Well, so far 2020, apart from the gorgeous little baby girl in my family, you've been pretty poor!
What a ridiculous situation with the Covid. Or as we Australians call it, the Rona. It has been madness in all aspects of life. Here, each state/territory is doing its own thing; initially we were all following the federal line but then the virus evolved or whatever it does and we are all doing lockdown things differently. My state, Queensland, has closed all borders and we can only travel 150 km for a visit with 10 people only. No pubs, restaurants (apart from takeaway), no gyms, cinemas, yoga, pilates..... that's my whole life gone! It's been tough. But work continued - here in QLD the schools did distance learning for the first five weeks of this term; we went to school every day and sat in classrooms and delivered everything via Teams online. Children of essential workers could attend (100 of those, out of 1200) but most didn't. Then Years 11 and 12 (sixth form) came back; then last Monday everyone else came back. So far, so good. Kids can't social distance, obviously; but I'm using my hand sanitiser every hour and washing my hands furiously all day long. And in this country, the total deaths so far are 102. Yes, 102. Only 8 in my state of 5m people. So for me, it feels like a massive over-reaction. However, I have seen what it did in the UK, USA etc. So I guess we were lucky here. Being a big island, the borders closed to every flight in March and every passenger who landed had to do 2 weeks' isolation in a hotel. I think the hardest thing will be the economic recovery. Here, Virgin Australia has gone into administration (with $2K of mine...) and as yet, no buyer has said they'll take on the debt. I've got a voucher for my ticket (which was for 26 June, for our school holidays, to come back to the UK and see the baby) - but I'm not really expecting it to turn into a real ticket in the end.
Yes, I am now a grannie - or as I like to call myself, a Glamma (obviously). My friends at work decorated my desk in pink to celebrate her arrival on St George's Day - and all of those balloons and streamers are STILL THERE! She is delightful - a healthy little girl called Nell (official name Ellen) and the new parents have coped brilliantly by themselves in lockdown London. Poor guys. I do feel so sorry for them but they've been amazingly calm about it all. My ex-husband has seen her and the other grandmother has, but not many others. I get to see photos via Whatsapp and I get a video call via Facetime some weekends. It's hard - but it was always going to be this way, once I'd moved overseas My gorgeous daughter and son-in-law were supposed to be out here now for a year's social/working here, but of course that has had to stop. My son-in-law had a visa for a year's work (my daughter has a passport like me so she can come anytime) but that visa has expired and Aus Gov don't seem inclined to renew it for him. They're thinking maybe 2 months here towards the end of this year, but again, it all depends on the Rona and what situation we're all in.
In terms of life, I'm pretty good (apart from the social life and the lack of travel or being able to plan anything). Work is busy - I've just been made permanent after a year's contract, which is brilliant - means I'll get paid in the holidays all year long. And I finally got my "full" registration as a real Australian teacher - they wouldn't give it to me until I'd done 200 days of teaching here (teaching anywhere else in the world doesn't count) and put together an evidence portfolio. My principal had to sign it off... 22 years I've been qualified!! I am loving being back in the classroom and only worrying about that. No other stress really. I am teaching Year 11 (sixth form) English Lit, Year 10 and 9 English, Year 10 History and Year 9 Humanities (History and Geog). All lovely. I'm leading Year 10 English and Year 10 History which just means I do the planning, co-ordinate cross-marking of assessments, write the assessments and help anyone who needs it. I'm thinking I will probably go for the next stage up which is Highly Accomplished Teacher, for which I need 2 years of appraisal and a much bigger evidence file. Something to work on. Longer term, I'm thinking that I'll do 7 years (aiming for the paid long service leave of 9 weeks - for every 7 years of public service here, you get about a term off, fully paid - to encourage you to stay in the public sector I think) and then retire. By then I should probably have sold my UK house and hopefully be receiving my UK teacher pension, and I'll be ready to do nothing but volunteering in my "spare" time.
Since January I've been part of a car pool to work - there are four of us living close by each other (on different beaches in Caloundra) and we share the driving. So one week it's my turn, and I drive everyone there and back every day - and then I don't have to drive again for three weeks. Just brilliant. It saves lots of fuel and miles on the car, but also it's a great way to de-stress from the day and also to ask questions about stuff I don't know!
You'll remember I moved in Jan to my new place which is right by the beach - I can hear the surf every night which is very soothing and my garden is mainly sand for soil! I'm learning about new plants and what grows when, because everything I do know about is English. It's weird to be thinking, ah winter is here (1 June here is winter) when I am used to that being summer in the northern hemisphere! And it's weird to plant my hyacinths now....!
I've enjoyed a great season with the volunteer lifeguards, where I've learned first aid, CPR, defib, board rescues, boat rescues etc. I've really liked learning brand new skills and being part of a little team where I became increasingly useful as the season wore on. We have most of the autumn and all winter off, so we finished early May and we will start up again in September, all being well. It was tricky keeping social distancing when we were doing first aid! I have thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of my non-work life and feeling useful.
The cats have settled well after their mammoth journey. I've had a cat enclosure fitted in my new house, called Alcatraz by the builder and they can spend all day outside in the sandy flower beds, in the sun or the shade and beetle in through their cat flap whenever they feel like it. Heaven for them, I think. They have both developed an aversion to loud noises/motors, which I think comes from their flights here, but their vet visits have shown they're doing fine. Both have lost a little weight but are happy.
ANZAC Day here was interesting - usually it's a big service led by all the veteran soldiers but because of Covid, we all did our honouring memories on our driveways, with candles and the radio playing the Last Post. It was actually quite poignant and I felt it was superb. My landlord, at the end of our street, got us all together at a safe distance to share some Drambuie at the end of the service! I made my ANZAC biscuits to share at school; they're getting better quality!
A couple of weeks ago I did a Zoom meeting with my lovely colleagues at the Talent Foundry (formerly the Transformation Trust). It was so good to see everyone on screen - it was a 9pm start for me, midday for them. What's interesting is how many of the issues in schools/education overlap, despite the physical distance between the UK and Australia. I do find that interesting.
I've taken a more active role in the union at our school; it's an independent school (Catholic) and I've become part of the union executive. It means that as the executive we have fairly regular meetings with the school's leadership and raise concerns on behalf of the members. Pretty similar to what I did as a headteacher, in a lot of ways. And it's good to feel useful.
I'm still cycling most weekends and doing beach walks most evenings, although recently it has been dark by 5pm so unless I'm home from school in good time, it's too dark to walk. There was a cold snap last week and the temperature dropped to 9 deg C - unheard of for May, apparently! The great thing about our aircon systems here is that you flick a switch and they give you hot air instead of cold. Brilliant. And of course I've got plenty of socks and sweaters from the UK!!
Lots of people here have become great home bakers over the lockdown; for weeks we couldn't buy flour in the supermarkets, then last week, it was eggs that were missing. Pasta, rice and toilet paper are all back on the shelves after months of limits and scarcity. Hand sanitiser is also available now; it's just baby wipes/cleaning wipes that seem to be missing now.
Petrol here has become super cheap in the last few weeks; something to do with global prices? This week it's dropped below 99 cents per litre for unleaded petrol. The exchange rate is also in my favour going from Aus to UK - $1.85 per UK pound. This means that the fuel is about 53 pence per litre here. Amazing! And one of the car poolers showed me how to use my cruise control on the Corolla, so I've been playing with that when I drive.
The saddest news of the year so far is that my gorgeous cousin Will passed away in mid January. He was only 67. He'd fought hard against stomach cancer, thought he'd beaten it and then it came back. My cousins asked me to write and deliver the eulogy which I did, though it was so hard. The funeral was transmitted live to the UK so that everyone else could be part of it - I was impressed with that technology, I didn't know that sort of thing happened. Will was a tremendous bloke and like my older brother; he lived with my family for a while when I was growing up here, so it's been incredibly difficult without him. My cousins are great fun and super company; we meet up a couple of times a month usually and it's been lovely to be part of an extended family here with little cousins aged 7, 5 and 2 having birthdays etc.
Fingers crossed that all of this Covid madness is soon ended, that there is a vaccine or at least some positive treatment and outcomes. 2020 - you need to shape up or ship out.
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