Welcome Home(ish): A Quarantine Diary

 After passing out way too early the night before, I woke up this morning at around 4am, and after fruitlessly trying to get back to sleep, decided to try my hand at some timelapse photography at sunrise.  I then decided to try my luck logging onto myGov, and quickly fell into a rabbit hole of forgotten passwords, overly specific login criteria and general frustration trying to get onto the Centrelink website. The irony of this godawful system that has been imposed upon anyone who doesn't want to spend hours on hold anytime they have a query with any government department (I did end up needing to call to get my log on details), is that once past the Senile Gatekeeper that is myGov, the Centrelink site; which redirects back onto a Services Australia domain, was quite simple and easy to use, once I was able to get access to it. I wish someone would tell governments that making their sites absurb and difficult to log in to is not the same as security. Pastries are the ideal breakfast

Kelsey on Facebook asked how to check flight schedules as I mentioned in Part 0, so I thought I'd put it here for anyone else who was curious too. For Singapore Airlines it's as simple as going to  https://www.singaporeair.com/flight-schedule  and inputting your preferred route. Choose today's date and it will show you the schedule for the next week or so: I don't have any experience finding this info for other airlines, but I can't imagine it'll be much different.  The other option is to call the airport - they have a better insight into which carriers and flights are actually making their way in and when. Unfortunately, the further out you need to book, the more uncertainty there is as to whether that flight will operate, but if they're operating now there's more chance that it'll be operating in a few weeks or months' time. Hope this helps!

This morning saw me wake up just before my alarm at 8 o'clock after a pretty good night's sleep, having gone to bed at a responsible at respectable time of 11pm. Apart from waking up and looking at my phone a couple of times, I slept through the night pretty well, and I wasn't visited by Jon Oliver getting a piggyback from Paul Rudd around an Inception-maze-like Victorian era hotel like I was the night before. (I told you my dreams were weird). I was off to a great start to testing out the schedule I had set myself the day before, and by the time I was out of bed and had made a coffee, breakfast was at the door. A cheese and chive omelette with bacon and bread - this caption is about as boring as the meal A quick tangent about British food if I may - it sucks. Like, it's really bad. Unless you go to a Michelin starred restaurant, it's bland, boring and a bit soul destroying. The last meal I had before leaving was a full English breakfast at the airport, and the baco

After a pretty restless and broken night's sleep, I woke up on my first full day in quarantine at around 7am. I had left my blinds open overnight and fell asleep to the view of the Adelaide skyline, so woke up to rather lovely looking morning (I have had a few friends tell me that I've got back just in time for great weather - I have to take their word for it, its 22 degrees for me everyday for the next 2 weeks.) and got up out of bed. A coffee, some TV, and another care package, from my parents this time (this one had Balfour's Custard Tarts in it - I almost cried!), before breakfast appeared at the door - scrambled eggs, tomato and a hash brown with some fruit and a juice. My initial plan coming in to quarantine was to try and work on my health as much as possible - I didn't bring any alcohol in, no cigarettes (we'll get to that later too), and I had planned to not have any junk food or sweets either. So much for all that... May I draw your attention to the junk f

When we last checked in with our plucky, tired, still somewhat hungover hero (that's me!) he was being ushered through Passport control and Customs at Adelaide Airport. The process is still pretty much the same here, everyone was lovely, apart from the person at the passport desk - but I'm pretty sure being a bit terse and brisk is a job requirement for that role; I've never handed my passport over to someone who made me feel welcome or relaxed, no matter which country I've just flown into. A quick briefing from an AFP officer before being sat down to wait for the bus replaced the normal walk out of the Arrival gate to the warm embrace of family and friends that would normally come at this point in a return home story. I was lucky enough to be last in line for what I think may have been the first bus to leave, so I got a bit of time to stand in the morning air and try and get my bearings in the forecourt of the new Airport renovations. (It looks good by the way, I can&#

 So the day finally came on Sunday to pack up and leave London. I had in fact packed up most of my stuff and sent it home via sea freight (I'll perhaps cover that later when it finally catches up with me) and packed my bags on Friday, in anticipation of going out for a few leaving drinks on Saturday afternoon. Naturally a few drinks in the afternoon ended up with me going to bed at about 3am. Luckily I cut myself off at midnight and got a few pints of water in before bed (a rare occurrence by any account), but nevertheless, waking up for a 6 o'clock alarm was pretty hard to do. A shower, the last few bits of clothes stuffed haphazardly into my bag and some teary goodbyes, and I was out the door. Perhaps the worst thing about leaving the house at 7am horrendously hungover in London is trying to catch the tube with about 40kg worth of luggage in tow. As I would come to learn later as I followed others through baggage claim, I pack mercifully light, but still, navigating the rabbi