It’s a month since my last blog post.  I’ve been sewing during that time, and will update here on the blog soon.  It’s been a month of change.

The sun kept going up, and going down. Daylight hours grew longer and longer. Work from home started up again for me. Clare went back to school on site, then so did Stella.

Other than school going back, life continued to be centred at home.

And while all of this continued, the daily numbers of new covid-19 cases continued to go down. Every day we tuned in to the presser to hear what the numbers were and where things were at on the roadmap toward reopening. And gradually, some restrictions were relaxed and the numbers went down and down. And stayed down.

The 5km travel from home zone extended to 25 km – I finally got to go for a walk with my cousin Freya! And we were able to meet up in a park with Dan’s mum for the first time since she moved to Melbourne at the beginning of lockdown. So good. And eventually, the hairdressers opened as well.

Being able to have a haircut just felt so NORMAL. That was the best thing about it. Yes, the hairdresser and I still wore masks, but it felt so normal.

And then, lockdown ended. After 111 days since stage 3 restrictions began, that moved to stage 4, things eased considerably. From a daily high of 725 new cases at the beginning of August, we were down to a daily count of zero. The modelling was right.

On Wednesday retail businesses opened again. A number of restrictions on other workplaced eased. The ‘four reasons’ to leave the house were lifted. Hospitality venues opened again. Don’t get me wrong – there are still MANY restrictions about how everything is operating. Caps on numbers, density limits, still many activities not permitted, strict limits on inter-household visits, the 25km travel radius still remains in Melbourne as does the ‘ring of steel’ between Melbourne and regional Victoria. Masks remain mandatory. But it’s so good to go out for dinner with friends again, like we did on Friday evening. I am continuing to take life a week or so at a time. Because as well all know only too well nowadays, things can change – and they do.

I don’t really have the brain capacity to adequately describe how lockdown as been. At times we’ve been a deeply divided city, state and even country, and sometimes politics seemed to take over the public health imperative. Lockdown has definitely had a massive economic impact and many have really struggled with the negative mental health impacts. We’ll be dealing with the issues that have been created by lockdown for a long, long time. That said, I do think that we all pulled together and did what had to be done for the sake of public health. I have wondered a few times why most Victorians managed to adhere to lockdown, and think it might come down to Australians’ basic desire to have everyone looked after. We are a country with universal healthcare and social security, and I think that people from all sides of the political spectrum support those things (despite systemic imperfections). Letting the virus just ‘go for it’ wasn’t an acceptable proposition or a viable alternative to lockdown for the majority. I am sure that many people far cleverer than me have analysed all of this and will continue to do so, both locally and globally, those are just some of my thoughts (and I am well aware that not everyone will agree). Melbourne’s success in driving down covid-19 cases is being reported internationally. Let’s hope that others can learn from what happened here in Victoria, and be able to get the virus under some sort of control while mitigating the many negatives as much as possible. Meanwhile, we take our cautious steps back into our new normality, praying that all the systems that have been put into place since this second wave began have been refined and will be able to contain the cases that will inevitably pop up in the future. So far, so good. As I type this, I hear that Victoria once again has had no new cases or death in the last day. Boris Johnson has just announced a month long lockdown in England as total confirmed cases pass one million.

For us, what will probably be the biggest change of the past month is that Clare has finished school. She still has to do her final exams, with her last one on the 23rd November, but that’s it for formal classes. We began 2020 with so much excitement and anticipation for her last year. But all the things that Clare is involved in, and all the ‘lasts’ that create markers and help with the transition from one stage of life to another, evaporated. No last school production. No last Festival of Jazz. No last Mother’s Day morning tea, or Father’s Day breakfast.  No last music soiree. No last Carols concert. No last debate. No last liturgy, or last assembly. And obviously, none of these markers for us as parents either. But in many ways we were fortunate – Clare did get back to school on site for three weeks, and the school was able to arrange lots of special things to mark the end of the year within strict covid-safe guidelines. They had a pyjama day last week, and a dress-up day on the last day where the school provided a special breakfast, a gift parcel for each student, and a guard of honour as they left the school for the last time. And there will be a graduation ceremony once exams have finished, which will be students and staff only in attendance but will be live streamed for parents. We are incredibly proud of Clare and her cohort and her teachers – they deserve whatever celebrations and acknowledgements they can get! It’s been a year 12 like no other.

Oh 2020, what a year you’ve been so far. So many losses, for so many people, in so many different ways. Yes, there’s been some positives come out of it all, but gee those positives are extremely outweighed by the crap. And if I hear the word ‘resilience’ one more time I might just scream. I’d like to thank the many people who have contacted me during this time just to check in, to express solidarity, and to let me know how they are going. I send my best wishes and my love to all those who are currently living in places where covid-19 numbers are going up and up, and really do pray that things turn around for you soon too. I hope that the Victorian experience has given you hope.

To finish off, you may have noticed that my blog is now at a new address. The old one is currently redirecting here, but you might wish to update any bookmarks/subscriptions that you have, if you haven’t already. It will be getting a new look soon too – Clare ‘rebranded’ it as her major design project and assessment for Visual Communication, and I just need to do all the behind the scenes work to update. I’ll be back soon with some more sewing content – because really, isn’t that what we’re all here for!

Warning: this post is not about sewing or craft. And it’s very photo heavy.  Feel free to skip if those things aren’t your scene.

It’s day fifty-seven of greater Melbourne’s second lockdown (even more for some suburbs).  We moved from stage 3 restrictions (stay at home, no school for most, maximum one hour of essential exercise per day with two people maximum, no dining in) into stage 4 restrictions (all of the above plus masks and curfews and no school for almost anyone and only travel 5km from home and closure or restriction of almost all businesses), and that’s where we currently sit.  The daily number of new covid-19 cases is finally going down, but not enough yet to loosen the restrictions.  So, how is my family doing?

This second lockdown has felt very different to the first one, which started in late March. Of course, we’ve been living our lives under varying stages of restriction since then, but going back into remote learning and stay at home has been hard. I’m so nostalgic for those sweet days in early to mid June when we were able to gather in groups of ten at a local park, and have cafe meals in groups of less than six! Visiting friends in their homes! Driving up to the country to see my parents! Ah, those were the days.

 I’ve been taking a morning photo every morning since lockdown began, usually the view across the city skyline from the window at the top of the stairs. I generally take it somewhere between 7.00am and 7.30am. It’s different every day. It’s a way for me to mark the passing of the days, while forcing me to pause and look and admire the colours and the clouds and the trees. I think about those city buildings, with their twinkling lights, and think about the people who would normally be gathering there. There are very few planes in the sky. I have become used to their absence.

The first few weeks were particularly hard. Dan and I have been working from home since March. Stella didn’t get to return to on-site school after the mid-year holidays. Clare had a couple of weeks back on site – she’s in her final year of school, with the final exams now looming – until we went to stage 4 and she was back studying at home as well. Every day we watched the number of new cases go up, and up, and up. The rest of the country watched it too. But this time it felt like ‘them and us’ as the remaining states (understandably) closed borders. And this time around we were tired. The first time around there was a sense of camaraderie, and novelty, and through the shock and the incredulity our adrenaline kept us going. Second time? SO different. So difficult.  I really struggled emotionally for a few weeks.  At one point I was incredibly angry.  Then amazingly sad.  Now I’m okay. I just take life a day to a week at a time. It sounds trite, but I am now much better at living in the moment, appreciating the simple pleasures, and really stopping to admire the wattle, the camellias, the banksias, and the magnolias.

 

It’s my daughters that I worry about the most, and feel that in my immediate family they are the most impacted.  Not being on site in class for Clare’s final year of high school and Stella’s first year of high school have been huge.  All the usual rituals and markers and special events that take place in those years are either missing completely or inadequately replicated via technology.  I’ve been impressed by the school and their teachers, who are all doing the best that they can possibly do, but it’s just not the same.  We’re all so sad about it.  Clare and her friends do a pretty good job of staying in regular contact, organising fun online presentation and quiz nights.  Stella is making the most of every opportunity to play MineCraft, and ‘chat’ to her online gaming friends, but hasn’t had much opportunity to continue to form and solidify the new friendships that go along with starting high school.  Both girls have continued to do Zoom dance classes and instrumental and voice lessons.  Clare’s still had online Girl Guides, while Stella is taking a break from it.  

 

 

 

Dan is working from the dining table, which is not really ideal, but the shed is too cold at this time of year!  His clients are mostly in the same situation, and are now used to Zoom audits where there are household sounds in theh backgrounds.  That’s just life and work in lockdown.  I was working up until a couple of weeks ago.  The contracts for the work that could be done remotely have come to an end, and much of the other work that I do requires us to be on site – just not an option in Melbourne at the moment.  And who knows when I’ll be able to go interstate for work again!  I had so many trips away for work in my calendar this year; now they’ve all been deleted.  I don’t know when I’ll have work again – maybe in a couple of months.  The work is still there, waiting – we just can’t do it at the moment.  I’m not eligible for JobKeeper, but fortunately we are in a financial situation where it’s not too much of a stress.  I have to say that running the household is easier when I’m not also working!  

 

 

 

At the moment our life has contracted to a 5km radius.  The girls have barely been out of the house; I managed to drag Clare out for a walk only recently.  I think that they quite like bunkering down, in a way.  The excitement level when the doorbell rings is considerable – because it only rings when we have a delivery!  Hair colour, oodies, books, leisurewear, eBay shoes, a dog poo composter! We’ve had specialty chocolate treat kits delivered, multiple meals from local eateries, wine (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), and even ice cream.  We’ve watched masses of TV.  We were relatively late adopters of streaming services – now we have Netflix, Stan and Disney.  Good grief.  I can barely read books – I don’t have the concentration or the mental bandwidth.  I’m back in the habit of doing home manicures, and the girls are working their way through temporary hair colours.  Gee, I’m hanging out for the hairdresser to open again.  I’m sewing sporadically, not according to any plan or logic whatsoever.  I just make whatever takes my fancy, even if unseasonal.  Dan has been going for bike rides or for a jog, and he’s meditating regularly.  I wish that I found meditation a useful practice, but it’s never worked for me.  Stella entertains herself with YouTube and with comic books and some novels – her English novel this semester was a huge hit; we’re waiting for the second and third books in the series to arrive.  Shifting googly eyes around this house has also been a source of amusement.  Clare’s been doing fancy manicures on herself on a regular basis.  Her Literature class had a regular thing going for a while where they all dressed according to a theme for each class – hats, sunglasses, make-up, etc.  Our dog Buzz has been unwell, which is awful.  He’s fairly old at around thirteen years, and it turns out that he has Cushing’s disease.  He’s just started on medication today, and we’re really hoping that this makes him feel much better for his last few years.  

 

 

 

 

I get out for a walk a few times each week – we’re allowed one hour of essential exercise per day, with one other person (wearing masks, of course).  I walk with one friend on Tuesdays, and sometimes with another later in the week.  We are incredibly fortunate to have a creek and surrounding parklands within walking distance.  There are always plenty of people there either walking, jogging or cycling.  There’s nothing quite like the trees and the flowers and the sound of the water in the distance.  Even on the walk to and from the creek we come across so many beautiful details in the plants and the clouds.  My usual coffee catchups on Thursday and Friday mornings are now via Zoom.  It’s not the same, but it’s all we’ve got.  Monthly book group meetings are also on Zoom.  We even did a Nojourn sewing weekend via Zoom.  I go to the market or supermarket generally once per week, twice at the most.  Everyone there is tense.  It’s harder to communicate now that we’re all wearing masks.  It’s easy for things to be misunderstood.

 

 

 

 

 

I know that this will end.  We just don’t know when.  And currently I am at the stage where for my immediate family, I can see that the glass is half full rather than half empty.  We have a great deal to be thankful and grateful for.  There are many people in much more difficult situations.  It’s shit, this pandemic is absolute shit, and it’s not going away fast, but eventually it will be over and we’ll be able to move on with our lives.  Stella said the other day ‘when I’m old I’ll be able to tell my children about how when I was a teenager I lived through a pandemic and we couldn’t leave the house for months and months’.  Well yes, she will.  But right now, we just take each day at a time.  I hold on to the happiness of overhead conversations between the girls and their friends, to the deeper knowledge of what they are learning at school, and of their constantly strengthening personalities.  They are resilient, and they are funny, and they are still seeing the joy whilst acknowledging the sad.  I don’t think that I can ask much more than that.  I know that I will miss them when they eventually return to on-site learning, while at the same time relishing the time to myself.  I hold on to the things that make me smile each day – and it doesn’t actually take all that much.

 

 

I hope that those of you who have read this far are doing okay.  We’re all riding the coronacoaster.  I think of my parents two hours drive away in Shepparton, who I haven’t seen since early June – and they are 82 and 93.  I think of my brother Ross who is in North Carolina, and wonder when we will be able to see him again.  Then I stop wondering, and just wait.  I wait, because that’s all that I can do.

 

Added graph for context on Melbourne’s numbers of new cases during this second wave, with projections.  Further Australian data can be found here.

This blog post isn’t directly about sewing, or about travel.  It’s about weight – specifically, mine.  For anyone who has a history of disordered eating, this may be a trigger, so I suggest that you skip reading this post.  I’m writing it because I have recently lost a fair bit of weight, and people have noticed and commented.

I don’t have a history of disordered eating, in a conventional or medical sense.  I was a thin kid and adolescent.  In my adulthood I gained weight.  So I did intensive exercise and calorie restriction and lost it.  Then I gained it again.  And lost it again.  Repeat.  Ad nauseum.  I think that every time I did it my resting metabolism dropped lower and lower.  Eventually I read about the negative effects of diet culture and the impact of fatphobia – both societal and internalised – and decided to just stop focusing on my weight, and instead keep on sewing to fit the body that I have.

I made this decision for a few reasons – a major one being that I had no health imperative to change things.  I have always been dubious about weight discussions disguised as concern for people’s health.  It’s fatphobia, combined with ableism.  Fat does not necessarily equal healthy, any more than thin does.  It’s a false equivalence.  There are plenty of thin people who have terrible health – both mental and physical – and plenty of fat people who are incredibly healthy and strong.  My blood tests and external health markers were always in normal range.  I like good foods, unprocessed and fresh, but I also enjoy potato chips, soft cheeses, chocolate, and wine.

Then last year I started getting gastrointestinal symptoms that were affecting the quality of my life.  I was often uncomfortable.  My day job involves reading medical records, and I’d been reading many, many records related to diseases of the digestive system, especially of the liver.  I have a certain level of paranoia due to my job, so I booked in with my GP.  She ran all the usual tests plus a few more (these were all fine apart from a protozoa in my gut that many people have, but only cause issues in some) and she also ordered abdominal ultrasounds.  The ultrasounds only found one issue – fatty liver.

Now, fatty liver is not a good thing to have.  It occurs when your body starts putting fat into organs in addition to increasing subcutaneous fat.  To reduce it, I needed to lose weight.

As it happens, my husband – not an overweight man – was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes about ten years ago.  He’s genetically susceptible to it; siblings also have high blood sugar.  Until recently he’s managed to keep it under control via exercise and diet alone.  We’ve done our own reading on the management of diabetes, and came across the work of Dr Jason Fung, a nephrologist.  He recommends fasting as a key method of decreasing insulin production in the body, and therefore reducing the impact of diabetes along with a corresponding weight loss.  Intermittent fasting has recently been popularised in the UK and Australia by Dr Michael Mosley.  Both my husband and I have science backgrounds, and the logic inherent in the work of both these men makes sense to us.  If you google fasting there are a myriad of articles about it – it’s becoming more and more well known and more popular.

My husband was already doing a complete fast two days per week, and in October I began doing it too.  For two days a week – mostly Monday and Wednesday – I don’t eat.  I drink black coffee in the mornings, and I drink plenty of water, but that’s it.  Mosley’s version of intermittent fasting allows a small amount of food on fast days, but that only makes me hungry.  I prefer to have nothing.

On the five days of the week that I eat, I choose higher protein/fat and vastly reduced bread/rice/potato and processed foods, and I avoid sugar.  I’ve also reduced my alcohol intake – my last alcoholic drink was in December, but I expect that I will enjoy a glass or two of wine on occasion.  I will sometimes have a piece of cake or some soft cheese and crackers, but not often.  I don’t count calories/kilojoules or plan my food each day; this way of eating doesn’t take up much head space.  I eat fresh foods, with as little processing as possible.  I didn’t fast at all for the three weeks that we were away on holiday, but tried to follow the same eating principles, without snacking in between.

So far I’ve gone from the BMI calculator defintion of obese through overweight to now not far from the ‘healthy’ weight range.  Most importantly, my gastrointestinal symptoms have improved significantly.  I won’t know about the fatty liver unless I have another ultrasound.  I’ll be interested to see what my other blood tests/health markers show next GP visit as well.

So yes, I do look different.  It’s not just the change of hair colour (I’m growing in the grey, which could potentially be a whole other blog post) and hair length.  Will I be able to sustain this lifestyle change?  I think so.  For me, it’s medically necessary.  I want to feel well, and reduce my chance of developing liver and pancreas issues.  I have tried fasting before, but that wasn’t with a health motivation.  Societal weight expectations don’t make me change my eating behaviours in the longer term! This time, it’s different.

Detractors of fasting say that it’s just another diet and another fad that plays right into diet culture.  I’m not so certain about this.  Many cultures around the world incorporate fasting into their regular lives, whether for one day a week or for other periods of time.  It’s not an unusual thing; billions of people do it.  Here in Australia we are conditioned to eat every time we feel a hunger pang.  Honestly, it’s not that hard to cope with feeling hungry every now and then.  For me, it’s only until the next day.  But there still isn’t any published research into the long-term effects of fasting.  I’d also like to see more research on intermittent fasting in perimenopausal women and how women’s hormones interact with insulin.  Most of what I’ve read has focused on men (which isn’t unusual when it comes to medical research).

Honestly, I was conflicted in writing this post.  The last thing that I want to do is to become part of diet culture, but I suspect that just by writing this I have done exactly that.  This post is just about me – sample size of one person – and I think it’s really important to remember that everyone’s journey and needs and health situations are different.  You need to do your own research and figure what works for you and your body and mind, in a holistic sense, when it comes to things like weight and food and health.  This is difficult in the society we live in.  In general I don’t talk about diets and weight and weight loss, and I actively avoid placing value judgements on foods.  There are more rewarding things in life to be spending your time and energy on; after all, you could be sewing!

 

Edited to add: Thank you so much to all the people who have commented on this post or contacted me in other ways.  It has clearly struck a chord with many people.  I was very interested to read how many of you have discovered that fasting has had a positive health impact on your lives, especially those of you my age and older.  Thanks again for your responses – they are greatly appreciated.