Yesterday marked the last day of No Meat May. I finished the month with only one failure: one day I just forgot the whole idea and bought a chicken burger. It wasn't a very good burger. Oh well, I'm calling it a win. I intend to stay vegetarian most of the time, vego at home, meat out, maybe?
Restrictions are lifting in NSW, restaurants and pubs are able to seat 50 guests from today (for the last two weeks they were allowed to seat ten but that's not sustainable for a large number of venues) and tomorrow our regular Tuesday Trivia group will meet for a pub meal. Trivia hasn't been re-instated yet but it will come. I'm not 100% sure I even want to go back to trivia, I haven't missed it, but I would like to support the owners who have been closed now for more than two months.
There was a meeting today to discuss the issues around my colleagues returning to work. Hand sanitiser will be issued to all employees, cleaning schedules will be written for door handles and other high touch areas, chairs to be moved to prevent groups from sitting at tables. I wonder why we can sit in groups in a cafe but not at work? are these government regulations or are they the work of people who think more (or in this case, less) is better?
I think of covid as a respiratory illness so I haven't really thought that extra precautions need to be taken around food safety and I was surprised to hear of people bringing their own crockery to work. I guess if they don't want to use work crockery we wont be eating from cheese platters for some time to come, sterile little single serve packs of biscuits might become the height of work cuisine. I'm not sure how to feel about that, it would be easy but rather uninspiring.
It falls to me to measure all the offices (or find out if anyone has measurements filed somewhere) and then calculate the maximum headcount for each room. I think the easiest way is probably just to buy a laser measurer thingy and get on with the job.
I'm off to the dentist tomorrow for a covid delayed filling, the hospital foot clinic on Wednesday and the physio on Friday. It's a good thing covid has reduced my work hours because I'm a high maintenance woman these days!
I hope all your maintenance buffs you up to a high shine.
ReplyDeleteLifting of the restrictions seems to be more than a little inconsistent doesn't it?
I appreciate that people are aiming for safety (from covid and from liability) but I have to admit that it doesn't always match my logic. I'm also not the one who is answerable if things go wrong.
DeleteI think I'll aim for patina these days :)
You did well with No Meat May, only busting it once and then with a chicken burger that didn't meet your expectations. I haven't eaten a burger now for a couple of months and don't miss them at all.
DeleteGood idea to measure the rooms yourself, it will be interesting to see how people will stick to the new limitations. Especially when you serve up the platter of single serve cheese and biscuits and everyone rushes into the room to take part in such a feast of goodies....
Alphie
I'm anxious to see how the reopening is going to go here. My state has had a recent burgeoning of positive cases so who knows.
DeleteGood luck with the dentist!
Alphie, you're funny!
DeleteAfter all the covid inspired baking that the media tells me people were doing, nothing less than sourdough and cupcakes will do!
Hi Jennifer!
DeleteI get to keep the tooth a little longer and the appointment wasn't too stressful. Now we'll see what it feels like when the anaesthetic wears off
If you have to measure the offices sizes it sounds like an as needed situation if they can still work from home.
ReplyDeleteI think there are some who are dying to be back at work, there are others who will be formalising work from home arrangements. The world is changing!
DeleteI'm amazed so many restrictions have been lifted elsewhere, maybe we are super-cautious here with only 1 case (from outside) in 3 weeks and restaurants are still closed along with clinics, workplaces etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
There is very little covid in NSW, 9 new cases overnight, so I'm confident we are ok as long as we keep up with lots of testing. Time will tell if I'm over confident
DeleteI had followed your progress in facebook and admired you for your steadfastness. Congratulations. I became a vegetarian in 1998 and have not regretted it.
ReplyDeleteOur dentists are still not seeing patients except emergency cases.
Ramana I'm not surprised your dentists are not seeing too many patients, I gather India still has a lot of active illness.
DeleteVegetarianism seems to suit you!
Congratulations on achieving an almost meatless May. I think "a high maintenance woman" means something else, something like diva, but not exactly. Maybe you should change how you describe yourself!
ReplyDeleteRamana just called me steadfast. I like that. When I was a teenager a boy called me staid. I don't regard that as an insult anymore but it was then :)
DeleteI hadn't realized you were aiming for a meatless May. You're inspiring me now. More and more I'm finding that I don't want to eat meat and don't have much of a problem with that because I like all the fruit and veggies anyway, but I'm also thinking about cutting out dairy because I find it makes me cough. I've tried vegetarianism a couple of times in my life and always felt wonderful when I did it, so time to give it another try I think.
ReplyDeletevegetarianism is a lot easier than it was, it's a lot more accepted and understood and there are plenty of great vegetarian and vegan products in the shops. I'm pleased you are inspired , that was my aim!
DeleteI get very weak and my blood sugar rises when I don't have meat. Besides, I like it. I am just eating less, and that is mostly poultry. I will not be setting foot in a restaurant for maybe a year.
ReplyDeleteYes, if i don't think a little bit I can end up eating a lot of carbs and not enough protein and then my blood sugars rise and fall too quickly. I'm looking forward to restaurants, I don't go out a lot but I do really enjoy it
DeleteThe difference in restrictions between the cafe and your workplace baffles me also. I'm not going to anyplace I need to be remotely near crowds as long as I can help it. But then I never went to such places before, so it's not a sacrifice. I do feel for the businesses that are trying to make a go of it, but I think we are going to see difficult spikes for many months to come. We had a fairly severe shutdown for months, and had progressed to no cases for weeks in our region of the province, and then suddenly - two cases popped up. Imagine what happens when the restrictions are lifted? I'm very concerned for the health of many of my family members, due to asthma, immune-system illnesses, and age.
ReplyDeleteIt's good you can get your medical and dental health taken care of. I feel for those who have had dental pain or other chronic pain issues and weren't critical enough to warrant emergency care.
Have you thought about using wooden toothpicks for your cheese (or fruit) platters? They are compostable, too, as opposed to plastic utensils. And inexpensive!
jenny, when i think about the people i know, a huge number of them fall into some kind of risk category and of course i want them to be safe but I also acknowledge that financial downturn, povery, mental illness and so on are real threats to many.
Deletetoothpicks are a great non-touch solution! but i suspect there are still many who would be reluctant to eat anything they haven't prepared themselves
I agree Kylie - the approach is inconsistent. I see 5 year old kids on TV demonstrating 'best practice', but they only rub gel on their palms and don't do a thorough job, after which they get to play and interact and breathe on each other! Makes absolutely no sense. I think it's a case of people want to believe we are doing 'something' - it eases the anxiety but in truth probably does little unless we practise an almost 'sterile method' based on the one I learned in nursing school.
ReplyDeleteWhere I work we have kept going throughout the shutdown in WA which was more severe than other states, yet my prison students interact with us and each other in overcrowded venues that are impossible to clean properly. It's a joke. To be fair I was more concerned when things first kicked off, but I'm more sanguine about it now - which doesn't mean I won't revert to my original position if WA gets a real outbreak.
i do believe that a lot of the precautions we are now using are more about giving us a sense of control than actually reducing risk.
DeleteWhen the virus first came to Australia I was concerned that we didnt know where it was and who had it, that was the time I felt tough restrictions were neccessary but I think now we are a lot more aware of who has it so I'm less concerned.
Prisons are always an incubator for disease, I'm not surprised you were concerned
Getting back to normal will take time. I hope we can be patient and take that time.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Red. We need to be safe about it and I think normal will look a little bit different forever
DeleteWhat more can I add? You did very well on No Meat May which I seem to have completely missed. I'm still in self-isolation because I will soon need my routine hospital treatment which is overdue. It does appear that the English regulations (I live in Scotland and different regulations) are beginning to be relaxed very quickly. we will see what happens no doubt.
ReplyDeleteI hope your next treatment goes well, Graham. It surprises me that so much of the world is relaxing when there are still a lot of active cases. Hopefully the powers that be know what they are doing
DeleteAs yet no sign of restaurants and pubs re-opening in Northern Ireland (or the UK generally). A maximum of 50 customers sounds sensible. I also thought that covid was a respiratory illness and that wiping surfaces, door handles etc is rather unnecessary. We've never wiped anything more than we usually wipe, and we only wash our hands after going to the supermarket.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on No Meat May. We'd like to be vegan but we're too addicted to cheese - especially as the substitute vegan cheeses all taste horrible.
Wiping surfaces can stop people from transferring virus from the surface into their eyes or mouth so it does have some value but I suspect it is less helpful than we would like to think about.
DeleteI find that by eating vegetarian you also have a lot of unintentionally vegan food. I love ice cream and cheese and dairy desserts too but some of those are easy to veganise. I dont want to be vegan or vegetarian but I do want to be more plant based, also known as flexitarian, which is a silly word because it doesn't actually tell anybody anything
Good to hear that The Land of Oz has really turned a corner - even though things are still not quite as they were.
ReplyDeleteWe have done exceptionally well here but I have to say I am concerned that we now have a population with very little exposure and the correlating lack of immunity
DeleteNothing like normal here, and people are getting restless.
ReplyDeleteSx
I thought restrictions were lifting? not fast enough, I suppose. People really do have short attention spans
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