The rest of the state remains under slightly less onerous restrictions. So the good people of Ballarat can do some non-essential shopping and meet for lunch and other fun things. We can have up to five visitors at our place, should we so choose.
It's a bit confusing for those who live around the "border" between Metropolitan Melbourne and The Regions. Schools inside the restricted zone have an extra week of school holidays. Those outside do not. Those inside will be mostly doing home learning for five weeks. Those outside will be attending school as usual. If you live inside the restricted area you can travel to work outside it, if it is not possible to work from home. If you live outside the zone, you can travel inside the zone if it is for one of the four reasons.
Still with me?
We made a care visit to mother at the weekend. This is a legitimate reason to travel into Melbourne. I had heard Lindsey mentioning to someone that she had been writing medical certificates for people who needed to make a carer's visits to people and rang Stella's GP to get one for me - just in case I should be challenged about my reasons for traveling in Melbourne. We took supplies with us, which I got at the Mushroom farm shop, the Elaine farm gate shop and the local IGA. She had asked for a "stuffed" giant mushroom for dinner. So I got some giant mushrooms, some local blue cheese, some fish and seafood from the seafood van and some veg from the farm gate shop. We had it with fried rice
She seemed to enjoy it.
There is a checkpoint on the Western Freeway at Bacchus Marsh, on the outbound side of the road. When we came back from our care visit there was a checkpoint on the outbound side of the Peninsula Freeway checking on people heading towards Mornington. It wasn't there when we were going that way. The Bacchus Marsh checkpoint I believe is permanently there while the restrictions are in place. They didn't stop us. Nobody challenged us at all.
The roads were much quieter than you would usually expect at the weekend. It was quiet in Mount Martha, when I dropped into the shopping centre to visit the Grog Shop. So far the cases of Covid-19 aren't dropping but it hasn't been a week yet since the new lockdown came into play. Let's hope that the quietness means that people are taking the restrictions seriously and the numbers start to drop soon.
We are more or less observing the restrictions anyway, even though they don't (yet) apply to us. Better slightly inconvenienced than in hospital. Or worse.
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| The view from our front door, late afternoon |
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