Momentous

In December 2021, my wife gave birth to our first child. She had to be transferred to a bigger hospital as there was no doctors at the local hospital over the Christmas- New Years period. Sent via ambulance at three in the morning during labour. For the five days she had in hospital (due to complications after the birth) she was not allowed visitors so I didn’t see my newborn until they were able to come home.

My 2 babies (18 months and 11 weeks). Both born during different restrictions. No visitors allowed at the hospital to welcome them to the world.

We had 'zoom rehearsals' online for about two months, which we used to teach the songs. There was always lag so people couldn't sing in time. It was really frustrating not talking to people in person and the band not being able to practice either...

Today is the third day I have tried to get a Covid PCR test. I managed to secure a box of 5 RAT tests and have had 2 negative swabs 2 days in a row so hopefully my PCR will be negative as well...

We spent some of our days, fourteen And stayed in hotel quarantine A global pandemic to squash The government would like to quash...

I'm FULLY VACCINATED and, no, I don't know what's in it - neither this vaccine, the ones I had as a child, nor in the 11 secret herbs and spices at KFC...

I’m 18 and I’ve always felt as if I was born in the wrong generation. I love rock and roll and old cars and clothes from 1960’s to 1990’s (I would have been happy as a teenager anywhere in there) so when Covid-19 hit us it was very hard to understand.

Before Covid-19 I would usually I go and entertain the elderly at retirement villages and nursing homes in Canberra.

The 2020 ANZAC Day coincided with a hard COVID lockdown in Brisbane. The RSL, having been forced to cancel the traditional dawn services, asked people to stand at the end of their driveways with a candle instead.

Life was going along pretty good. I was retired and going out 4 days a week. I did Tafe classes, volunteering at local op shop, yoga, and meeting friends for coffee until the government said stay home...

Throughout Covid it has been tough on everyone in and out of lockdowns and not knowing what is coming next. As an elite athlete myself it has meant in certain times around events and big Competitions such as nationals but luckily for me unlike others it hasn't been to disrupted in SA...

You have shaken the world, But taught us many a lesson,
Lessons we didn’t learn in a lifetime, you did in two years.

It’s morning, I’m at the dining table at home in Lockdown 6 reflecting on the previous Lockdowns...

Two days after arriving in Australia we watched the news and saw that a new coronavirus had started in Wuhan, China and, that there was 36 cases in South Korea. At that time 36 cases really freaked me out. I thought it was so much.

a year (or 2) to forget? images parched earth red dust storms trees yearning for rain day after day then fire overwhelming redness choking smoke eerie darkness scars on our people scars on our land scars on our wildlife so real, even on a f...

When we were in lockdown we couldn't go anywhere, to the shops, to friends' house, to see family, it sucked so much.

We sit half-face sheathed one point five meters apart; mandated Observed ...

Early August, we’ve been in lockdown for a month and now restrictions are tightened drastically: a curfew, mandatory face masks, schools and businesses close. A friend calls concerned that people he knows might be doing it tough and ...

Covid-19 ruined our lives, making it hard for us to be outside It is a nightmare; we can’t wake up from. So we just stay in our beds all day long It is infectious, mask are the in thing, Curse this pandemic and let’s reunite. We find ou...

Then there came a virus I couldn't go to school I couldn't go anywhere That wasn't very cool.

My COVID story consisted of sleeping until 10am (before school started at 12), eating donuts, exercising in our little gym at home with my mother and brother, going to visit my nan and pop in town every so often, my dad banging on about the...

Was not sure if I was registered with GP, when a text arrived from Macquarie-Health to book AstraZeneca jab. I rolled up – injection and 15 minutes with a doctor, who served tea and biscuits. All done. Has to be done. Next stop: jab 2...

I do not drive and don’t have a car. During bushfires friends, who initially included me in their emergency plan, decided they actually did not have space for me in their cars. I waited knowing nobody would come, except the fire. We a...

My first child was due on the 11th of May 2020. First grandchild on either side of the family. Due to the pandemic, I had to attend my prenatal appointments alone. I missed out on birthing classes and parenting classes.

My German grandparents told stories of going Tin-kettling in their community on the Darling Downs in the thirties and forties. It generally took place after a couple returned from their honeymoon. Their friends assembled with noise making o...

I live on the edge of Batemans Bay, a regional town in NSW. On New Years Eve 2019 a bush fire arrived across the road from us. Thanks to the fantastic efforts of the fire fighters none of the houses immediately adjacent to us were lost desp...

I live in regional NSW, and my elderly mother lives on her own in Geelong. In early August 2020 I travelled (by car) to assist her with medical appointments like I do every couple of months. Because of the travel restrictions and because of...

My husband is from Liverpool, UK and discovered his father had stage 4 cancer during Covid. His father doesn’t have much time left so my husband has had to accept he’ll never see him again except over Facetime.

After 16 years of struggles in school, my son at the beginning of 2020 was diagnosed with Autism. Finally we got the answers we needed, and then suddenly the country shut down. State borders were closed, and my mother was unable to visit. O...

My birthday late March 2020 – my husband has booked a birthday dinner at the Whalebone Restaurant in Port Macquarie, a very lovely “special occasion” restaurant but everything went into lockdown the week before. We finally got the...

Mum and dad were meant to arrive a week after the first lockdown started. They live in the Netherlands and  since the birth of their first and only grandchild in 2017 they have visited every year. But now we haven’t seen each other i...

He passed away suddenly on 11/03 from a heart attack. The funeral was planned and over 300 people were to attend. Then, the numbers were cut to 10 people – how do you choose? His father, his friends. Our community came up with lining ...

My 98 year old father was recently bereaved and we had placed him in a lovely care home in Melbourne. During COVID there were some positive cases at the home. The residents were placed into lockdown. For six weeks Father was not allowed to ...

I’ve lived on the opposite side of the world for months at a time away from family, but I have never felt so far from them as I did during 2020 when the QLD border was shut. They were 855km away in Sydney while I live just over the QLD bo...

One planet, two countries. I have not seen my daughter or youngest grandson Harry for 4 years now. They live in Kent in the UK. Due to Covid 19 our collective ability to physically catch up with each other on either side of the planet is be...

We live in Canberra and my Nan was in Victoria. She suffered from dementia and diabetes and was being cared for in a nursing home. During the State border lock downs her leg was amputated. We were unable to visit her, and her health progres...

We watch the little child at play She’s grumpy today. Denied the freedom of her home this courtyard she roams.

There have been very moving Anzac Day services across Australia with young and old playing the Last Post on all kinds of instruments including trumpet, cello and even bagpipes and standing outside homes or driveways, some in uniforms wearing medals. Families placed candles on the ground or held them and drew poppies on their driveways. Children made commemorative posters; others went to their elderly grandparents.

Each day a nurse would ring to find out how we were and whether we had any virus symptoms. At this stage they were concentrating on high temperatures which neither my husband nor I had. We both had what we perceived as head colds and were permitted to contact a local pharmacy to obtain medication which was delivered to our room. We had three meals per day provided, no menu choice but like the accommodation at no cost and placed on a mat outside the door. Our window couldn’t be opened and a security person patrolled the floor 24 hours per day.

I can tell you exactly when Covid started to bite. It was the day I decided the Stage 4 Melbourne lockdown would be the perfect opportunity to read A Tale of Two Cities. I ordered a copy from Book Depository, the first step, though I didn’t know it, in an inexorable downward spiral.

I was moved by a feeling of hopelessness witnessing the carnage of the bushfires of 2019, so become a Red Cross Emergency Services volunteer, just in time for the last of the fires to be extinguished in February 2020. Then the pandemic hit and I joined the Red Cross outreach program, providing telephone support to those in quarantine in Qld.

From Toowoomba we went to Xmas in Wollongong 2020. Then we decided to move to Perth. Due to border closures we had to spend 2 weeks outside Wollongong to get to the Gold Coast, then we drove all the way to Darwin where we had to spend 2 wee...

Last winter we had planned a visit to see Auntie Dulcie and our cousins in Queensland, then Covid happened and the borders closed. My cousin died suddenly in June. Watching my aunt at the streamed funeral service was heartbreaking. Her daughter dead. Her Victorian family so far away, unable to hold her, to comfort her.

We organised a "bear hunt" for families doing their one hour of exercise who walked through our neighbourhood. We put stuffed toy bears in our front windows for people to find.

All of us put down our work to watch the flames eclipse tall trees and the helicopters battle winds to draw water from the nearby river. There was a deep anxiety as we all realised that the only thing keeping us out of harm's way was the wind direction.

I live in New South Wales and he lives in Western Australia. Same country, but two states currently separated by an invisible wall due to COVID-19.

In my 43 years as a Volunteer with the RFS I have never seen fire behaviour like I did in the 2019/2020 fire season and never wish to see it again.

As one of three full-time staff members, I witnessed each casual cafe, kitchen and function staff member being stood down: mothers, fathers, home-owners, renters, friends. That Thursday afternoon, shutting early, our doors closed indefinitely.

When I was 10 my Dad told me that our house might not burn in his lifetime but it probably would in mine. The beginning of every fire season I thought of those words and hoped that this wouldn’t be the season they would come true. On ...

My friend and my elder son rang me and told me what was happening. I had no idea. I brought the 3 dogs in on leashes, put the cats in cat cages and the guinea pigs in a picnic basket and we stood in the hallway wondering what on earth to do.

I don’t live near the bushfires but what I have seen on the news shocked me. Nearly 450 thousand hectares of bush farms and communities right across the country were left shocked after massive uncontrolled bushfires rages through thei...

We are the exception to bad news stories which catch people’s attention. We stayed to fight our fire. We beat it at the front but an unseen ember ignited an inferno at the back. Another ember destroyed our exit gear and boat fuel down at the river, ready for an escape. We watched our house burn to the ground. We believe this was fortunate. Acceptance was the only option.

The waiting room was tinged with smoke. Most were women with more visible bellies than mine. There were a couple of men, presumably fathers-to-be. One made eye contact with my partner, a moment of solidarity. We registered our arrival and sat down, a cloak of smoke attaching to our clothes. The hospital only had evaporative air conditioning, which was pulling in dangerous air we had no choice but to inhale.

In the Covid quiet, you can hear things you never heard before: the hum of the air conditioner on a peak hour train: the sounds of birds in your backyard, if you’re lucky; and the quiet desperation of people in the dole queue, if you’re...

Our homes survived that night. Amazingly they actually survived 12 days of being surrounded by fire.

...what they did was help other people, stood up in their own time of need and helped those who needed help. I am so proud of them.

I think of how luck treats people differently, how my artist friend at Mogo lost his hand-built home and one thousand paintings, his only superannuation. My heart went out to him...

Alone, unsure, we hide in our homes, our fortresses against an invisible enemy.

She teases, she taunts, she traps, and then she rises up, she unleashes her spite, her hunger insatiable, she swallows all in her path.

Zoom University

The fire was already too huge and close to comprehend, but my Pop was the love of my life and I wasn’t going to miss his funeral, even if I didn’t want to say goodbye.