Social distancing while waiting for coffee at Mr Wednesday.
The bear hunt continues with many people sharing bears in their windows for kids to spot. A lovely idea to give the kids something to do with all the playgrounds closed.
One foggy morning last week, my partner Steve and I walked over to the next suburb, Fairfield to Alphington. He’d read a notification on the neighbourhood nextdoor website from a lady who had sourdough bread starter. I just went along for the exercise and took a few photos along the way.
I wore hiking boots I bought from Aldi last year (in Ljubljana, Slovenia of all places) that I’d never quite broken in. (My daughter will probably accuse me of name dropping Countries and she’d be right. It’s still pretty exciting to have travelled when I never thought it would happen) . I now have some sizeable blisters from the morning walk.
We get to the ladies place and she invites us in and gives us a detailed run down of what to do with this sour dough starter. Steve and I both thought pretty quickly that she must have been a school teacher and turns out we were right. Sue invited us to sit down and we chatted about some in depth life stuff over a short period of time. A very interesting person and turns out she’s also into photography.
The bread making seems a lot more complicated than Steve was anticipating so we don’t have any bread to show for it yet. He’s collecting bits and pieces like digital scales and the right sort of flour and god knows what else. i’m staying out of it, other than to offer to be a taste tester when we finally get some bread.
On the way home I was late for a Zoom meeting so dialled in on my phone and by this time the sun was shining and blue skies overhead. The meeting is a fortnightly check in with two photographer friends and I was supposed to have made significant progress on a book I’m putting together. I had made no progress what-so-ever so tried to distract them with the scenery as I was walking and talking. I have since made progress on ‘The Book’ and will have a lot more to report at the next meeting.
I wanted to share this post as a way of remembering what the time in a Pandemic was like. Pretty ordinary in an unusual way sums it up.
The Camelias on the table at Sue’s place where we got the bread starter.
A flower from the front of Sue’s place that I will eventually email her to ask what it is. (I’m waiting for some bread to photograph before I email!)
With the rest of the world quite chaotic and horror stories on the news every day about abuse and neglect and murder and mayhem, it can get quite distressing and overwhelming. It’s reassuring and comforting to be able to connect in simple, neighbourly ways and swap stories. Life seems simpler at the moment., if you don’t look too far.
I was coveting the space at Sue’s house as we live in a two bedroom bunker with a teenager. I crave a space to create. Just before the lockdown I had started looking at hiring studio space for 3 or 6 months to work on a number of projects that are bubbling along like sourdough starter that’s been placed in the fridge and just needs to be brought out and nurtured in a warm place so they can grow and be kneaded and made into something mouth watering like fresh bread. Or maybe they’ll be a stodgy old loaf but the making is still a good thing to do. I was hoping I’d qualify for Jobkeeper payment so I could utilise the down time to be creative but apparently RMIT don’t qualify. I’ve applied as a sole trader but you have to show a 30% loss of income. Well, the business ran at a loss last year so nothing from nothing is nothing, so no luck there either. But I’m ok, food on the table, roof over my head, not about to be evicted! The next project is a to put books together. I’m learning the Book Module in Lightroom. It’s a toss up between InDesign and Lightroom. Both have pro’s and con’s. And I have lot’s to keep me busy.
