In times of trouble I focus on things I can control, like my lawn.
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But who am I kidding, looking at that sea of clover out the front of my house.
It's the only thing that's really flourished through winter and to be fair, it's pretty lush and green.
Almost luxuriant, what with the August winds blowing through on cue this week, and just that sense of spring in the air.
But still, the clover must die.
Because there's COVID in our sewage and wouldn't that give you the shits.
Creeping up our coastline to bite us on the bottom, it seems.
The miracle is it hasn't shown up sooner given the amount of open houses we've had during the Hunter housing boom, attracting all those out of towners.
Not to mention construction teams and any other anecdotal variation on people moving in and out of lockdown, somewhere else.
Most of us suspected our turn was coming.
Hopefully it restricts itself to the treatment works, but experience would suggest that's wishful thinking.
Just like an increase in vaccination rates in the Hunter.
That'd happen if they didn't keep re-directing those vaccines back to Sydney.
And now the PM says the're blowing back to Newcastle, so maybe it's those August winds again.
Talk about getting the treatment.
It's really put the spotlight on what "gold standard" means in terms of managing something.
You would have thought "limiting" or "preventing" might have been the go.
Now it's starting to feel like an "orderly distribution".
I know it's not constructive to lay blame when it's so hard working out who to blame.
Funny how our leaders tend to dodge the questions about how this got out of hand again and focus on leading us through the crisis they possibly allowed to get out of hand.
Hindsight is a handy thing though. It's the hind talk that's hard to interpret.
So to my lawn I turn with a pocket full of mantras picked up watching the Olympics.
Condensed down, in the main, to "I can do this".
Because in times of crisis I turn to things I can control, like pesticide.
But who am I kidding again.
The weed 'n feed bottle rarely connects properly to my hose.
And what with the August winds powering down the street, droplets invariably make their way to plants that weren't earmarked for extermination. Like the roses.
Used to be four or so when we moved in. Now it's down to about one and a half.
But they're still hanging in there, and so are we.
These August winds will blow through soon. Just like the pandemic.
And like the roses and I'm guessing the clover, we'll blossom again.
I just blooming well hope it's sooner than later
