How fast?
Time flies. Doesn’t it go fast? Even in a pandemic. This week marks the start of our third month in Perth. We definitely aren’t, but if we were travelling as planned, I would be slightly anxious that we had already had 2 months on the road. Our trip, when it finally happens, and it will, is open ended, but after 8 weeks I will certainly be praying for the time to slow down.
Time may have just slowed down for Victoria, as in the last week she has started work. Spending the first day in the office, ostensibly just to collect a work laptop, and ensure that she was able to log into all the necessary work systems. She did. And she was.
Now, like all her colleagues at the small, local bank she has joined, she is working from home. This is mooted to be at least for the next 2 weeks. I know how hard it is to join a new organisation, and how long it takes before you start feeling settled. Having to do this remotely adds a level of complexity that can be hard to navigate. I will be sure to keep her supplied with strong cups of Yorkshire Tea.
The elusive job search
Whilst making tea is only a part time occupation, this still leaves me on the hunt for a job. In the 8 weeks we have been here, I have not seen one role for an agile coach advertised. This does not bode well. Either the job market is taking a long time to rebound from the pandemic, or I could have picked the only major city in Australia where I can’t find work.
I did get a slight surge in positivity last week when I joined my first (remote) MeetUp here in Perth. For the uninitiated, MeetUps are organised groups of people with a common interest. And they, well, meet up, obviously. In the world of “agile” which I work in, they are very popular. Agile does love a good echo chamber.
I often attended the Sydney Scrum user group whilst over on the East Coast, and this week I joined the Agile Perth group. To hear that there are over 2000 members in the group self identifying as “agilists” suggests that they must all be working somewhere. I just need to find out where.
Always learning
That said, I am not sure where I will fit work into my busy schedule. Anyone who tells me that they would be bored in retirement, just haven’t got enough interests. My days are amply filled with researching and writing potential articles, studying and revising for my WSET Level 1 wine course, sketching out a possible workshop I could deliver remotely to clients, learning more about the craft of professional coaching, and where I get time, reading widely. Phew.
To relax, I am getting through a list of books that I have wanted to read for a long time but never committed to. After finishing the excellent “Long Walk to Freedom”, by Nelson Mandela, I am now working my way through “Middlemarch”, by George Eliot. Described by Virginia Woolf as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people”. At 838 pages, and with other books on the go at the same time, it could take me awhile.
Keeping fit and healthy
One thing that has been good, with not working, is that our exercise levels have increased from the already high levels we had in Sydney. Not being in an office all day has allowed for a number of long daily walks, taking our average daily step count well in advance of the 12000 target I had in Sydney. Averaging at around 25000 steps a day, and with no increase in weekly alcohol consumption (no decrease either, to be fair), my clothes seem to be fitting better than ever. Once I can afford a haircut, I am convinced that I will be even lighter.
This week we had another positive step on the journey to a “new normal”, post COVID19. Western Australia has fared very well dealing with the virus, and as of writing we have only had 2 new cases in the last week, with only 1 person in hospital. This means we have 3 active cases.
On the back of this, our State Government has allowed pubs, cafes, and restaurants to re-open, albeit for only 20 people at a time. With the 2sq metre rule still in place, this does mean that each venue can only have a few, spaced out tables. This makes for a somewhat strange experience, but I am not sure I would advocate what I saw in the news, where some restaurants are sitting mannequins at tables to make the dining room appear to be busier. That is just creepy. Here in Perth, every real person dining in has to provide their contact details, no doubt to allow for contact tracing should there be a spike in cases.
Back to normal? Kind of…
I’m excited to say that we are going out for our first dinner in a restaurant this week. Friday evening will see us dining at the renowned Balthazar restaurant in the city. This will be the first time we have eaten out since the Sunday evening before we left Sydney. That night was the last that pubs were open and I shall hold on to fond memories of the chicken parmy I had In the Hotel Mosman. My mouth is watering at the thought.
I finally had my first coffee in an actual glass, and sat in a cafe, in over 2 months. Praise the lord. That coffee tasted good. Not only are paper cups bad for the environment, but I also find that coffee does not taste as good in them. On top of this, baristas pour less love into each cup of coffee they make, as they can hide their rushed work with a takeaway coffee cup lid. My impression of the coffee industry in Perth so far is that it is perhaps the Championship to the Premier League that is Sydney and Melbourne.
I often talk about my love of coffee (stop rolling your eyes!), and how my morning brew is one of the simple things that I am grateful for each day. I am hoping the quality of coffee improves now that we can sit in, and the barista has nowhere to hide.
Hello autumn
As the temperature starts to drop in the mornings, with us looking at the quickly approaching winter, it will be me hiding. Inside. I may fantasise sometimes about being back in a cold climate country. Digging out the winter wardrobe. Long walks in the snow. Cold pints in front of a log fire. And believe me, I do pine for this. Probably more than I should. Then I go for a walk around the village, and along the river, and even with the mercury just dipping into single figures I am ready to get back inside, to warm up.
To warm up, at this time of year, we are usually packing our bags, and heading to Europe. And how I would love to be able to do this now. Facebook memories are not helping. At all. Who wants to see that cute little restaurant in Positano, when you are stuck in the middle of an epidemic? Or that time your only worry was the fact that your beer was warming up, languidly laid around the pool at the villa in Kos.
Here is hoping that time flies, fast forwarding through this year, and we can all get planning our next holiday. Whether that is to support your local tourism industry, and we will be doing a lot of this in 2020, or if you plan to take yourself off to a beach for a while to put this year behind us.
Tell me, how are you?
I’d love to hear how you are all getting on. How you are adapting, and adjusting to the current situation. What you have learned as a result of this. What you are grateful for. And what you hope will change when we come out the other side. The things you don’t want to “go back to normal”. I would love to write a blog post all about you, and share all our experiences with each other. So drop me a line.
Until then, keep safe, keep physically distant but socially close.
Thinking of you all.
Leave a Reply