Virus, Funeral and One Birthday Card.

After a weekend that turned into seven weeks, Dougal will be going home on Friday – all being well! It’s been a long seven weeks not helped  by the government instructions to stay at home. We have gone out for walks but in the early morning. It hasn’t been a burden, really, except for going out walking and the fact that he goes ballistic if he hears another dog bark – just about  pulling my arm off. Also, in the morning Benji just stands still if I feed the Magpies whereas Dougal tries to have a go at them — no point in telling him that he would come off second best.

The cruise ship, Ruby Princess has been allowed to dock at Port Kembla. Kembla is an industrial port away well out of the way.  The ship will be allowed to stay there for 10 days to refuel and restock

supplies, food and so forth for the 1050 crew remaining on board.  Those who are sick will be treated, and it is believed that about one fifth of the crew are showing symptoms of coronavirus. At the end of the ten days the ship will be ordered to leave and as far as we know she has been allowed to dock on that understanding.  The Home Port is Bermuda but it is unlikely that there will be a welcome mat waiting for it there. In Australia there is a Criminal Investigation into the decision to allow it to dock and disembark 2700 people into the general population in Sydney. At least 600 of the present cases in Australia, along with 12 deaths have been linked to the Ruby Princess. There a lot of people in and around Port Kembla who are very unhappy with the present decision to allow the ship to not only dock there, but remain there for 10 days.

Western Australia has closed its borders. I found it interesting that the W.A. State Government were comparing  the closure of their borders in less time than it took the UK to activate Brexit. On the subject of the UK, I watched the Queen’s Address and I noted that the Prime Minister ( Boris Johnson)  has been moved to hospital. Actually to update that, the latest news this morning ( Thursday ) is that he has been moved out of the ICU, which sounds good and quite encouraging.  Here in South Australia the spread of the virus is slowing down, which is s good sign. It does not mean that we have beaten the thing – far from it. The general prognosis from our medical people is that the virus is going to be in the population for a long time and the only way we can actually defeat it is to develop a vaccine.  I  genuinely believe that when this is over we really should  give serious thought to our trade and financial relations and arrangements with China and the Chinese Communist Party, who control every aspect of life in China  and however you look at it, no matter who you think you  are dealing with, the CCP is controlling the play.

One of our ladies died on Saturday (4th) and we are trying to organise a funeral on Wednesday 15th. But we don’t know what is happening. It was a sudden, unexpected death so there may be an inquest. Her son has managed to get out of Western Australia and the idea is to stream the service to WA.  Having said that we have no idea how or when Kenneth (son) is going to get back home with the WA Borders now closed. He will have to go into two weeks quarantine before he will be allowed to go back home. The funeral will be Wednesday 15th – private  funeral with only 8 invited people

The number of new  cases in Australia is  declining- which is good. Our growth factor regarding the spread and new cases is 0.85 and provided it stay below 1.0 we are getting on top of the crisis. The growth factor for the UK, for example is 1.05 with the USA being 0.99 These figures are as 8th April. On the subject of  April,  I celebrated my  Birthday sitting right here – no outing – no visitors. Andrew was still in Roxby Downs and I did get a phone call from John. Andrew did phone last night when he got home. I got a card from  Annabell, which was lovely.It was my only card. Today is Friday and I took Dougal back home just after lunch. He was pleased to see his people as much as his people were pleased to see him. – Sam was looking and sounding well. I don’t think this can happen again. If things are back to what passes for normal and I head off to a Church Conference, Annabell is not able to look after two dogs on her own.