WHILE many of us are still under all sorts of lockdown restrictions, we who are in Sydney due to various reasons or Acts of God, are facing the delightful prospect of rejoining you.
I would certainly give up the delightful freedoms now permitted in parts of Australia for a glimpse of family.
Included in that mob are the Mongoose Muppets of Flagstaff, who have perpetrated some dire deeds in the almost two years since I was last with them.
Growing up, for a start.
Last week in Sydney a big clothing and household stuff chain store had a two-dollar sale.
I heard about it because someone in the queue for the hairdresser told us.
I was fourth in the queue, having got there 15 minutes before the hair salon opened after weeks and weeks and weeks.
I couldn’t leave the queue because I looked like a mad old lady who may have been a hit during the punk era but now looked like someone you would avoid in the street in case she bit you.
Sporting a new Number Three skull shave I swanned off to the sale to see what $2 clothing looked like.
I was doomed to excessive buying the minute I walked in.
I was already on a high after successfully electronically checking in with the government app that tracks every shop or public place a person visits.
I also have a medical certificate certifying my COVID-19 virus vaccination that I wave at people on request.
Or even without a request, I am that proud of it.
When I saw the first clothing rack I couldn’t be held back.
Or only long enough to estimate the size I required.
Not for me, I am never going anywhere near winter again after I finally escape this one.
The Scandinavian countries are quite safe from any visiting by me.
I spent weeks in deepest lockdown looking at those grim murder movies set in Norway and Sweden.
They don’t appear to have much in the way of non-winter, not to say summer, there.
The movies look as if they have all been filmed in black and white, but occasionally you get a scene of jollity or gore the provides flashes of colour.
Mostly red.
Otherwise, it is just greyish with masses of extremely white snow.
Cotton wool blobs continually float down on people wearing multiple layers of sweaters, knee-buckling heavy overcoats and woolly hats that would make a furry bear jealous.
And boots, snug as Uggs but built to wade in icy swamps, tramp through deep snow and kick unwary victims.
Anyway, the first thing I saw in the shop was a stunning poncho-style cape, with a hood and lined with fake lamb wool.
The outside was a shiny, dark blue velvet with red and orange squirrels printed all over.
Clearly destined for my granddaughter, the almost nine-year-old Mongoose Muppet.
It wasn’t just my poor judgement that made me deeply desire it.
My younger daughter, Cuddles the Thug tried to wrest it off me on the excuse of checking the size.
She claimed it would fit her, why was I sending it to a tropical country.
Because I am sure that in the intervening years before my granddaughter turns 30 (a look to which she unreasonably aspires) she will visit somewhere with a winter.
Perhaps Disneyland in the off-season, if they give a discount.
I also bought some puffer jackets that were too small for the intended recipient, my grandson, and puffer vests that are too big.
Just grow a bit and they will fit eventually.
Inadvertently I bought three pairs of the same little kid’s shorts in a sort of squashed strawberry colour and several T-shirts with odd messages on them.
I have absolutely no memory of getting them and I certainly couldn’t have read them first.
Why would I want something that says: “Who? Me bite him? Where?”.
That was the start of the easing of restrictions for the COV- ID-19 vaccinated.
It was indeed followed by a lot of bar-hopping to check that places were really opening up.
Not excessively, we went only to places that had no queues or that were cramming in people.
We were not that thirsty, thank you.
We were able to visit some of our favourite café haunts again and check how many Portuguese tarts and crème caramel we needed to give us a certifiable sugar rush.
The wretched dog caught on to this going out again activity and insisted she be invited along.
Taking her for a walk is usually like dragging a dead rabbit on a string if you ask me.
Sometimes she revives while I am not quite paying attention and the next thing I know is that I am being dragged helter-skelter for a body of water into which I definitely do not want to plunge.
The park people get cross with adults frolicking about drowning.
Nobody put COVID-19 restrictions on dogs, apparently, they don’t get it or carry it.
But personally, I like to sanitise my hands after handling the wee beast, as she tends to lie a lot.
Pretends she didn’t get breakfast before walkies, or that her feet hurt and we will have to get picked up from the dog park.
But I gotta say hooray for human rights.
It is wonderful to be free to come out.
- The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily of this newspaper.