'll be happening for two weeks at the end of May/beginning of June, assuming Qantas and Tiger aren't both bankrupt and completely grounded by then, but y'know, playing it by ear. I might just have to wear a HAZMAT suit going to Sydney.

Watching sport with no crowd is weird. We had the first of three cricket matches against the Kiwis with no crowd, and it was so quiet you could hear the guys' pads squeaking in the stump mike as they walked out to bat. 'The crowd errupts!' cried Mark Waugh at the fall of a Kiwi wicket. 'Look at him, that one guy down there clapped... How'd he get in?' The next day the Kiwi government announced that anyone coming into the country after midnight that night would be subjected to a 14-day quarantine, so the Kiwis went home and that was the end of the series.

AFLW, which I've been going to every local match of this season, just watched on telly this time. For some reason the friends and family of the visiting team were allowed into the stands, so our home ground had about 20 away supporters, applause echoing in the stands. The mens' season is due to start tomorrow and, at this stage, they're still going ahead, but I mean the odds of the season actually getting to the end are pretty slim. If there's so much as one case among the teams they'll call it off, I'm sure. The women's game without the 10k-ish crowd noise is weird enough. Mens' game, with the 50k+ Adelaide Oval empty, will be surreal. The frigging MCG holds 100k and we'll be able to actually hear the players talking to each other.

This morning PM ScoMo put a level 4 travel warning for the entire world. That's the highest it goes. It's just a straight up 'do not travel.' We've never done that before. Ban on gatherings of over 100 people, but we've been very strongly reassured we're not going into lockdown. To have any real, lasting effect, we'd have to go into lockdown for 6 months, which isn't sustainable. Schools are staying open, because kids are pretty much unaffected by the thing and, if they were to close schools, it'd put more people at risk because who are the kids going to be staying with? At-risk grandparents. That, or parents are going to have to stay home to look after them, and the biggest thing is to keep everyone working, earning money and subsequently spending money to keep the country moving as best we can.

Work is... quiet but still trucking on. Printing isn't one of the vulnerable industries at this stage, we're still getting our orders for business cards and pull-up banners, but we've got time on our hands to prepare should we need to start working from home, setting up Microsoft Teams and OneDrive and accessing webmail and all that, if neeeded.

Laura's due to give birth next month, so that's super exciting :D The hospital's only allowing two guests sum total, Colin counts as one, so to be fair on everyone they're not having anyone else in the hospital and will just allow people to come by their house on case-by-case basis to see bub. So they'll basically be on their own lockdown, which is sad but necessary and, if I'm honest, probably a bit of a relief for them. Legit reason to stop the constant stream of people into their house to see babby!

I say I'll keep on top of DW entries but it never sodding happens. Still, at least I get around to it eventually? Right?