Hotel Quarantine

A lot of people have complained about Hotel Quarantine - the rooms, the lack of fresh air, the confinement, the food etc - but the thing is that they all knew that they were going to have to do it in order to be able to fly into Australia. It wasn't exactly how I'd choose to spend $3000 and 2 weeks of my time, but it was a condition of me having been able to go back to the UK and see my parents - and as I couldn't avoid it, I decided to just make the best of it!

My lovely door (with no key)....and lovely carpet!!

I know that I can be a bit of a loner and am quite happy with my own company, so maybe it was "easier" for me than for a gregarious extroverted "life and soul of the party" but I actually quite enjoyed the downtime, as I had the chance to do a lot of things that I never usually have time for, and I felt that I was away from a lot of the stresses and pressure of everyday life (though I was still acting as a sounding board for a lot of friends whilst an "inmate").

One of my deliveries of goodies - yeay!!

Some things were not exactly ideal.....not having a room key as you weren't allowed out of your room.....not having a window that would open (or even being able to see the sky so you had no clue as to the weather)......not being able to choose what or when you ate anything........not being able to see anyone (or even open your door for a minute after a knock told you that something had been delivered, though at least they delivered things quickly hence my emergency icecreams didn't melt)......the aircon causing daily nosebleeds from the dryness......the pattern of the carpet.......but on the other hand, your true friends really showed their colours with care packages being delivered most days, phone calls, zoom chats, online bridge matches, tasty food treats appearing and so on :-)

Jigsawtastic!

I kept people entertained (well I hope I did) in return with my daily posts of what I'd been up to - as I tried to have a different focus each day, be it a jigsaw puzzle, sudoku, painting by numbers, reading books, playing bridge (well I did that most days), recording a podcast, getting my Trotters Run done in the cramped space on both Saturdays, hotel trivia (bonus wine win), hotel bingo (that's an hour of my life I'll never get back!), online learning, needlefelting fairies (the added complication being that the instructions came from SE Asia and so were unreadable for me!) or doing crosswords.

I feel that I do not have a future career in needlefelting

I did have a few funny incidents, such as being asked if I'd like to speak to a doctor for advice on my nosebleeds (I did wonder what advice I was going to be given), being told to go back into my room to put my mask on to open my door just to be told to remove my mask for a Covid swab, dressing up in a little black dress for another Covid swab (if you have to actually get dressed and open your door then you might as well do it in style), and chatting to the head chef about his recipe for coconut-free Anzac biscuits, but generally I just got on with things and lost track of time.

"Dressing up" for my swabs

By the time it came for me to checkout and re-enter civilisation, I was actually quite nervous about the while process, but luckily one of my good friends came and picked me up and catching up on all the chat and gossip meant I was home almost before I realised it.....and a drama at work meant that my nose was back on the grindstone by the very next morning.....and I could almost have dreamt those 2 weeks....well, except for the lovely bill I received 2 days later entitled "government debt"!!

A nice souvenir of my HQ artistic attempts