5 months. That’s how long I have stayed home, waking up each day to new routines. Or more accurately, reshaping my routines to fit a stay at home regime.

Last week, we had a day with no power. The power company had a scheduled maintenance for which they had to cut power for a whole day. Dan Andrews’ declaration of a state of disaster for Victoria (until 13 September) meant I couldn’t travel to the office for that day. So both Tress and I stayed home to basically do really old style stuff like reading. Tress thought we may have an old battery operated radio somewhere and I knew where it was. It was in a box under a bed. As I crawled under that bed to pull out that box, I did my back in. It turned out the radio was dead anyway, and my badly hurt back made me decide to rest in bed.

Later, when power returned, I decided to resume my reading routine. I pretty much stopped reading (other than for work, morning bible reading, home group, etc.) since I started working from home. The podcasts I have been listening in its stead, suggest I should in fact read even more. I decided I wanted to start with a little book. Tom Wright had been in one of the podcasts I had listened to, and his book God and the Pandemic had also been bandied about by several other sources, so I picked up that book on the Kindle. It was really helpful to pivot my thinking and approach to dealing with this locked down state. The lesson(s) I learned will require extended application and practice but I hope to do that.

About a year and a half ago Greg Sheridan, the foreign affairs editor of The Australian, gave a talk at St Alfred’s. He mentioned Tom Holland’s Dominion and it stuck in my mind. I looked it up and it was a bit of a tome so I didn’t pick it up. That book came up numerous times in some of the podcasts I had listened to, and Tom Wright in his little book also mentioned it again, so I picked that one up too. I started reading it on Saturday and it has been fascinating. I feel like it’s a bit over my head so it requires a bit of work to focus, follow and appreciate the work. I found myself turning to Google in my idle moments (of which there has been quite a few) to read up more of historical identities, places and events Tom Holland referred to. The 600+ pages work will be slowly savored and cherished.

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Last Friday night, the little TGIF drinks on zoom we had the week before, had a second helping. Everyone enjoyed the first one we had the Friday night before and this time, we cranked it up a little bit and bought food delivery. We spiced it up so that each of the 4 families bought stuff for another family. Tress organised the whole thing so that no one knew who was buying their goodies and we were to show what we got, during the zoom session. Tress, being the organizer, was the only one who knew, before the unveiling, who was buying for whom. Well, I knew we were getting for Alex and Li Har’s and as it was their youngest boy’s (Jermel) birthday, we decided to get them half a dozen cupcakes. The Hippos got us some Indian stuff – a rojak which we had straight up and a fried noodles which we kept for the next day. We had good fun and I think everyone really enjoyed the occasion.

On Saturday, after a sleep in and brekky, we did some light gardening. The lawns were still squishy from the rains we’ve been getting. I trimmed the lemon tree, cleared some undergrowth on the back fence, and swept all around. Later, after a lunch of the fried noodles from the surprise delivery we got the night before, I did some reading before walking to the shops to do some grocery shopping. I wanted to walk to ease my back into some movement, and the walk was great. The weather turned out to be more sunny than we expected, so after returning from the shops, I put away everything, prepped the stuff I was going to cook and then went out for another walk. It was really pleasant to just do a longish slow walk, followed by a shorter one with Tress and the little black jedi.

On Sunday, after the usual online St Alf’s service, I cooked the little fellow’s dinners and then went out to get lunch. Then it was another short walk, before I did the cook, to be followed by another short walk. I badly wanted to cramp in as many walks as I could, to ease myself to more regular movements and activities, to take away the otherwise belittling back pain.

It’s the start of another work week, and the calendar looks as busy as ever. This work from home in a locked down state continues to grind away and it remains a challenge. United lost in the semi final overnight. Sevilla, the Europa League kings, prevailed. Closer to home, the Hawks battled harder but the Eagles were too strong for us so we remained in the wrong end of the ladder.

Hopefully, Tom Holland’s Dominion does dish out the delicious distraction that will further shunt me along a path that Tom Wright had thankfully initiated for me. Thank God for these Tom’s.

About a week ago, a thought crept into my increasingly foggy head. I said to Tress I thought about teeing up an online drinks and chat time with some friends. She thought it’d be good, so I set up a group and teed up that time.

Last Friday night, we all dialed in with drinks in hand. Some even dressed up for the occasion (the Hippos, of course). The initial 45-minute limit went by pretty quickly and when I asked if people wanted to push on, everyone readily said yes, so a couple of minutes before the time was up, I teed up another link and we continued there. I guess we all needed some contact time to sort of calibrate and stay sane. It was a good, albeit different, sort of Friday night catch up. When we all signed off, we said we’d do it again next week.

On Saturday, we slept in and I then did some cleaning around the house. The usual vacuuming was followed by wipe downs, including a good wipe of the cook top range hood and some cutlery drawers. With us both being at home so much, I’m noticing more things that needed cleaning or just a touch up. It gets exhausting that way too.

When I had enough cleaning, I got cleaned up myself and then went out to get lunch. We can no longer go out together, so I had to go out by myself. It was the same with the shopping later on. The much talked about “new normal” has started to get to me – the being alone, no contact, mask, no seats, etc., etc. It gets annoying and tiring. It really takes some getting used to.

For no particular reason, we had started watching, earlier last week, a Korean drama on Netflix. It was just me “surfing” around to find something to watch (after “Unorthodox”) and I thought a classical/historical type drama with sword fights would be just the type of escapism I needed. “Kingdom” turned out to be something different – it’s another zombie like offering. It’s done in English with mismatched subtitles, but the plot was simple so there is little need to actually follow what was being said on screen. I guess it’s a mindless escapade of sorts. It turned out that the homies on the Friday night online drinkies were all into Korean drama. Maybe some stars are aligned. Anyway, that’s what we did again on Saturday night, as I toggled between the football and endless chasing around by zombies.

Sunday saw us doing the usual St Alf’s online service. Peter spoke about how a good God can allow something like the current pandemic to happen. The old chestnut of how a good God can allow evil to persist I guess. A gem which Peter shared was from the book John Lennox wrote regarding the present virus plagued world. Lennox cited work done by Peter Pollard, a scientist from Griffith University in Queensland. Pollard pointed out that a vast majority of viruses (99.9%) are good. Only a tiny bit is bad. This tiny bit however, can wreak great havoc, like a tiny bird getting sucked into a jet engine to bring down a jumbo jetliner. It makes the world God created, which He said was good, feels like an awful place. This world is a fallen, broken realm. God however, has it all worked out from day 1, and the new heaven and new earth will be presented in its full glory, at the right time.

I guess that is what always gives us hope – that one day, there will be no more suffering, no more death. It still needs work however, for that hope to underpin all we do each day. Like when I need to keep my head down today to get all the work done…

Melbourne continues to tumble down the ever steeper slopes of this pandemic. With modelling outcomes suggesting infections exceeding 1,000 each day, we’re now in a state of disaster.

Curfew commenced at 8pm last night and would last, initially, for 6 weeks.

All measures undertaken to address the “second wave” that reared its ugly head a little over 4 weeks ago, have failed. Many thought we’ve hit rock bottom but we continue to plumb new depths.

On Saturday morning, we slept in a little and I then logged in to an Annual General Meeting of Steer. It’s unusual to sit in front of a couple or screens as usually, at this time of the year, we’d be in a hall somewhere in the outer eastern suburbs, as we convene this annual event. We continue to chalk up unusual new experiences.

Tress did truckloads of housework through the nearly 3 hours of AGM presentations and discussions. She did the laundry, and tidied up lawns strewn with weeds and other contaminants.

Later that arvo, we had takeaway from a local joint before we took the little fellow for a walks, and then went out for some grocery shopping. As we did that, we followed the Hawks’ game against Carlton. The Blues have been a perennial cellar dweller and although they have a superstar in Cripps, they haven’t had much success in recent years. So when they went 5 goals to nothing up against the Hawks in the first quarter, it felt like the Hawks too would be plumbing new depths. Alas, the turnaround was strong in the second quarter and we finally prevailed. It’s good to stop the losing streak, albeit against the Blues.

Sunday was the same as recent Sundays. We took the St Alf online service, with Andrea speaking of lament. It’s the second time in recent months this topic came up as a message in St Alf’s service. Mark had spoken about this too. Towards the end, there was a video with someone speaking about writing our own lament. After the state of disaster and curfew declaration last night, that sounded like exactly the thing to do.

After the “service”, I prepped the cook and then gave Tress’ car a wash. We then had a takeaway lunch from some place a bit further out, mindful that it would likely be the last time we could do this, for a little while. We then took the little fellow for a walk. It had been a beautiful weekend weather wise, so it was a treat to take him out for his walk. We came back, I did the cook, and then Kiddo and Mic did a face time chat with us for a little bit. I said to them we want to move up to Canberra. A very small part of that is true…

We started watching the series “Unorthodox” last night. It’s a strange one. A lady from an ultra orthodox Jewish community in New York city “escaped” to Berlin to look for her mother, who had been estranged from her father, who liked a drink. “Esty” had been brought up by her grandmother and an aunt and had an arranged marriage to Yanky Shapiro, a shtreimel wearing lad. We watched a couple of episodes but are none the wiser on the reason(s) for her “escape”. I’m looking forward to watching further episodes. It feels like the right antidote to this new depths of despair we now face. Stranger experience I have not had.

My workmates were supposed to have an online drinks session on Friday. It got cancelled at the last minute and my boss rang me shortly after cancelling it, to explain why he cancelled it. He asked how I was doing and I told him other than feeling a bit flat, I was fine. I said most people probably felt the same way and he said that was why he teed up the “drinks” session.

That same sentiment – feeling a touch flat – was echoed on Thursday night when we had the online meeting with the home group. I guess that really was how most people felt. It didn’t make me feel better, somehow, to know that my feeling flat wasn’t an unusual response to what’s been happening in recent weeks.

The numbers haven’t provided any cause for celebrations, and more cases of deaths have been reported. As I write this, the trajectory of the infections may look like this chart:

Adding to all that gloom, is how Hawthorn has slipped and fell off the cliff. Four losses on the trot, and allegations of salary cap breaches in the 80’s and 90’s, all piled on the happy club that has become the envy of many. Thankfully, Man United won its last game of the season overnight. That meant we’re in the Champions League next year.

On Saturday, after a sleep-in and a late brekky, Tress and I set out to clean the house. I had also wanted to reconfigure the study, which has been my office for over 4 1/2 months. I wanted more access to natural light so I moved my desk, so that it sits next to the window. The window had been directly behind me and the wall in front of me, and the corner where the desk had sat, had been dark, and light from the window appears to have faded by the time it hit my work space.

I did the re-organizing, cleaned stuff up a bit, and then went out for grocery shopping. Shopping has become a bit of a pain since it became mandatory to wear face masks. It can get a bit disorientating. So Tress and I fumbled our way through the shops and supermarkets. We got all the shopping done eventually, and I also picked up a new extension chord as my desk is now furthest from the power points.

I wanted to make sure the room was neat so I ran the chord along the edges, to ensure no cables ran across the room. I had to line the chord behind the piano and I was on my knees to work the cable along the carpet edges. I was thinking of getting a tool to hide the cable under the carpet edges, when I got up just under the piano. I hit the back of my head against a sharp corner and felt the pain instantly. As I rubbed my hand against my head, I discovered the damage was a touch worse than expected – blood streamed through my hand and I called out to Tress to get some towels. I was more worried about staining the carpet at first, but the pain stayed on so I got some ice to place on the damaged site…

The “office” eventually got re-organized when the daze went away.

Sunday saw us doing the usual stuff. After an online service with St Alf’s, I did some prepping for the week’s cook before going to get a takeaway lunch. We then took the little fellow for a long walk, before coming home and doing the cooking. As I cooked, I followed the West Coast Eagles game against the Pies. The Eagles put on a display that made, for the first time this season, football fun to watch again. It was probably the first game in weeks that I watched right through. The Eagles kicked over 110 points, probably the highest score all season.

With Masterchef all done and dusted, we wondered what we would do on a Sunday night. We ended up just looking at stuff on facebook and I told myself I must find time and space to read again. I haven’t read a book since the lock down began. That’s 4 1/2 months of wasted time. I probably need to do a different sort of re-organizing – that of my routine – to create time and space, for reading again.

It was a horrible week. The infection numbers remained high and the pall of gloom that had descended before, remained to remove much of any sense of optimism ahead.

I ended the busy week with heaps of stuff logged for this new working week. I am armed however, with only a white knuckled frame of mind to accost these tasks.

To soften the harsh core and edges, I cleaned up the gardens on Saturday. The rains had stopped for a few days and while the ground still felt squishy, it was “dry” enough to do some necessary work. The hedges on the eastern side got trimmed, the edgings got done and the lawn got a good mowing. The lemon tree got parred back too, and by the time I swept up and put all the gears and tools away, nearly 4 hours had gone by. It had remained cool right through all that work, with the ambient temperature staying in single digits. I later told Tress I could not remember doing so much work on the greens under such conditions. I had my beanie, flannels and jumper on the whole time.

We then did a late takeaway lunch from an Indian shop near our home, and then did some grocery shopping. Jesslyn and Gerry had earlier brought some prawns we bulk purchased with them, and they brought along a couple of masks too. These were reusable cloth masks and they were far more comfortable to wear than the disposable ones I donned the week before. J&G’s gifts were very timely as the next day, the Premier made it mandatory for all Victorians to wear a mask when they leave home, or cop a $200 fine.

Later that night, we watched a movie about the Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. It was a fascinating, yet sad story. The genius died at a very young age of 32. His collaboration with a Cambridge professor who was an atheist, included the line “An equation for me has no meaning, unless it expresses a thought of God.” It’s a curious one – how mathematics can be approached from such polar ends. Ramanujan was a deeply religious man and had little objects of deity in his room at Cambridge. Hardy that atheist professor however, had no time for the deity and one of his closest friends, according to that movie (The Man Who Knew Infinity), was Bertrand Russell, who was another well known atheist. Or he may have been an agnostic.

We did another online service with St Alf’s on Sunday and increasingly, I am finding it a challenge to be engaged. The ease with which one gets distracted and wander around the house while the service is going on, makes it very hard to be present and be engaged. I try to do that (focus and be engaged) as much as I can, and I imagine being in situ – meaning I would not do anything I would not have done if I was in the building on Springfield Road. It is very hard though, as the scaffolding that facilitates engagement has been removed by this pandemic. Staying at home means we can’t sing together, listen to the word in person and in situ, and be engaged in a way that satisfies. We ploughed on regardless, and worked our way through. It is not as satisfying but it will do. For now.

After service, I prepped the cook for the working week. I peeled the prawns, prepped the aromatics, cut the veg, and set everything up for the cook later in the arvo. We then went to get takeaway lunch from Donvale, and after lunch, went to the shops to pick up some more stuff. After the cook (a pretty decent prawn curry) we got ready for the Masterchef semi final. I told Tress that I have enjoyed this season’s offering, as an escapist would clutch at to momentarily forget the travails around him. It has been a source of happiness for a little while. Maybe it is also that it has become an avenue for Tress and I sharing banter (on WhatsApp) with Kiddo and Mic while they watch it in the capital city. We will likely have withdrawal symptoms after the finale tonight.

It’s a little after 7.45am as I typed this and already, a couple of work messages have crept in. It will take some work to get on top of things.

We finished up the working week last Friday night by tuning in to the Hawks game against Collingwood. It was awful to watch. It wasn’t just the woeful performance by the Hawks, it was also a horribly boring game. It was just that sort of week. From a peak of spending the previous weekend with Kiddo and Mic in beautiful Lakes Entrance, it quickly descended and it felt like it was bottoming out as the game progressed. Thankfully, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe were belting out pieces from Les Miserables on Channel 32 and it provided much needed respite. I toggled between the two and increasingly, spent more time watching Jean Valjean and Inspector Javier and less on Stratton and Company.

On Saturday, the instinct was to clean. I felt like I needed to do some cleaning. Maybe it was just a subconscious push to scrub out the grime that has built up since we left Lakes Entrance. After brekky and washing up, I started to clean shelves and drawers in the kitchen. I had wanted to do some vacuuming but Tress picked that up, so I dived into the kitchen cleaning mission. I emptied out old jars of spices and sauces, scrubbed out shelves and drawers, lined them afresh, and threw out a whole bunch of old stuff. Glasses, teapots, mugs, pots, old jars, either got thrown out or rearranged.

Knowing there is nothing stale in the kitchen and assured the shelves and drawers are clean, is a wonderful state of mind to be in.

We then got out and bought lunch to take away. After lunch, we got some groceries. Compliant to a tee, I put on a face mask for the first time when we went to the shops. It felt really uncomfortable and within a few minutes, I understood how a non-reusable mask had to be discarded after a single use. I ploughed on nevertheless, and ignored both discomforts. Other than working harder to breathe, I was also self conscious – I always thought it impolite to cover up my face when interacting with my fellow human beings. I had to work a touch harder, to keep that mask on despite this other discomfort.

Back from grocery shopping, I cooked a pasta sauce and then marinated some chicken for a curry I wanted to cook the next day – all for the week’s lunches so we don’t have to leave home and can conveniently pop something in the microwave on each workday.

On Sunday, we did the St Alf’s online service as usual. This time however, there were repeats of “Going Bananas”, the school holidays program that go on each winter break. This time however, everything was online and some of it were presented for the service. It was quite good to be able to follow these. Even better was Lauren Weatherlake’s sermon on Luke 5:33-39. The bit that grabbed me was whether my instinctive reach for that brand of Christianity that is within typical middle class respectability borders on being Pharisaic. Putting on grace so that we can introduce Jesus to that part of the wider community that Jesus cared for the most, need to come to the fore. Putting on grace. That is something I needed to learn, or re-learn.

Maybe there are those nether parts inside me that need a good scrub. There may be old jars of stale and expired material that I needed to throw out, so that those parts feel clean and fresh again. Lining my thoughts and actions with fresh space for new things may be the order for the day. Maybe I need to work harder to deal with this discomfort too.

As we were preparing to leave our holiday accommodation on Monday morning, we saw on the TV that New South Wales will be closing its border with Victoria, effective Tuesday midnight. That hasn’t happened for over 100 years. I felt sick in my stomach, as it sunk in again, how bad this can be. Not the border closure necessarily, but the infection trajectory and its impact on lives of all Victorians.

It was just as well we caught up with Kiddo and Mic, and we had a good few days together in a beautiful part of Victoria. Tress thought she had made a mistake when we booked the home for those few days, but it turned out to be another serendipitous error. Had Tress booked for the week after, we would not have been able to catch up and have a wonderful break.

I guess that offset a little bit of how I felt with the second wave of this virus that is still wreaking havoc on our lives. We left Lakes Entrance late yesterday morning and as we drove back to Melbourne, the grim news kept coming. The number of new cases were inching towards 200 and accounts of quarantined public housing commission residents left a really disturbing sense within me. The 600 pound gorilla in this second wave, that no one has been willing to point out, is the possibility of Muslims celebrating Eid without observing basic restrains that the virus requires. I guess if anyone points out the role played by Muslims, he/she runs the risk of being labelled a racist or haters of Muslims or some other similar criticisms.

We got home late afternoon and after unpacking we headed out for a meal and when we came back, we saw that Melbourne is subject to a new 6-week lock down.

I felt angry, and depressed. I was angry at Daniel Andrews, the premier of Victoria, for being such an incompetent person in dealing with the hotel quarantines. This morning as I resumed my normal routine of doing some push up’s in front of the television, a journalist gave voice to that anger – that fury, even. We’re not happy, Dan. You have caused us so much grief.

Tress and I caught up with Jason and Mel on Friday night. We used to do that every now and then – just having dinner and chatting to unwind and end the week. Obviously, we hadn’t done that for a little while. They still sounded apprehensive about going out for meals however, so the next catch up would probably not happen for a little while again.

Dining out these days are a little stifled – we had to leave the restaurant by 7.15pm, but that meant we were home well in time for the footy. The Collingwood and Essendon game was on but I struggled to stay interested. Games feel like they’re boring these days, and yesterday, when I was doing some cooking, the Geelong v Melbourne game sounded that way too. I was following last night’s Hawks v North Melbourne game on the iPad and it felt that way too. I was wondering if the restarted season lacked something or was it me… and then this morning, Clarko said the game needed to be opened up. He said tackles aren’t paid anymore and I realised that too. So it wasn’t me. I hope footy, like life before this horrible virus, returns to less stifled experiences.

We went and got pies for lunch on Sat – Tress had a satay chicken one and I had a good old chunky meat one. They were very satisfying. We didn’t just go there for lunch however – we had wanted to takeaway some frozen ones for a getaway, which we did. Later that arvo, we did some grocery shopping and then did some weeding. Swathes of clove weed had taken over large patches of the front yard on the eastern side, and we – Tress mainly – got busy and attacked the task.

Sunday was the usual St Alf’s online service, and then pottering around the house before going out to get some lunch. We decided on a little Malaysian place in Donvale and while we were there, someone at the next table had a chat with the owner of the joint, about getting legal service. They talked about costs and I suggested to them about getting a Law Institute referral that’d save them a few dollars. The customer looked like he was alone, looked a little lost and didn’t speak English. Tress and I wondered if his legal issues were immigration in nature.

Later in the evening, we exchanged some WhatsApp messages with Kiddo. She and Mic looked like they had haircuts, just as Tress did over the weekend. Earlier in the day, Isaac had his picture taken and sent to us by Daniel, showing a new hairdo. Must have been a designated haircut weekend of sorts… maybe life has returned to normal in some ways.

Victoria has become a pariah state. It has recorded 4-5 consecutive days of spikes in numbers of virus infections, with each day a higher number than the preceding one. A big hole appears to be unchecked quarantine for those who were infected. They breached quarantine and went on to infect others. I don’t know why people do that. Maybe they thought they knew better. It’s so hard to have these conversations now. Especially if these quarantine breakers are of diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds. With the George Floyd incident still exploding across the world, it feels like it is so hard to just look at what actually happened and ask reasonable questions, without being an x-hater of sorts. A la China and its reaction to Australia’s asking for an inquiry. Australia simply suggested an inquiry, which is not an unreasonable suggestion given how much our lives have been tossed and turned around. China had then reacted with threats of economic sanctions of sorts, and have actually proceeded with that. One can no longer take things at face value and ask reasonable questions, it appears. Not without being a hater of some sort.

I went into the office last Friday, for the first time in about 3 months. There was a bunch of statutory documents that my bosses needed to sign and I had to witness their signatures. I had witnessed signatures during the lock down period over video conferencing but this time, there were 2 signatories and there were a few to be signed and witnessed and the logistics involved would require too many hoops to be jumped through. Going in would make it easier for several people and I also thought it would be good to go in to sort of refresh stuff a little bit.

I was also in a bit of a upbeat mode as the Hawks had trounced the reigning premiers (Tigers) the night before. It was the second game from when the virus plagued season restarted, and we had started disastrously by losing to a “not that good” side in Geelong. Clarkson had made that quoted statement in a press conference after that game, saying Hawks were just terribly poor to have lost that game. We certainly made up for it in spades in that game on Thursday night.

I drove to the office, as public transport is still a no-go zone for me, and got in a bit after 8am. It felt strange in various ways. Most strange of all is how grateful I am now, to be able to work without this commute into the office. I used to prefer working in the office, but the past 3 months has, I think, altered my preference – particularly as it took me well over an hour for the drive back later that day.

Later that night, we went to our local shopping centre/mall for dinner. The top floor is a dining and entertainment floor and we had been there often, for dinner or to catch a movie. The mall is only less than a click from our home so it’s a no brainer.

Saturday was Tress and my wedding anniversary, so after a day of cleaning the house, we went to a local Vietnamese joint for dinner (in the same mall), to celebrate the occasion. The restaurant was very good – far better than the last time we went there which was soon after it opened. There was a fresh menu and the service was very good, so we decided it would be a local favourite.

We promptly returned to the same Vietnamese restaurant the next day, after doing the St Alf’s online service. We had also then gone to Ringwood as I had wanted to get a new pair of trainers for my extended daily walks. I had, since the lock down, done a daily lunch time neighbourhood walk that took 45-50 minutes, and over about 5 1/2 km. That is still no where near the daily 8km I used to run but a walk that is close to an hour had caused my toes to bruise and I realised I hadn’t gotten proper training shoes for a little while now. I found a relatively cheap pair (under a hundred bucks) and Tress found a really nice deal too in a different shop so we both got much needed trainers to look ahead.

I spent the rest of the arvo doing our usual cook, including for the little guy, and it was a grey and rainy day, which didn’t help recollection of Sim’s passing over a week ago now. I had also been looking at an MX5 and had gone to look at one several weeks ago. The owner had texted me on Friday and I had mulled over a response. I finally did when we were at lunch at the Vietnamese place, to say I’m not presently considering it anymore. Later, I exchanged WhatsApp messages with my brother and we alluded to how we missed Sim. I guess she will remain in our hearts and minds for some time yet.