March Coronavirus Diary – Fealy Family Style

Well, who would have thought at the start of 2020 that the world would be in lockdown due to Coronavirus?  Not me, that is for sure!  I thought it only right that our first month of Coronavirus craziness should be recorded here on our family blog for posterity – after all it is not very often we get to experience a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.  It’s hard to know where to start?  Maybe with some of Toby’s journal entries ……

Toby’s Journal day 1 – Friday 27th March 2020
First of all let’s clear some things up, i’m not writing this because a parent told me to, and then over time I will learn to love it or some ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ type stuff, i’m doing this because I think it would be fun and valuable for future generations, so here is my account of the coronavirus pandemic up to a few days ago.

This week it got serious. Before this and at school it was a joke, something to laugh about but never really consider. I know it was serious when i got to school on Monday and the first thing the teacher said was that ANZAC day was cancelled.  As an australian this was an unprecedented level of community shutdown, it could be flooding and still hotter than the sun and ANZAC day would still continue, they continued when fighting up the beaches of Gallipoli, so out of respect, once a year, Australians do the same. So if that was cancelled then that meant that this virus was going to make a huge impact on our daily lives and as a child that is scary.

Toby’s journal day 2 – Monday 30th March
Ok, I’m back. I took a break over the weekend because, well, I forgot, but i’m back now and ready to fill you in on what’s been happening. Because the vast majority of our sports have been cancelled we as a family have begun afternoon workouts to stay fit, my uncle and our last remaining backpacker living on farm (his name is Charles) have also joined in.

 About a week ago our cat taco gave birth to six beautiful kittens, strangely there appears to be no runt as they are all exceptionally fit and healthy. 2 of the kittens are jet black and one more that is mostly black with white paws, as well as 3 grayish ones.

That should be all for today besides the fact that school is still cancelled due to Covid-19, which to my utter dismay means homeschooling all round (even though we already finished our assessments!).

Toby’s journal day 3 – Tuesday 31st March
Since i’ve pretty much caught you up on the events of the past few weeks my entries are now becoming more day to day so they might not be as exciting as my last few catch ups. Sooo not much has happened today, all we really did was clean out and sweep the shed (so painful). Our old farmhand Charlie, came and gave us a bunch of cool new stuff for the shed me and dad made down by the dam, such as solar panels, stretcher beds and a table!

Well – Tobes has summed things up pretty well – the thing about social distancing during coronavirus is there is not a lot to say really!  Special thanks to Mareeba Crossfit and Mareeba Gymnastics club who very quickly developed online programs to enable our kids to keep active with their sports at home still! Oh and we were saying lots of things like this when kids were on the trampoline or riding their bikes/motorbikes!

The week beginning the Monday, 23rd of March was when Matt and I sat down and really thought, ok, this COVID-19 is getting serious here in Australia, what decisions do we need to make?  We spent a good few hours discussing and deciding what we wanted to do with the kids regarding school, what we needed to consider re our finances and what plans we needed to put in place for our on farm accommodation, the packing shed and our workers moving forward.  I remember feeling a little scared on this day, worried about what the impacts were going to be on our family, friends, community and country financially, emotionally and our health.  This is a copy of the summary the ABC published on Facebook on the Wednesday of that week, showing how quickly things were really escalating due to coronavirus.  

We decided to use the week to try get the kids to finish all their first term assessments and to pull them out as soon as they had.  Kipp finished up at school on the Monday of this week, Lexi the Wednesday and Jack and Toby on the Thursday.  I must put a disclaimer in at this point – while lots of the photos show us doing some fun things at home in March – there has been way too much tech time on ipads, iphones and tv’s too, as well as a very untidy house at different points – just no photos of those! 

A couple of other nice little things that happened during March in the early stages of Coronvirus impacting our world:

A last supper with Mum and Dad and the Kendalls and Pa at Bew Rd, squeezed in as we knew it would probably be one of the last times for a long time our Tableland family could all be together.

Lots of Zoom calls for work and our first extended family calls too – pretty impressed with how Grammy and Grunda and Grandma and Grandad Bill figured out how to do it so easily!  And even had a Zoom Bookclub Meetup for the first time too which was lovely to see the familiar faces and chat with the ladies whose friendship I really value! 

We have ducklings!

Jack purchased the parts (from mango packing money earnt over the Christmas holidays) and built his very own first computer – he was very proud of himself! 

Some letter writing!  Lots of cooking!

I finally did my lip skin cancer treatment (which I have had in the medicine draw for 12 months!) as I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere or seeing anybody much!

I’ll finish off with a summary of some of the likes/dislikes of this time to date.  I hope you are all well and doing ok.  Would love to hear how your Coronavirus journey has been so far from your neck of the woods! 

Some of the things we have loved because of Coronavirus:

1. So much slow time at home together to catch up on sleep, read, watch TV and iPads/devices and getting some jobs ticked off the list!
2. Matt playing around with Google Homes and setting our lights and airconditioning up to be able to activate via our voices/mobile phones.  Pretty cool!
3. All of the #covidcovers and at home music sessions musicians are doing –  have spent hours listening and watching them via social media!
4. All of us exercising regularly.
5. Trying and learning new things!  Why just isolate, when you can isolearn?
6. The #kindnesspandemic actions and lovely community spirit that is emerging around the world.
7. Kids actually washing their hands!

Some of the things we have not loved because of Coronavirus:

1. Not being able to buy toilet paper (we have installed a commercial toilet holder in our home toilet and are having to use the scratchy ‘public toilet’ whopper roles at home – better then leaves I guess!
2. Not being able to buy flour, rice or pasta.
3. Not having any ‘alone time’ in the house as everybody is always around, always home!
4. Eating, eating and eating!
5. Kids always on Facetime with their friends – have been nearly caught out coming out of the shower or toilet, or yelling at someone when they are chatting away to somebody via video!
6. Not being able to have friends/family over for Easter school holidays.
7. My trip to WA with Mum and sisters cancelled, Matt and I trip to Israel cancelled, and most likely our trip to Singapore/Bali in September cancelled.

Sigh, never mind, still lots to be grateful for! Stay well everyone!

Love The Fealy Family xoxoxo