One of the next door cats. The spot of sunshine it was basking in appears to have moved but it couldn’t be bothered.

Victoria has now gone two weeks without any community-bred virus.

Many thanks to all the Melbourne residents who kept their nerve during their prolonged lockdown, and kept following the rules – wearing masks, sticking to the four reasons to leave home, and following the 5 km rule. Without their sacrifice … well … of course, they wouldn’t have had to do it if the virus hadn’t escaped from hotel quarantine in the first place. Guess it’s hard to take something seriously until people start dying – as they did once it got into our aged care facilities.

Here in regional Victoria, we’ve had more liberties. Masks and social distancing have proved their worth when the odd regional outbreak didn’t spread like wildfire. Our contact tracing team are confident they’ve ironed out the problems which surfaced during our second wave. Practice makes perfect, and they got plenty of that.

Now Victoria is whole again , no internal borders.

This weekend will see a mass exodus from the city into the regional areas, as people finally get to visit their loved ones or have a holiday from their domestic space! Those with second homes can catch up on chores. Recently, permission was given to prepare their properties for the fire season – or where floods were expected – but they had to have a letter from the relevant council as proof. No sneaking in illegal holidays.

When I went into town the other day to meet a hearing aid consultant, welcoming signs on the roadside, greeting travellers, warmed my heart. ‘Welcome back, we’ve missed you.’ So sweet.

The people who own next door might turn up, dreading the weeding ahead of them. Their relative, who lives up the road (the one who feeds the cats) has mowed the grass a few times but the old vegetable garden beds have tall grassy fronds announcing their neglect. I weeded the narrow garden strip on the other side of my fence. No doubt, they’ll be expecting my ivy to be running rampant up its end. I never realised how much they must have been trimming. Oops.

Anyway, I’m feeling very fortunate, compared to what is happening overseas.

How are you faring?