Hello lockdown, my old friend

 Well, lockdown again.

As always it comes with a mixture of relief and irritation. Relief because attempts are being made to bring the situation under control and irritation because, well no one wants their life being taken away from them.

Prior to this latest incident we'd had a good run and life was almost normal. 

Masks were no longer required except on public transport, and while you had to sign in with a QR code everyhere, things like the local theatre group's staging of a 1950's comedy drama could go ahead, and what's more, you could stand and talk to people, and even have a drink (!) at the interval, just like things used to be.

And that of course is the problem this time around. A return to something like the normality we used to have seemed to just be in reach, and then this, like an unexpected dousing by a wave when surfing.

Sometimes they come out of nowhere and you just have to go with them.

For the moment, life is on hold. The early music concert we had been looking forward to is cancelled. Sackbutts probably don't go well with controlling virus dispersal, although strings are fine. We still hope that both the Shakespeare and Australian ballet performances we had booked for in August will run.

Further out, things like a trip to NZ we had been planning for next year, are, for now, unaffected. And of course, by then we will have been fully vaccinated and possibly have received some sort of a booster shot, meaning that we will almost certainly be able to make the trip, even if certainty is not quite what it used to be.

But for the moment, it's lockdown.

Yesterday, the first day of lockdown, I went to collect the mail, and for the first time in weeks, I had a choice of parking spots outside of the post office - no tourists or day visitors - and of course none of the chaos of farmers backing impossibly big trucks out of parking bays and needing the width of the street to clear other vehicles.

The local supermarket was busy, but any panic buying had been and gone, and we were more or less back to normal.

But we've been here before, and even though it's a pain, this time around we know what to do to manage lockdown ...