It has always been a dream of mine to work from home but that was back in the old days, when home wasn’t the only place we were allowed to be.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a homebody and I love my house – just not 24 hours, seven days a week.
Moving into town from a farm was a big enough adjustment but I knew I was in trouble when after my first week of isolation I had peaked early and cleaned out my wardrobe, the garage (filling a skip full of rubbish) and made 46 jars of relish.
When I found myself vacuuming the roof, I knew it was time for an intervention and time to get out of the house.
I mean who even does that?
Certainly not me pre-COVID-19 anyway.
My dog Barney-George aka the big boy was loving the time I spent at home which for him alternated between following me around, staring at me lovingly or sleeping on the couch.
My relationship with the fridge grew and I am sure when I opened it for the 100th time in a day it was starting to mutter, ‘What the hell do you want now? Weren’t you just here five minutes ago?'
But seriously the lack of no actual work routine and the continual staying home was really starting to do my head in.
I have done my best to bring a little bit of the farm to my own piece of city living because I do struggle without the wide-open spaces of farmland around me.
I have a pretty good vegie garden up and running and a few months ago, to keep the self-sufficiency thing going, I bought myself three Isa Brown chooks and an online chook pen.
I put the chook pen together with the help of three of my very resourceful girlfriends and while it has quite a distinctive lean it will do the job for the next 12 months – unless it blows apart in the next windstorm.
Their purchase has made me feel like a farmer again (if only I could fit a house cow in) and I have been surprised by how much joy they have brought me – they run for scraps like it’s a 100 m sprint and jump about in excitement every time I walk outside.
There is a particular chook named Chicken Phyllis who loves a pat and chat and every morning she makes the small jump up onto the sill of my bathroom window just to say hello.
As soon as she hears me get up, she is there, and the other day I found myself talking to her like she was a long-lost friend, which made me think how much I do miss my friends.
I am not the most social of people going around but even I am feeling this new world is a little strange.
My social life has always been far from exciting and consisted of me mostly heading to the gym.
Now the gym is in my garage and yes, I have even vacuumed that roof as well.
Like us all, I am grateful for everything I have and I know all the social distancing requirements are necessary but if I am talking to my chooks like they are long lost friends and we are only a month in - God help my mental state by the end.
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