Good focused work day today, able to tick off a few of the to dos, finally! Limited the Facebook time to quick check/ response to a few things, Chloe Swarbrick’s daily Facebook live and the lunchtime Covid update from the Prime Minister & dear Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s Director General for Health. For those not familiar with Ashley Bloomfield, read this.
While the Director-General of Health is enjoying adoration and respect from all quarters, it seems our Health Minister, Dr. David Clark, is experiencing the opposite – taking quite the punishment for driving 20 km to a beach for a walk with his family during lockdown. Pretty harsh I reckon – Jacinda was making no excuses for him at all. Of course it is good to have high standards of ministers, expecting them to follow the rules set for all New Zealanders…. but one can say this is a pretty mild case of breaking the rules (he was with his bubble/ didn’t associate with others)… and it was in the first week when the rules were pretty hazy (what is ‘local’?).
Meanwhile the leader of the opposition, Simon Bridges, travels over 500km from Tauranga to Wellington then 500km back again each week, claiming the internet isn’t good enough for him to work from home?! Why can he flaunt the rules while everyone else in the country can manage to work from home? How is that ok? Sigh… and in other political dramas, the UK PM Boris Johnson is in an ICU with Corona virus.
While we are on Health related news, I had my first doctor’s appointment via video today. I can’t shake the snot that has been lingering since January. Gross I know, sorry. With sneezing and itchy throat it seemed it moved from a cold to allergies… and the Dr. agreed and last visit prescribed a kind of antihistamine to take every day and a nasal spray. It helped a lot but then I tried not taking it and the symptoms just came back and worse. For the last month (regardless of whether I take the pills or not) I wake up with a really itchy throat almost every morning and during the day am getting irritated between the eyes. Anyway I thought maybe I could get an allergy test or something so as to try and eliminate whatever it is that is causing the irritation… hence booking the appointment today.
Alas, it seems someone like me who gets irritated skin and is sensitive to perfumes, has developed hayfever etc… just has to take the meds! After lockdown I will get a blood test to see if that tells us anything but the Dr. didn’t seem too confident that it would change the outcome of just having to keep taking antihistamines as a regular thing. It is highly likely that I am allergic to House Dust Mites which are the most common allergen source in NZ – apparently they love our temperate and humid climate. Joy, oh joy… shall have to look into what we can do to minimise them in our home.
It was a lovely sunny day today until around 4pm… with a high of 24 degrees it felt more like the middle of summer than the middle of autumn! We both had the Connecting Mid Canterbury Charitable Trust board meeting tonight at 5.30 so Antony got out just before then to have some golf practice after a busy work day in his office. My injured hand needs to recover for at least 4 weeks, so no golf allowed for me. We do hope to make a putting course inside… one of these days!
After the Trust call we had dinner before I had a 2 hour video call with a friend at 8.30. (So good to catch up Jan!!) Before that call Ants and I had an hour chilling on the sofa, watching tv with our fairy lights on – very cosy.
Last night I made mention of a courgette peanut stew I was going to make, a recipe from Chad apparently. Well it turns out I was getting ahead of myself and that was tonight’s dinner… but we did make it last night which was so nice tonight- to have it all ready to heat and eat.
Monday night’s meal: Marrow fritters, Asian slaw, Potato & salsa
Tonight’s dinner: Courgette & Peanut Stew with quinoa.
It was a first trying this recipe and probably not the last time we eat it- really nice and something a bit different. There’s plenty in the pot so that’s dinner tomorrow night sorted as well!
Now in case anyone was wondering… the Prime Minister in a post cabinet media briefing yesterday assured us all that the Easter Bunny (along with the tooth fairy) was considered an essential worker but one that will also be looking after their own family of bunnies so might not make it to everyone’s place this year. Pretty cute.