Christmas 2020

A rather subdued celebration this year but far better than 2019 when fires were raging around us.
Christmas Eve we listened to Elvis sing Christmas songs (he never died in this household) and then it was our seafood feast for the season accompanied by home made focaccia.

Oysters, tiger prawns and mussels with a great Pikes savagnin followed by fresh berries and ice cream.
Then it was a cheesy Hallmark movie to close out the day. It had everything. The cute couple ‘dancing around’ each other, one or two dead parents, the misunderstanding, the interrupted first kiss, the Christmas festival and tree lighting ceremony and of course the final locked lips scene. I think they must have a computer that spits out the multiple similar scripts. But who cares.....
Christmas Day dawned wet and cloudy. That hardly ever happens. Normally it’s hot and sunny.
We started with our traditional pancake breakfast and then later in the day, after a few phone calls to family and friends, the ‘main event’ began.

Preparation was accompanied by some lovely Italian Prosecco and Pikes Merle Riesling. Then it was barbqued wagyu sirloin and mini dauphine potato stacks washed down with an old Pikes Premio (Sangiovese) I’d had in the secret stash for many years. Wonderful!

We did our usual cracker ‘battle’ with the co driver winning most. This year we had bought the premium pack and some of the prizes were quite useful. The jokes were suitably corny and there was a quiz and charades too.

The co driver had arranged for a VERY expensive plum pudding which needed to be boiled in its muslin jacket for an hour. But boy, was it worth it! The best I’ve had in a long time, especially with vanilla bean custard and ice cream.

The co driver’s conversion to Australian hasn’t progressed yet to plum pudding 

(or fruit cake for that matter) so she had made herself a yummy mini cheese cake.

So that was it.

We were not  nearly as ‘stuffed‘ as previous years which was good.

Even had room for some left over prawns and more pudding for dinner.

Then another Hallmark! We are really suckers for punishment.

A very merry and safe Christmas to all my readers.

Covid-19 Is Back / With Updates - Latest: 31st December

In the space of 36 hours, New South Wales has gone from a 12-day period free from local transmission to the sudden emergence of 38 of cases centred on the northern beaches area of Sydney and is known as the Avalon cluster.
The area is home to around 270,000 people.
At 5pm Saturday (today) the northern beaches will enter a lockdown similar to that imposed on all New South Wales residents in March.

This means residents will be required to stay home and only go out for essential purposes such as shopping, exercise and medical care until 11.59pm Wednesday.

Preliminary genome sequencing has confirmed the coronavirus strain circulating on the northern beaches came from the United States.
The strain was a close match to the virus sample taken from a woman who had flown into Sydney on December 1. However she is still in quarantine so health authorities still don't know how the virus was introduced to the northern beaches.
They have not ruled out that Australian aircrews returning from abroad may be linked to the Avalon cluster, though it does not appear to be a focus of their investigation.

A deserted northern beach centre of Manly last night

Several flight staff live on Sydney’s northern beaches and the NSW government has faced criticism for its flexible quarantine arrangements for aircrews, which effectively let them self-isolate at home with minimal monitoring. It has also become known that aircrews have been breaching quarantine requirements and going out to Sydney venues, instead of staying in their hotel or home.

All in all a disappointing development and one which will disrupt Christmas for a huge number of people.

Update: 20th December

NSW has recorded 30 new locally acquired coronavirus cases in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday.
Twenty-eight have been directly linked to the Avalon cluster, including the case believed to be the origin of the outbreak.
The two cases which have not yet been linked to the Avalon cluster are people who live in the northern beaches.

New restrictions will now apply across the greater Sydney region until midnight on Wednesday 23rd December in addition to the northern beaches lockdown.
The state of Victoria is reinstating it’s ‘hard’ border with NSW for those who have travelled from the greater Sydney area.

Update: 21st December

New South Wales has recorded 15 new cases of Covid-19 since 8pm last night – all are linked to the existing northern beaches cluster.

Update: 22nd December

From 44,000 tests in NSW yesterday, only 8 additional cases were found.

However NSW Health has identified more cafes, shopping centres and gyms across Sydney's CBD and north that have been visited by confirmed COVID-19 cases.
We are not out of the woods yet.

Locally, some ‘clown‘ from the Northern Beaches signed into our Recreational Centre when he should have been at home in Sydney or at least self isolating here and was ‘sprung’ by staff. Police were called. 

$1000 fine for this person. Expensive trip to the gym!

Some people are plainly stupid.

Update: 23rd December

Another 8 cases reported in NSW. Seven linked to the Avalon cluster.

Discussions underway whether to cancel the Sydney New Years Eve fireworks.

Update: 24th December

7 new cases all related to the Avalon cluster from 60,000 tests.

There are relaxed restrictions in place for the Christmas period. Hopefully this somewhat generous but fraught with danger move by the NSW government will not prove a disaster.

Already people are taking advantage of the situation and have been caught. It would be naive to think many others haven’t.

Update: 25th December

Seven new cases all in the northern beaches from just under seventy thousand tests.

Concern there is a cluster in the CBD (downtown).

Update: 26th December

Around 40,000 tests were carried out on Christmas Day with 9 cases of community transmission detected.

People have been asked to stay away from Boxing Day sales today, particularly in the CBD (downtown) and they are. Normally it’s one of the biggest sale days of the year in line with the USA’s  Black Friday. 

Update:28th December

12 more cases over the last two days, all related to the Avalon cluster.

Restrictions have been tightened for New Years Eve despite the Sydney Harbour fireworks at midnight going ahead.

Under the new restrictions, residents in the northern zone of the northern beaches will adhere to the current strict lockdown measures until January 9. Their southern zone counterparts may face an easing of restrictions as early as January 2.

Meanwhile, people are urged to stay away from the CBD unless they have a permit to be there.

Update: 30th December

Three new cases related to the Avalon cluster reported yesterday

However cases in Greater Sydney, outside the northern beaches (Avalon cluster), detected between December 16 and 27 now number 43 and are scattered across more than 25 suburbs.

And now in the city of Wollongong, south of Sydney and 2 hours drive to the north of us.

Residents are lining up for testing today.
This is concerning.

Update: 31st December 

NSW recorded 18 cases of local transmissions to 8pm on Tuesday from 17,267 tests, taking the total number of cases in the state from zero to 160 in two weeks.
Melbourne recorded three new infections, ending Victoria's two-month run of zero local cases. They are believed to be linked to the NSW outbreak via close contacts.
The situation becomes more serious as the days go on. 

New Years Eve events are being touted as super spreaders and people are being asked to avoid them.

As though that is going to happen.

Floods and More Covid

This time last year, a lot of the east coast was on fire.

This year much is flooded.

Torrential rain in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland has caused rivers to rise and towns to flood.

In fact there has been substantial rainfall over a great deal of the country.

Accompanying wind storms have caused big surf and devastating beach erosion.

We missed out on the nasty weather getting around only 30mm of welcome rain.

In other disappointing news Covid has raised its ugly head once more after many days of zero cases with a cluster emerging in northern Sydney. Seventeen cases have been diagnosed in the last 24 hours. 

Immediately other states have invoked quarantine measures on New South Wales. People in that area have been asked to stay home.

With the Christmas holiday season just upon us and city residents heading for their vacations in our region over the next six weeks, this is concerning.

As a safety measure the co driver and I will begin self isolating once more.

The last few weeks of relative ‘freedom’ were nice but we both had the feeling that another outbreak was inevitable. Covid fragments had been showing up in sewerage systems across Sydney and even Batemans Bay, twenty five minutes drive to our south.

Australian National Anthem Sung in Aboriginal Language

Our Indigenous population's fight for reconciliation took another very small step forward on Saturday night when the Australian national anthem was sung by a Wiradjuri woman, Olivia Fox, in the aboriginal language of the Eora Nation when the Australian Wallabies Rugby Union team played the Argentine Pumas.

The Eora group of Indigenous people are from the Sydney metropolitan area, where the game took place, 

This was a first for an international sporting event.

There are around 290 to 360 different Australian Aboriginal languages spoken around the country and its islands.

Other nations have Indigenous languages as part of their national anthems eg. New Zealand's anthem is sung in both Maori and English.

Some weren't happy as many consider the national anthem's words to be racist. For instance there has been controversy over the phrase "for we are young and free “ given that Australia is home to one of the world's oldest known civilisations. 

But it was quickly pointed out that the Eora version was not a direct translation

Considering the words were written in 1878 there are obvious outdated references. There have been a number of changes since it finally replaced ‘God Save the Queen’ in 1984. 

The above words will be changed hopefully to “for we are one and free”.

There is entrenched discrimination against Australia's Indigenous population.

While the country's Indigenous population makes up just 3.3% of its 25 million people, they account for more than 25% of its prisoners. 

Indigenous Australians are also almost twice as likely to die by suicide, have a life expectancy that is almost nine years lower, and have higher infant mortality rates than non-Indigenous Australians.

Hibiscus

Our hibiscus are thriving with the return of warmer weather.

Some are warm temperate species which were already in the garden when I moved in and the tropical ones I brought down from my old home in Queensland. The latter do struggle a bit in our cooler climate here but every now and again they burst into multiple flowers. I made sure they were planted in the warmest and sunniest  parts of the garden.

Eucalyptus (Gumtrees) Shedding Bark

There are more than 700 species of eucalypts in Australia with their bark types falling into roughly two categories – the persistent rough type of stringybarks, boxes, peppermints and ironbarks and shedding smooth type like brittle gums and scribbly gums.
They are commonly called gum trees but the botanical term eucalypt means well (eu) covered (calyptos)

They are the dominant tree type growing all over the country and are evergreens only dropping some of their leaves when under stress.The growing season for most eucalyptus is summer. When the trees grow, they put on new sap wood on the outside and expand. As a result most smooth bark eucalypts shed a lot of their bark in the summer months.

This bark shedding is called “decorticating” and is a normal thing to see, especially with smooth barked gum trees. 

In smooth bark types, the bark comes off in flakes curls or long strips. In rough bark eucalyptus, the bark doesn’t fall off as easily, but accumulates in entwined, stringy masses of the tree.As the bark dries and peels, it often forms colourful patches and interesting patterns on the trunk of the tree. Some trees have striking patterns of stripes and flakes, and the peeling bark may expose bright yellow or orange colours of the new bark forming underneath.

Shedding eucalyptus tree bark may help keep the tree healthy. As the tree sheds its bark, it also sheds any mosses, lichens, fungi and parasites that may live on the bark. Some peeling bark can perform photosynthesis, contributing to the rapid growth and overall health of the tree.

Unfortunately the mass of fallen bark on forest floors contributes to the potential bushfire fuel during the season.