What an unbelievable year! This year, 2020, will be a year to be remembered. The year that a global pandemic (COVID-19) hit us and changed the world that we live in.

Our year started off with stories of the virus spreading and impacting so many families from China. At our school, there were a number of families stuck in China unable to leave. They had to work very hard to make their way home to Australia for the start of the school year. Here in Australia, the news of the virus was in the media, but I think for most Australian families it seemed so far away and didn’t impact us. Then suddenly, as quick as a blink of the eye, we had our first confirmed COVID-19 case in Victoria.

Things got real very quickly. A teacher at our school tested positive. Our school closed. It was Victoria’s first case of local transmission. Our school pivoted it’s learning model to online learning. At the start of online learning, there were a number of bumps on the road. The school and staff were learning on the fly and trying to accommodate the volume of students online. Parents and students fumbled through the new learning model. With many parents heading to Officeworks and JB Hifi to buys printers and routers to set themselves up for working from home.

After more than 9 weeks of online learning, the first lockdown ended at the end of May. The younger students and the VCE students were the first back to school. There was so much joy in the faces of the younger kids, seeing their friends for the first time in 2 months. The older students had a staggered return and were back to school full time by the second week of June. Slowly, some of our kid’s extracurricular activities returned. Once the kids were back to school, I managed to attend one Pilates class. That was short lived!

 The number of COVID-19 cases started to rise again in Victoria. Concerningly, the number of cases attributed to community transmission was on the rise. Prior to COVID-19, I never watched the news on TV. Now, I found myself glued to the TV watching the daily updates from the Premier. It was all very surreal.

Here in Victoria, our school term ended at the end of June. During the June school holidays (at home), the government moved Metropolitan Melbourne back to Stage 3 restrictions. No more playdates for the kids! No more extracurricular activities! It also meant that we were back to online learning model for Term 3.

We are now into our fifth week of the second stint of the online learning model. Here in Metropolitan Melbourne, we moved to Stage 4 restrictions over a week ago. What does Stage 4 mean? There is a curfew in place limiting movement from our homes between 8pm and 5am. Now, we aren’t able to travel more than 5 km away from home for shopping and exercise. The exception to this is if you employed in an industry that forms part of “permitted work” or caregiving. When we leave our home, we must also wear a face covering.

Although the Stage 4 restrictions sound restrictive, it’s not really made a great difference to our lives. For the last few months, the kids and I haven’t travelled further than 5km away from our home. We are lucky, we have a lovely park and walking path all within 5 kms from our home. Wearing a face mask is not a hardship! I’ve even managed to get my hands on some funky reusable masks for the whole family.

The biggest impact of the consecutive lockdowns is on our mental health! During the first lockdown, it was a bit of a novelty. Something to look back on and possibly share with the future generations. This time round, both kids are showing signs of lockdown fatigue. There’s been some pushback with the online learning and greater mood swings. Like most families during the pandemic, we have also been very dependent on technology to keep connected with our family and friends. We definitely have been spending too much time in front of the screen for school, work and socialisation.

How can we reset? I have decided that we need to inject more opportunities to catch some natural Vitamin D by spending more time in the garden. A couple of months ago when we decided to embark on the plant-based journey, it wasn’t just a matter of changing our diet for health reasons, it was also to positively make changes to the environment. Other than the diet, another way we can contribute to the change is in our garden.

A couple of weeks ago, after some research, I ordered a new compost tumbler and kitchen caddy from Compost Revolution. It arrived last weekend. On the weekend, the kids and I assembled the compost tumbler and cleared our old garden beds to prepare them for replanting. Ideally, I would like to create enough compost to fertilise our 3 existing garden beds. Full disclosure, I’ve previously experimented with a Bokashi bin and an old tumbler but no success. The old tumbler got too heavy to rotate. My compost was very wet, slimy and smelly. Let me put it out here, I don’t have a green thumb and my partner avoids the garden like it’s the plague!

Wish us luck on our new composting journey!