Day 28

It should have been the final chapter. Really. But not quite. It’s a few more days only including our second long weekend of the Lockdown. So not only have we been in Lockdown we’ve had two precious long weekends in the year taken from us although Easter was actually ok for me. First world problems really!

It was a very busy day at work and I’ve done something to my Iliotibial band which has slowed up my walking. People tell me that I need to get a golf ball into it and roll over it!

It’s felt like routine hard day of work today, without any real break. One thing I like about the work at home is when I have a break I can just lie on the couch – or bed, don’t tell anyone – catch up on the news, relax, then back at it. It’s one of the things you don’t have at work. Well I don’t although in days gone by I’ve been to offices where people have couches. Mostly before a financial crisis!

So as we get ready to come out of Lockdown, what happens? For knowledge workers, not much as far as work goes, although you can visit clients in certain circumstances. Speaking of first world problems you can have a cleaner again – but get out of the house while they do their business – you can buy takeaways and takeaway coffee, and take a car for a test drive, contactless (with the salesperson I assume).

After two or three weeks we’ll be out of Level 3 and most people can get back to normal working. I’ve been thinking about what it is that I will capture and hold going back to normal life.  Not working in the evenings or weekends combined with more structure during the days – I’ve discovered these two things are strongly related. Staying in touch with more people – geography has had less meaning and we talk on video all the time now. Has the age of the video phone finally arrived after 20 years of false starts?

We had another COVID-19 related death today from the Christchurch Resthome making for a total of 14. There’s now 2 people only in ICU and 401 active cases. Globally these are very low numbers and really, we can say that the pandemic has not arrived, didn’t arrive, and we desperately need to start focussing on economic and social recovery.

One of my three readers told me today that he was impressed that every day I get up with a new blog. I’m worried about the remaining days. I wonder if I’ve run out of steam. Can I come up with something for five more days!

Four weeks, we did it, it felt like a long way off on 25 March, but we got there. For some people the economics have been enormously challenging: jobs lost, prospects derailed, plans upset, businesses shuttered and the entire international tourism sector gone.

We can recover. I’ve lived through quite a few big crises – the average person didn’t know the crisis was upon us until it was well underway. For many people, especially pre-Kiwisaver, the stock market was a remote and distant construct. But this time the pace of movement into crisis has been virtually overnight. We even know the night – 25 March 2020. Which is a great start to get moving and rebuild.

I’m quite optimistic that we’re move quickly into recovery and rebuild. I admit to even being a little excited about it all. I’ll do my bit where I can. The next chapter.

Stephen