LIFE'S RICH PATTERN
The Beginning of the End by Liz Foster
The sun’s shining, the bluebells are nodding and my bedroom’s so bright the blinds remain drawn. Illustration by Grace Kopsiaftis If you’re thinking this doesn’t sound like Sydney of late, you’d be right. Pandemic borders have finally crumbled, and I’ve made it back to my homeland for a muchanticipated trip to see family and friends. Hooray! But as bad as the social distancing, PPE wearing, curfews and border closures have been, we should be thankful we avoided some of the stranger restrictions imposed worldwide. One country’s normal is another’s weird. The world finally feels like it’s breathing a collective sigh of relief and while Covid’s not a thing of the past, its catastrophic life changing mass-imposed consequences are thankfully (mostly) in the rear-view mirror. A mask and hand sanitiser have been added to the list of items Not To Leave Home Without, along with your phone, keys, and sunnies, but apart from that, job done. After years of relentless pandemic rule changing, stepping out into the wide world is all a bit nerve inducing. It’s hard to feel secure. Google assures me all UK entry restrictions have been dropped, but the UK Smart Traveller website maintains its yellow banner urging travellers to ‘exercise a high degree of caution.’ After an hour or so of mildly panicky link hopping, I decide my international covid pass seems good enough. I print out multiple copies of the QR coded certificate and save several screenshots. Just to be on the safe side.
whackier Covid rules. At one stage, travellers arriving in the UAE were given mandatory tracking bracelets during the compulsory 10-day home quarantine period (in case you didn’t feel you were already in prison). Ditto Singapore which mandated a tracking app on your phone. Russia’s public transport system stipulated glove wearing. And if you thought curfews were bad enough, spare a thought for the good citizens of Kosovo – people over sixty-five could only leave home between set hours. Other places mandated men and women could only go outside on alternating days. Meanwhile in Mexico, many states banned junk food, concerned that diabetes and obesity were putting people at higher risk from the virus. We all know better now, but the trick to stress free travel is to accept you can’t control how others behave. Luckily, it was all calm on board, the only pandemic sign being compulsory masks. And thank goodness the seat beside me was empty, unlike hapless Indian travellers last year who found the middle seats occupied by unfortunate souls in head-to-toe white PPE kits, back when the sight of PPE gave you pause.
But at the airport I was plunged into panic when the family ahead of me were grilled about their testing and vaccination status. I started to sweat. Advice to arrive super early had backup options bouncing round my head like lotto balls – was there still time to get PCR tested? What about a rapid antigen test, I have one right here, happy to do now, just to be sure? It turned out they were travelling to the States. It’s lucky I’m so early as there’s time for a stiff drink to settle the nerves.
I can’t help breathing a mental sigh of relief to have dodged some of those restrictions, and the UK is wholly restriction free. But old habits die hard. I can’t leave the house without sticking a mask in my pocket.
The day may come when we look at images of the Queensland/NSW Berlin Wall border and see this with different eyes, but at least we’ve avoided some of the
Liz Foster is a local writer and author. You can find more Life’s Rich Pattern features and more at
10 TVO
www.lizfosterwriter.com
