Emma in London & now in Melbourne: A Hopeless String of Empty Days

It's six months to the day since we first went into isolation. All of Autumn and Winter. I've spent the whole time working from home and am currently halfway through Melbourne's second lockdown with stage 4 restrictions (stage 4 currently due to end mid-Sept. We had a brief reprieve for 4 weeks when I got to see some friends and venture further but that didn't feel like much of a break.

A line from my theme song for lockdown best sums it up. "A hopeless string of empty days. "

We All Cope in Different Ways by Darren Hanlon

Working from home. Living at work.

My office. AKA dining table. Endless hours of video conferences and communication in every way possible.

Daily life.

My daily 15 minute walk to Lawson Grove Coffee shop.

Walking and running around the Tan and along the Yarra. Brief attempts at pilates at home.

Grocery shopping at Woolies and the South Melbourne Market.

A lot of online shopping.

Lawson Grove Coffee Shop under an apartment building.

Entrecote, one of my other local coffee spots.

Hanging out in the botanical gardens.

Rain or shine.

Until they closed too.

The Yarra at the end of my street.

At dusk.

The Tan back in Autumn

Entertainment.

Attempts at craft - making earrings with Mailie & Kris. Making collage postcards.

A drawing class. A styling class. A puzzle.

Countless hours of film, documentaries, tv and listening to music. Streamed Powderfinger gig.

Cooking lunches and dinners. Cases of red wine. Weekly takeaway treat.

A lot of time in front of the fire. Reading + Red.

Puzzle Time

The finished earrings.

The jig Rob made me so I can scan photos more quickly. The most boring of projects.

Trying to reduce screen time with colouring in.

Making postcards with a collage set.

Home projects.

Bought 7 pieces of art. Now have 15 plants and a watering schedule to go with it. Painted a metal tv stand above the fireplace white. Built an outdoor storage box.

Two of the new artworks. An original and a print.

Unattractive photo of a box. But I put it together myself.

Some nice moments.

Flowers for my birthday. And dinner with Pauline & Stephen.

Surrounded by birthday flowers.

Glimpsed both ends of a rainbow one wet weekday afternoon.

Took myself out to lunch at Florentino's one Saturday.

Testing out a 'pandan' croissant from the South Melb market. Australia seems obsessed with this flavour (tastes like a sweet vanilla). Or maybe it's just the grammable green.

Supernormal had a pop up on Domain Road. My local hood. So I tried their famous lobster roll for lunch.

Back to the serious business of Covid.

Mask wearing selfies.

Trip to the coffee shop doesn't really count as getting fresh air anymore.

The ADF & police patrolling. Got moved on from the gardens one Sunday along with all the other people sitting down. They're now regularly patrolling my neighbourhood (probably because of the usually busy Tan and Domain Rd)

The signs.