A Friday night at the pub turned into the school holidays from hell

“If this was Melbourne, or pretty much anywhere else in Australia, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.”

Over schooner number “sure I’ll have another” at the Crossways Hotel on Friday night two weeks ago, it was interesting the NSW government appeared determined to avoid a city-wide lockdown. Cases had popped up around us on the map; maybe Strathfield would be next.

“Of course, if 5000 people get infected and 50 people end up dead, that will be the end of the government,” I said blithely, before navigating my way back to the bar and taking a detour to the playground to check on the children.

The conversation has come back to haunt me in the past two weeks, which turned into the school holidays from hell.

Work from home they said: Kim, 1, and Vincent, 5, are of little help when putting together a newspaper.Credit: Michael Ruffles

The next day the Premier announced Greater Sydney would be locked down, but that wasn’t enough to sate the fates we had tempted. For two days we persisted in sending Mr Five to school holiday care and Mr One-and-a-bit to daycare because there was work to be done. Not the least of which was laundry.

The cluster grew, the trepidation mounted. We grabbed another bottle of milk and a takeaway coffee that tasted forbidden.

The alert arrived the next morning. Anyone at the pub that night was to self-isolate for 14 days and take three COVID tests before rejoining the world in lockdown. All four of us were to leave our two-bedroom flat only for a COVID test or an emergency.

If absence made the heart grow fonder, what would all this time in each other’s presence do? None of us likes sitting still, but it is especially true of the smaller ones. It was a race to see what would break first, our spirit or the walls.

Turns out it was a hand mirror. Then a bottle of face cleanser. Then I stopped counting. Two little pet fish named A and B died when we couldn’t get medicine from a pet shop a few hundred metres away, but the larger fish Neville survived after a friend dropped some at the door.

Working in the corner of the living room proved a pain in the neck. Well, shoulders. Mr One-and-a-bit got bored abseiling down the back of the couch and decided Mount Dad was a better target. The joy of reaching the summit seemed undiminished after 40 attempts.

Mr One-and-a-Bit wants to help make a newspaper.Credit: Michael Ruffles

The busiest moments of my evening shifts coincided with the craziest times: tears and tantrums, food everywhere. The same can be said of the kids.

It felt like the walls were closing in on us. A trot outside to the bin made for an unlikely source of adventure. Trips to the Summer Hill COVID testing clinic were marked on the calendar.

Two of us got quick results for the day-seven test, while the other two had an awkward wait. Did I pick it up at the pub while asking for directions to the cutlery? Did I pass it on to the youngest?

Thoughts turned to an overseas friend who spent two weeks in ICU after catching the coronavirus, and the daily updates until his recovery. The mind also fixated on the harm the Delta has inflicted on children, and how more people in our age group (mid to late 30s) had been infected this time around. The death toll I didn’t dare look at. Ding ding, all clear.

As maddening as two weeks trapped indoors could be, of course it wasn’t as bad as one day in a Soviet gulag. Solzhenitsyn may never have heard Let It Go from Frozen, but he did have it rougher. At least we could put a picnic blanket on the balcony next to the airconditioning outlet.

There was relief when the final messages arrived from NSW Health. Number of tests passed: 12. Number infected: zero.

We left isolation Friday night only to re-enter a city increasingly isolated as lockdown restrictions tighten. The daily infection numbers show no signs of going down, and the Premier issued a stark warning that “we will see thousands and thousands of hospitalisations and death” if the Delta variant is allowed to spread unchecked.

We walked out only to find a changed city with police on the streets and measures designed to stop anyone moving too freely.

So another trip to the pub is off the cards. But at least we’re able to stretch our legs, two at a time.