Pan Pacific Hotel, Rm 1214 (Melbourne)
Wednesday 6 May 2020
I slept-in today. Didn’t even hear the bang on the door and the words … actually, only one word … “BREAKFAST”
It was close to 8:00am by the time I was finally conscious enough to realise … “Breakfast!!” And as I opened my door just wide enough for my arm to execute the … extend-and-retrieve manoeuvre … I excitedly returned to my table thinking … “how long have you been waiting out there for me my little brown paper bag of joy?”
Well, anyway, I won’t be doing that again.
Let’s just put it down to personal preference. Some people are really fond of white yoghurt, garnished with birdseed, passionfruit and walnuts … I suppose I’m just not one of them. In a similar vein, eating a boiled egg, straight up, without something else to accompany it … is also not my thing.
Boiled eggs to me are a bit like the triangle in an orchestra … in its place, it really enhances a performance of all the other instruments, but I wouldn’t sit up to hear just a triangle play a Mozart concerto. (I’ve collected 7 eggs now and I haven’t got the heart to tell Igor none of them are going to hatch)
On the other hand … the muesli bar and the sugar coated, choc-filled doughnut – together – are like a meal-made-in-one. But still, I put them aside for morning tea and resorted to my Weet-Bix and Muesli, bought the other day in my Woolworths online delivery. Great to have a fall-back position
Lunch, on the other hand held a surprise – two surprises in fact. The vegetable and meatie soup wasn’t a surprise. After nine days – YES THAT’S RIGHT, 9 DAYS – I’ve got quite used to soup for lunch, no, the soup was no surprise. Maybe you can spot it in the photo … it’s not one, but TWO sachets of butter. Can you believe it. I know I couldn’t. And the other day I got three paper sachets of salt and pepper. Whoever uses that many?!
It might have had something to do with the large bread roll. They might have looked at that and thought, one butter sachet?! Nah, give ‘im two … hang the expense.
And can you see the other surprise? Maybe it would help if I said that the other day, I received a mini choc bar, the sort that have printed on the wrapping … “Not for individual sale”, and tonight I received a single, individually wrapped Tim Tam. That’s right, the second surprise is the Mars bar. It’s a full sized, grown up, Mars bar. Too much to eat all at once. So I set it aside to be shared between afternoon tea and dessert tonight
Another small thing that I forgot to mention yesterday, was my preparation for going out on my 10 minute “walkies”. I mean, no one cares that my hair is looking a bit “Crusty the Clown-ish”. I know I don’t, and I’ve got to look at in the mirror each day. And after five days of not shaving, does anyone mind that I look like a vagrant – apart from Linda? But for some reason, I felt compelled to have a shave and put on a clean shirt before going out. I even put on some Old Spice (…scent of a man … ladies) and deodorant. Who was I trying to impress?
Unsurprisingly, the Hi-Vis, mask-wearing security guard didn’t say … “you’re looking and smelling fine this evening Mr Latimer” … And after all, I’d be back in my room after 15 minutes, so what was I thinking? Ah well, just one of those things you do I suppose.
I’ve been keeping myself busy today by uploading photos to this NZ2020 blog, from the Fiordland stage. I hadn’t done it earlier because it’s very time consuming and also needs a good internet connection. Looking at the photos and recalling the experiences that each one evoked, it was hard to believe that it was just two months ago we were sailing from one fiord to the next, gasping at the beauty of the place and enjoying the opportunity to share time together as a family.
The photos certainly add to each day’s Post of course, because there is only so much you can convey with words. Without the photos and the captions, it just isn’t the same. Hopefully I’ll have finished it by tomorrow and can include links to the various days for you to have a look. Even if you’ve been following along with the words, it’ll be worth returning to each day, just to see the pictures.
In contrasting the photos from two months ago, with those of the past few days, it really hit me just how much life has changed … for me, for you, for everyone. It might be just 60 days, or so, in elapsed time, but it’s like we’re in a parallel universe. So much is still the same, yet there’s so much that has been turned on its head. That is radically different
So many, previously accepted, habits and expectations are now set aside, are no more. Anyway, I captured a few photos from then and now and combined them to highlight the change … I was going to use the word “juxtapose” … but really, it’s such a pretentious word?!
Oh, the phone has been running hot these past few days … two calls yesterday and now, two calls today. Of course there was the usual “check-up”, call, but the second call was from a Government department somewhere whose role it was to … “facilitate my discharge”. She asked a range of questions … was I from Melbourne, had I flown in from New Zealand, what was my address etc etc … all of the stuff I’m sure I wrote on an earlier form … but her job was to inform me of the process.
Apparently, they usually arrange for a taxi to drive me home, after Check Out. The exact time of Check Out won’t be know until 24 hours before. I mentioned that I was hoping to be able to walk 200 metres to the DFO outlet carpark, from where my wife might pick me up; knowing that family and friends weren’t permitted to come into the hotel.
“We usually prefer to use a taxi. You could be driven to the DFO carpark and be picked up from there. But yes, I see, it’s only 200 metres away. I don’t think they want you walking out of the hotel after Check Out, they’d rather you be picked up in a taxi … what would you prefer?”
At this point we appeared to be at a bit of an impasse, so I asked … “Do have to write something on your form under the heading of Return Transport, do you?” “Yes, that’s right”, she agreed “Well why not just write … will walk 200 metres away from hotel, to be picked up at DFO carpark by wife. And if any questions get raised they’ll get back to me”. “Yes, OK, we’ll do that”
It’s not that I’m paranoid, or trying to be difficult, it’s just that after 2 weeks in this room there’s a good chance I’ll be certifiably “virus free”. And based on how careful Linda has been, I’d put money on her being clear as well. So why would we want to introduce an “unknown factor” – as small a risk as that might be – in the form of a taxi ride. Whether that be for 200 metres to the DFO carpark, or 20 kilometers home to Ringwood North.
After all, I wouldn’t like to be subjected to a further wife-imposed 14 days of isolation in the back shed when I get home, just because I got into taxi?!
Smooth seas, fair breeze and it’s the little things
Rob Latimer
NZ2020 