One of the family got vaccinated today. It was time for Scully’s annual vet checkup and booster shots. Her appointment was at 2pm.
The daily COVID press conference by the NSW Premier was at 11am, so we watched that – 111 new cases in the last day, which is not good. They also announced a new set of lockdown restrictions. People living in the three worst affected local government areas (i.e. administrative areas covering roughly 20% of Sydney) are now forbidden from leaving home to go to work, unless they work in health care or emergency services. People with any other job cannot travel to work at all. My brother lives in the affected area, but I’m in a different part of the city.
They also announced that non-essential retail shops are not allowed to open, and released a list of what is considered essential: food, health, maternity, baby, and pet supplies; hardware, agriculture, and office supplies; banks, finance, and post offices. Every other retailer must close to shoppers – though they can offer online ordering. Additionally, all construction projects other than urgent repairs have been shut down, so construction workers will no longer be travelling to work.
These new restrictions last until 30 July, but may be extended if necessary. This is now, finally, slightly more restrictive than the lockdown we had at Christmas last year. Whether it’s enough to halt the spread of the Delta variant, we’ll have to wait another two weeks to see.
After the press conference, we went for a walk with Scully. The weather was sunny, but very cold and windy. The maximum temperature today only reached 14.6°C, and we had wind sustained around 40 km/h with gusts over 70 km/h, so it felt bone-chillingly cold. When we went out I thought we were doing a quick walk and coming back home, so I could have lunch before my wife took Scully to the vet. But it turned out she intended to stay out the whole time, and go to the vet on the way home! We ended up doing a huge walk – I think Strava tracked it something over 8 kilometres.
I left them near the vet just before 2pm and went home and had lunch. The vet is only doing contactless consultations. A nurse comes to the door and takes your dog, and you have to wait outside. It was like this last year too for her previous annual checkup. But the report was good, Scully is in perfect health, and has had her booster vaccinations.
Tonight my wife and I (finally) watched the last episode of the new Series 12 of Doctor Who. This is the most recent series they made, aired in 2020, but we missed it on TV, and have only now caught up on DVD. It took a little to get into Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, but I really like her now.
New content today:
I feel that way every time the Doctor regenerates. I’m always sad the last one is gone and then I start to fall in love with the new one. Jodie Whittaker’s version is no exception.
Yes, I didn’t mean to imply it was just Whittaker. I find the longer one actor plays the Doctor, the harder it is to get used to the next one. It took me a lot longer to appreciate Peter Davison and Matt Smith.