Surviving in the Bubble - Week One

April 1, 2020

Hi and welcome to what I hope will be a weekly blog.

While most of you are probably enjoying the comfort of your own home, I’m not.

For some reason I have ended up in Nelson for the lock-down. Known as one of the sunniest regions of New Zealand, I can’t really complain. Besides which, I always wanted to give living in the South Island a go.

For those of you who may not be aware, I have always led a rather transient life and at this current point in time of world history I was house and dog-sitting for some good friends, Jolie & Ian (who was having stem cell treatment in Christchurch) when this corona-virus shit started to go down.

Luckily they made it home before lock-down, while I debated whether to make the mad dash across Cooks Strait to Wellington (my summer base) to hole up in my caravan for the duration.

Funnily enough my ex, Greig and his new partner Pip (who I get on with like a house on fire) were also holidaying in their bus in the Nelson region. We planned to catch the ferry back together but that decision was soon taken out of our hands. Now they are stuck in Nelson too and have parked up with friends in Richmond.

Fortuitously, another darling friend Amanda, had just spent the summer in her bus out at Motueka. She had planned to move into her rental property in Stoke for the winter, and when the tenants vacated the property two weeks earlier than planned she invited me to stay with her.

I don’t imagine that her furniture will be arriving from Welly anytime soon. Mark, Amanda’s other half was originally scheduled to bring it across at Easter. And right now, he is alone in a small flat in Petone going stir crazy (in self-isolation) after a recent trip to Australia to visit family.

In the meantime, we girls are literally “glamping”. We don’t have a lot…four camp chairs, two little camp tables, one bean bag, one table top sitting on 4 x 10lt buckets of paint and two squabs off the bus. I’m sleeping on a mattress on a bedroom floor while Amanda is on the bus (for now).

1st isolation dinner with Amanda

Thankfully the bus was well provisioned with kitchen stuff plus Amanda scored a bar fridge from her wine cellar door job before she got laid off. As well we have the loan of a washing machine from Jolie and Ian and a clapped out vacuum cleaner from Gary and Trudy (Mark’s brother and wife).

Our saving grace has been the luxury of an internet connection.

How on earth did we ever manage without Wifi???!!!

Anyway, I don’t know about you but I’m slowly starting to get my head around the “new normal” of social distancing and the directive to stay home, stay safe & save lives.

But as I don’t want to waste all of my time binge-watching TV shows (sadly I don’t have Netflix…feel free to add me to your plan if you can?) or playing on-line games (okay, I am a WWF2 addict if anyone is up for a challenge?)…

I decided that I would follow some of the tips of things to do during this time of isolation and teach myself something new…and voila, this blog is it. It’s something that has been on my “to do list” for absolutely ages but there never seemed to be enough time to “get around to it” and now I have no excuse.

So please bear with me as I figure out what the bloody hell I am doing on here and what I should write about.

But I will start with three things that I am grateful for about my bubble:

1) I’m not alone and have the company of a good friend.

2) There is a sunny backyard.

3) I have the use of an indoor loo. (when you live in a caravan that doesn’t have one of these it’s a luxury!)

Plus I would like to share some pix from my walks around the neighbourhood: