This is a photograph I took when I was out with the dogs last night. I took it as my phone was on its last gasp because I forgot to charge it after my facetime call with my son and grandson. I thought it was a very odd looking sky. Generally I would have waited until I had cleared the houses but I didn’t think my phone would go the distance. (it didn’t)
Yesterday I attended church – well sort of – I attended the Moderator’s Service on line. He also found it odd because although he had conducted a service in a church with several hundred members and a church with only 20 members, it was the first time he had ever conducted a service in an empty church.
I sometimes think about life some years hence when we might be sitting around a table having a meal and a drink and the conversation turns to “The Great Toilet Paper Crisis of 
2020″and I will be forced to drink more to cover my embarrassment at not being able to join in the conversation because I never bought 100+ toilet rolls a week. However, I console myself by thinking that some of these people will buy empty 40 gallon drums and light fires so they can quietly burn all these hundreds of toilet rolls so no one will ever know how stupid they were. LOL I sleep well at night. Dougal is still here and we had a call from Adelaide this afternoon to say that they will be home next Thursday and will come and collect Dougal on Friday. I went over to the supermarket for dog food and since that was all I had, I was asked at the checkout if I had missed the toilet rolls. I said no, I didn’t want any. I got some very strange looks.
Apart from the smaller shops, most of which are closed anyway, actual cash money it no longer acceptable and paying by card is the accepted way these days. The Pay Wave on my card is not working since so I have been using my credit card. I am due for a new card next month so I can wait for that rather than order a new card now and have to pay for it. I can still use the card in the normal way since only the pay wave function is not working. However, Annabell raised a point with me in discussion – can these stores legally refuse to accept cash as payment for goods? i.e. can they refuse to accept legal tender? Interesting, my answer was no, I don’t think they can, but I really don’t know. —- I do now– and according to a Reserve Bank Statement on this very issue – a refusal to accept Australian Banknotes and coin in payment for goods is not unlawful. A business can request that payment can only be made by using a card.
I put the clock thing in to amuse: the clocks actually go back this weekend and I think going back about four years would be good.
The Cruise Ships off the coast of New South Wales, have been refused permission to dock. They are believed to be a hotbed of the virus. There is one off the coast of Western Australia again with foreign crew and
foreign nationals. It has been instructed to leave Australian waters but refuses to do so. The ships are registered in the West Indies so they have been instructed to go home. – they refuse to leave. Navy ships are on standby, although just what they can do is anyone’s guess. But on the news this morning there is a new virus case in South Australia – again from the Ruby Princess. Nearly half of the deaths in South Australia are linked to the Ruby Princess and the idiotic decision to allow 2700 people to disembark from the ship in Sydney and disperse to their homes without any checks, is at the root cause of this. There are a number of cruise ships (8) off the Australian Coast several inside Australian waters that have been ordered to leave. They have refused to do so and right at the moment there is really not a lot we can do about it. The spectacle of Naval Warships forcing a cruise ship out of Australian waters, does not bear thinking about. Judging by what I am reading in the news I have concerns that the European Union will survive this crisis with a number of the Eastern European countries,using the crisis to gain control of power and on the path to becoming right wing dictatorships. That’s a worry.
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