Covid lockdown in Sydney ends without a grizzle
After more than 100 days of being house and LGA-bound, we’re free – sort of.
Rain, hail or shine, I know where I’ll be this weekend. My toes will be wriggling in the sand, my lungs sucking in litres of salty air. Our smelly old labrador will be throwing her arthritic body recklessly into the waves before finding something disgusting on the shore to roll in. This afternoon, I’ll be hugging friends tightly and sipping champers. After more than 100 days of being house and LGA-bound, we’re free – sort of.
It was a cruel move for NSW’s new Premier to nominate a Monday for our partial liberation. Those of us chained to our desks all week have had to endure five more days to truly taste freedom, but it’s a small price to pay.
This lockdown felt different from the first. The sense of fear and uncertainty that weighed heavily on 2020’s incarceration – and the desperate need to stay busy – was replaced with calm resignation and a slowing down. For the first time in years, I’ve had luxurious weekend naps on the couch. I felt not one ounce of guilt for starving, and therefore murdering, my sourdough starter. There was something creepy about having a living organism in the fridge anyway, as though it might pour forth from the door like The Blob.
The DIY macrame wall hanging is frayed and unfinished. The Nocturne I fancied might be retrieved from my teenage piano-playing brain has not been tinkled. Hell, I completed only one jigsaw puzzle. As my children say, whatever.
The only activity I have diligently stuck at has been exercise, kept honest – and sane – by my trainer and my outdoor gym buddy. Judging by the profusion of couples brandishing dumbbells and skipping ropes in the local park, our suburb’s collective mental health and bodies must be in pretty good shape.
Staying active has prevented us from resembling the contenders in this year’s Fat Bear Week competition, an event that celebrates the brown bears of Katmai National Park, Alaska. Photos show the beasts in spring looking scrawny after sleeping through their self-imposed winter famine. They then pile on the pounds, gorging on salmon and producing bellies and bottoms that bulge magnificently in preparation for their next hibernation. It’s like Covid lockdown in reverse. And it appears there wasn’t a lot of social distancing going on last spring either; some of those big fat mammas have chubby cubbies in tow.
This year’s winner, determined by an online vote, was Otis, a male of about 25 years. Photos from July show him looking frankly pathetic, ribs clearly visible through his shabby coat. By September he looks like a world-champion sumo wrestler, his enormous tummy hanging low, his thick coat glossy in the sun.
This week, T+L heads to Alaska too, in search of Kodiak bears. Click here to see where the wild things are. Meanwhile, to all our readers and industry colleagues in Victoria – hang in there.
