Entertaining yourself at home

is something that many more people are going to have to do. There won't be any football matches to go to and there might not be any to watch on the telly either.
Now this won't bother me because I don't go to football matches and I don't watch them on television either. It will  bother people like the Senior Cat's cousin who is devoted to the Downunder version of the game.
I thought about this yesterday when I couldn't get out because the mobile bicycle repair man came and gave my tricycle a thorough clean and shine and adjust. I had prepared for a day at home. Today I will need to buy bread and milk and a couple of other items but even if I could not do this we could cope. 
As for entertaining ourselves...I had work to do of course but when that was over?
The Senior Cat was engrossed in searching for something on the internet. I did not interrupt. He was muttering incantations over a page of diagrams. His "magic mate", a fellow conjurer, was here earlier in the week. They were plotting something - not bad for a 97yr old.  When that was over the Senior Cat was fiddling with paper, pens, scissors and more. He watched no television. He never does. His "screen time" is spent searching the internet but some days he doesn't do that. He reads a lot and, at his age, sleeps a little as well. If the weather is good he will prowl slowly out into the garden and pull weeds from the pots we have put at waist height or do some watering when I put the hose in the right place.
He is not bored, simply frustrated when he wants to do things and no longer can.
And me? There is the writing I need to do...only other writers will understand that. I have an enormous pile of books that still need to be read. I have more knitting and other craft to do than I can hope to do in my lifetime. (I suffer severely from SABLE - Stash Advancement Beyond Life Expectancy.) There are things I want to design and things I want to make.
Did you mention television? I might get around to it one day. There are things I am sorry I have missed - like Michael Palin's trip to North Korea and some other travelogues and some assorted documentaries. Still, I don't need television to keep me amused.
There is something I would miss though - contact with the outside world if the internet failed. No, I don't mean the doom and gloom news but the little snippets from friends overseas and the immense pleasure of seeing what other people have created. That is more important than ever.
So, if you are reading this, please leave me a note and tell me how you plan to entertain yourself in isolation.
 

The mobile bicycle man

is due to come today. I hope he does. My tricycle needs attention. It has needed attention for some time now.
No, it hasn't been unsafe. I would not pedal it in an unsafe condition. The brakes work well - my chief concern.
But there are things about bikes and trikes I know nothing about. I have some idea of what needs to be oiled occasionally but that is about it. 
The thing that bothers me most is that I cannot deal with a puncture. I know what to do but my paws are not strong enough to get the tyre off.  The Senior Cat used to be able to do it but he had to stop doing it some  years ago. My BIL will do it - but it has to wait until he has time. He works very long hours.
The last time I had a puncture - a couple of weeks back - M.... from across the road had the whole thing done in ten minutes. I paid him in pasties. (His wife is currently away visiting her dying mother and he is looking after the two small boys. It meant they had a meal he did not need to cook.)
In other words I manage to get punctures repaired. My little vehicle generally stays on the road and I have a means of getting to and from the shopping centre and the library. We eat and we read. 
But, I have been searching for another means of getting help for the bigger issues. This has been essential since the shop I relied on ceased business. 
The local bike shop simply isn't interested in anything other than fancy racing bikes or mountain bikes. A tricycle? Go away. We don't want to know. I pedalled off with my tail drooping. 
I searched the internet...
And that was where I found a mobile bicycle service that actually mentioned tricycles and wheelchairs!!! I emailed. Would they come this far? I didn't exactly hold my breath but I did let out a huge sigh of relief when the man at the other end said he would and would Friday the 13th suit? That was ten days away. He's busy. I sent a prompt "yes please!". 
He says he will be here about lunch time. I hope he will be as efficient as he sounds. I will feel safer knowing that my tricycle has been checked over and oiled and tightened and whatever else in all the right places.
Yes, it will cost something but it will be nothing like the cost of a single service for a car.
Hopefully Mr Mobile Bicycle Service will be able to keep me pedalling to and from the library and the shopping centre a bit longer. We need to read and we need to eat. 

There is still no toilet paper

on the supermarket shelves. Strictly that means that by the time I prowled in it had all gone again.
One of the women who works in our local supermarket told me, 
"You wouldn't believe it Cat but someone came in first thing this morning and wanted to buy two packs of forty-eight. What are they going to do with ninety-six rolls of loo paper?"
What indeed?
I have been watching people in the supermarket recently. There was the woman ahead of me the other day. She had her husband with her. They were both pushing trolleys. She had a list. They were buying tinned goods, pasta, rice and more. They were buying enough to feed a platoon. They were buying it "just in case" they needed to go into self-isolation. There are just the two of them in the house.
Now I have bought rice in the past ten days. We happened to have run out. Most people don't bother with the type the Senior Cat and I like. I could have bought two packets. I had the money but I thought someone else might need the second pack that was on the shelf.
I wonder where people are storing all these things? 
Yes, like everyone else I know I have a small stockpile of tinned goods. I use them chiefly to provide something for the Senior Cat to put into the basket at church on Sundays. I don't need two dozen tins of baked beans or a dozen packets of pasta. I have nowhere to put them.
We could, if necessary, survive in this house for two weeks. We would not eat in the way we usually do but we would eat. 
All this bothers me because I know there are places where people wonder whether there will be a next meal at all, let alone what might be for the next meal.
I am planning ahead - because I always do. It is always possible that I might need to be able to just reach into the freezer and pull out a meal for the two of us. It will  be because something else has happened and I have not had the time to prepare something. To me that is just common sense. It isn't planning for a disaster. 
We need to be sensible, not panic stricken. I am not intending to go to a football match or a rock concert and I will avoid other crowds where I can.
It seems to me we are making problems where there should be none.

Cardinal Pell's appeal

is due for argument in the High Court today. "For argument" means it could go either way. 
I am not going to comment on which way I believe it should or could go but I was interested to see that the Twitterati were out in force - all of them apparently trying to make sure the High Court judges would see it their way.
Whichever way it goes the decision will  be analysed and criticised. I do not envy the judges. This is one they will not be able to get "right" in the minds of some people.
What has surprised me throughout this saga however is how many people have believed that "it must be true because the victim said so". In the minds of many there is absolutely no doubt at all.
We want to believe victims. We also want to believe alleged victims. We rarely want to believe defendants accused of some heinous act.
It is also all too easy to plant an erroneous belief in the mind of another person. There has been more than one psychological experiment showing just that. I have used techniques like that in teaching.  I did it once to a group of law students. I hope it made them see criminal law and what goes on in a law court in an entirely different way.
I also tried to make the same students see that an alleged victim can genuinely believe that something occurred and that, as a result, they are telling the truth as they see it. They are not lying to the court. Lying is a deliberate act designed to deceive. 
And that is where it all gets murky and difficult. Our legal system is not perfect. Some guilty people get off and some innocent people get convicted. 
There are those saying that there should have been no right of appeal in this case and that, should the appeal go in the appellant's favour, then that is the end of the jury system as we know it. That is wrong. Juries are made up of ordinary human beings. They can get things right or wrong. The rest of us need to wait and see what happens.

Sponsoring a child

sounds like a lovely idea doesn't it? You know the sort of thing I mean don't you? A charity like World Vision or the Smith Family or someone else sends out a glossy brochure with "a child in poverty" on the front. They ask you to "sponsor" that child and make a regular donation each month so that the child can go to school after having dressed and eaten breakfast.
It sounds good doesn't it?
The problem is that it doesn't work that way. You aren't sponsoring an individual child at all. It might seem like that. You might even get "thank you" letters from the child. You might get photographs. I can hear you telling me now that this is proof that you are doing it. You aren't. Children don't get sponsored like that.
Think about it. How could you possibly pick and choose out of all the hundreds of thousands of children who need help? How could you choose one child out of one family? Even more importantly  how would that sort of sponsorship affect a child's relationship with the rest of his family and his community? The child would be the object of so much jealousy that his life would be unbearable.
On the rare occasions that people have insisted on meeting the children they are "sponsoring" charities have their means of handling the situation. 
There was a piece of "investigative journalism" in one of the papers yesterday. It was concerned about the alleged misuse of funds at World Vision's central office in Downunder. People were able to comment on the story and there were plenty of comments. A lot of those comments came from people who claimed they were going to withdraw from their "sponsorship" of individual children. Such comments were not helpful and I suspect that the majority of people will rethink and continue to donate. That is just as well.
But I do think there needs to be an intense review into how such charities operate. The idea of sponsoring an individual child needs to go. It sounds too good to be true because it isn't true. The salaries of the people at the top of such organisations need to be reviewed. Their "expenses" need to be reviewed too. Are those glossy brochures really necessary? Who has the printing contract? What are the mailing costs? How much are they paying in rent and wages for office staff? 
I had to point out to someone recently that the cause they were donating to was getting 18c in the dollar of the funds raised, not 80c. 
I am involved with a small fund which does give scholarships to individual girls in Africa. The girls must be "unaccompanied" - i.e. have no adult who can or is willing to be responsible for them. The girls need to earn those scholarships in a number of ways. They provide the bare essentials for a girl to go to high school and focus on science and mathematics. In return they are expected to put in some hours in the community in which they live. We have grown from one girl to five and then, next year, six at any one time. A conscious decision has been made not to exceed that number. All the money we raise is spent on the girls. The administration of the fund is done entirely by volunteers. It hasn't been easy, indeed it has been very challenging. It is the way we would like all aid to work but that can't be done. 
Don't stop donating please but do think about where and how you are donating. Question where the funds are really going too.

So what do you do in isolation?

We were discussing this yesterday. 
I was talking to a neighbour while the Senior Cat was introducing a much younger one to the delights of a small torch which is also a magnifying glass. (He had actually sent me off to buy the relevant AAA batteries earlier in the day so they could play with this.)
For M...., with whom I was discussing it, this is not so much of a problem. He could work from home. It would be awkward but not impossible. Providing the power stays on and he has access to the internet  he can get on with it.
His wife could not see her patients but there would be plenty for her to catch up on. They would have to keep their two young boys entertained but that would not be the problem it might be in some families.
The Senior Cat and I would be able to cope too. If we were not actually ill we would go about our lives much as usual. I wouldn't be able to get to the library or do the shopping but we have no problems entertaining ourselves. We can exercise here. I could do whatever work came in because I do work from home. We could even cope without a shopping delivery for a short while - although the Senior Cat would not be impressed at having to put made up powdered milk in his tea.
If we were ill it would be more of an issue. It is a public holiday here in this state today. That means that S.... , who helps the Senior Cat shower, won't be here. I have to help him instead. It's something that worries me because he is so unsteady on his feet. If either or both of us felt ill then it would be a real worry. Staying clean is even more important when you are not well.
But it seems other people are simply worried about potentially being in isolation. They say they don't know how they would cope or what they would do to entertain themselves. In a tiny living space it would be much more difficult but most people here live in houses surrounded by at least a small amount of garden. They can get outside and still remain isolated. I have said this to people over the last couple of weeks and they still say they couldn't cope. It seems they believe they don't have the inner resources.
That bothers me. If nothing else good comes out of the need for some people to "self-isolate" then I hope it might be the realisation that everyone needs interests that don't involve being entertained by other people. 

Hand knitted socks

exquisitely well made with love and care....I can scarcely believe I am the recipient of these.
Now, I can knit socks. I have knitted socks. I could probably knit a pair of plain socks without a pattern but I cannot knit socks like these.
They are a belated birthday present from a friend, a friend who is not at all well and who struggled to make them because of arthritis and a shoulder injury.  She wanted to make me those socks and, although it took her time she did.
Her knitting is still very, very good. I will never be able to graft the toes the way she does. Her cast on edge is smooth and elastic. The heels of her socks are reinforced.  
These socks last.
The Senior Cat has several pairs knitted by the same person. He worries they will "wear out". It isn't likely that he will outlast the socks because he does not move far these days but I know they remind him of the comfort of his mother's socks. 
His mother's socks were only ever plain grey or black for men. I don't think any other colours were available. Now you can get sock wool in every colour under the sun...and sock  yarn in things other than wool. The socks he worries about wearing out are still sober shades of grey and blue but they are variegated as well. The Senior Cat wriggles his toes into them and says, "Comfort."
Yes, comfort. I remember the socks my paternal grandmother knitted for us as children. I had white socks for Sundays and pale brown socks for school. My brother had long grey socks because small boys wore shorts back then. My sisters had pink socks for Sundays. (Grandma knew I didn't like pink. Unlike my maternal grandmother she never made me anything in the colour  pink.)  
When commercial school socks became readily available we no longer had  hand knitted socks. I almost forgot the comfort of them as I moved through my teen years and struggled with stockings and "suspender belts". (These were never highly successful. I fell over too often - something which does increase the likelihood of holes and ladders. My mother would get angry and dock my already limited pocket money.)
And then I knitted myself a pair of socks. I used the first pair as bed socks because I had no idea how to "graft" the toes...and there was no You Tube to help. We were living too far from Grandma for her to show me too.
The second pair of socks might have been the same but I was at boarding school in the city by then and spending precious weekends with my grandparents who needed help. I loved doing that and Grandma rewarded me with lessons on how to turn the heel properly and how to graft the toe. She would shake her head slightly over the latter and say, "Do the best you can child. It needs to be smooth or it will worry your feet."
I wore the socks at weekends.
And so it went on. I have never made myself enough socks. I should make more - and not just for me. The friend who made these socks knows that I still find knitting socks more awkward than knitting other things. She has made socks for me before.
My friend keeps notes. She knows exactly how many rounds to do for me after the heels and before the toes.
I slid my feet in last night - just for a moment. They will be warm and oh so comfortable. I mentally purred over them. I was reminded of Pablo Neruda's poem "Ode to my socks".  Yes, they are something special.
But it isn't just the socks. It is that every stitch in them was a present to me. They are made with care -and, above all else, love.