September was flat out busy. I worked full time and at a higher level, which left me flopped on the couch or swilling wine in the bar with Matthew when he came to collect me. I have worked at that level for years but in a different organisation and a different job. So much reporting and so many meetings! And I still had work to do relating to my normal job. However, it was of short duration and I got paid extra.
In my last week, I got sick. Not covid sick which would have been awful as we were flying to Bali for my son’s wedding. I had laryngitis and couldn’t talk for two days and lots of horrible congestion too. I was a bit sick of people telling me I was on mute. I was covid negative and could get to Bali and the wedding and all the things. I was still coughing and blowing my nose though. My son and my daughter in law caught Covid before the wedding but they were well enough to get to Bali and do the thing.
The wedding was amazing but I’ll save that for another post. Only to say that I sat at the bridal table with my ex husband and my partner and it was fine!
We loved the resort we stayed at in Bali but we didn’t love the Bali belly. We had the Bali belly when we went to Singapore. My son was sick when he came back so we had the lovely Dev take us out two days, and my daughter in law on another day and then finally my son met us after he’d been dosed with antibiotics etc. We also had lots of travel woes. That’s another post too.
Then we came home to set off on our journey to Tasmania where we were due to go on a writing retreat in Port Huon, Terror Australis, with such luminaries as Ann Cleeves, Gary Disher and Vanda Symon.
I had a doctor’s appointment with my doctor where we discussed the Bali belly and the cough (now nearly a month old). He sent me for a PCR and whooping cough test. It came back negative. We visited Sharyn and Chris all good. We visited Keri, all good. A slight bit of coughing.
We visited Trudi on Monday..a lot of coughing and I felt pretty bad that night. We caught the boat to Devonport in the north of Tasmania. I had a telehealth appointment with my doctor who prescribed anibiotics for the cough. We visited another friend and then we felt under the weather. I can’t say we felt very unwell as that has all kinds of connotations. We were tired, had a mild sore throat. We moved onto Hobart and then Matthew did a RATS test. He was positive. I was pissed off. I was still sick from the illness in September. I ordered some more RATS tests to be delivered and was positive as well. OMG! We had visited people. Trudi ended up positive at the same time we did. Eep! She’d been travelling too but it could have been us.
I had made the assumption that I wasn’t contagious as my PCR had been negative on Sunday but by Wednesday night I had full blown symptoms (in hindsight). Also we had been feeling the cold but we figured we’d just got back from the tropics and we were tired because we had been travelling and not always sleeping well. There you go. It was covid.
We were in a hotel in Hobart and we didn’t know what to do. I contacted someone who was organising the retreat. For a while there we were contemplating ten days in a hotel and kissing goodbye $7000 we had spent on the retreat. However, we were lucky enough to be able to head to our retreat accommodation after all. We would be in a self contained unit. Meals could be delivered. They could try to let us attend masterclasses virtually for a few days until we were better. We were so grateful and it really made a potential disaster better.
We’ve been here now since Saturday afternoon. The first masterclass with Ann Cleeves was yesterday. We were phoned in and it wasn’t a great connection etc, but we heard some of it and what we heard was. great. Inspiring even.
I’ve been writing in our room, looking at the view. I’ve been for walks, masked so all good. We are really looking forward to joining in later in the week too.
This afternoon we have a masterclass with Vanda Symon, NZ crime writer and she’s sent us slides and stuff in preparation. Again so grateful.
The food is great…we just don’t have coffee! Matthew masked up and got some for the next town so all good. I’m no longer desperate for coffee and a call out saw my tea bag coffer refilled.
Yesterday my physical energy was good, but I had the imposter syndrome in my ear. I was having a crisis of what I should do, whether it would be any good and so on. Despite this I did write around 2,500 words of two projects. I had planned an SF crime story but I baulked on that. Today, I’ve done a little but the energy is lower.
Tasmania is beautiful by the way.
This is the view from the hotel entrance.
The picture above is from across the road at the marina. Below is the view from our room where we write.
This is a shot from the walkway I strode upon this morning. Lots of birds and marshes and rushes etc.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 