Back in April I reached out to friends around the world for their thoughts on lockdown. Mary-Lou wrote about lockdown life in Canada here.
Six months on, she’s kindly written an update and has a lot to say … so maybe grab a cuppa. 🙂
The Autumn Sequel Of Living A Quarantine Life in Ontario, Canada …
As the late great John Lennon said, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. Enter COVID-19 and that is certainly what has happened to the world.
While I cannot speak for how all Ontario, Canada is coping, life in a semi-rural Ontario village is nothing like life in the big cities of Toronto, Mississauga or Brampton, all deemed as “hot spots” with renewed restrictions, we continue like most of the world, trying to find a balance of a new normal life amid rising infection rates & the seemingly fluid movement of rules.
October is the month Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving and I am certainly thankful to live where I do. While most of the children in our community have returned to in-class learning rather than on-line learning, school COVID-19 infections have not yet been a problem. In our county the active cases of the SARS-CoV-2 are under 1,000 and so far, no cases in our little village. Most of our local eateries have chosen to remain as curb side pickups and the community has rallied in support. Mr Man & I have not had a take away meal since end of February.
I am grateful that we had fairly good summer weather and are enjoying fabulous Autumn weather which enables us to have the opportunity to socially distance, outside, when meeting up with friends we haven’t seen in months. The good weather brings about lots of opportunities for walks and wanders in the woods & fields. There are people out foraging for mushrooms in the woods & fields, which have resulted in an increase of people being poisoned from the mushrooms they ate from their “getting back to nature” pandemic activity.
Now having said all that, I know that I am dealing with Pandemic Fatigue; it’s a real thing. I am tired of cooking every meal we eat, but thank you for all those online sharing of recipes – thumbs up to beer bread. More than anything I want to go wander in the scrapping store and see all the newest products but alas COVID rules, no wandering or touching and for us; it is still 99% curb side pickup for online requests or home delivery purchases. I am tired of having to think about risk factors for most activities outside of the home. I am tired.
Then there’s the mask debate. In all of Ontario you must wear a face covering while on public transit of any type, or any in person contact within a business and/or when physical distancing of 2 metres is not possible. But not everyone complies. I am not one of those persons that feel my charter of rights has been called into question. I believe that part of those rights and freedoms require of me, to be a responsible member of society. I wear the mask to protect you, you wear your mask to protect me – it’s really that simple. I am trying really hard not to give “that look” to those not wearing a mask. We have started to develop a wardrobe of masks and I’ve got my eye on a few Christmas themed masks.
To quote another great, Ned Stark, “winter is coming”, which means time to stock up on, not hoard, and get busy with online ordering of books, scrapping supplies and hot chocolate. Time to get ready to settle in for a long winter’s COVID nap.
This West London Life 
How interesting to hear how things are going in Canada. It would appear that pandemic fatigue is settling in all over the world, I don’t think we honestly expected things to still be like this at the end of the year. It’s hard to invite normality back into our lives when we’ve kept ourselves to ourselves for so long. We have only been out to restaurants a few times and each time I’ve not been as relaxed as I had been this time last year!
Thanks for sharing your post with us Mary-Lou!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m glad that I asked people to talk about what’s happening in their country, as it’s been so similar and also so informative. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Deb. I think that much of 2021 will see us still wearing masks, but that might also help to reduce the flu numbers that seem to peak December – February. How the rest of Canada is handling the pandemic is really quite different province by province. Each province mocks or criticizes the other which makes me wish for a stronger federal stand to unite us more in coping.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank-you, Mary-Lou for sharing how things are with you, and what is happening in Canada – it’s good to be informed and learn how other parts of the world are coping. I am with you on masks and the tiredness – we have so many changes and decisions to make every time we go to do something, that it’s exhausting. Glad that Nature is being solace for you!
LikeLiked by 2 people
It still catches me out to realise that life/restrictions currently really aren’t that different around the globe.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Alexa. The more we think we are different, the more the commonality of the human experience is shown. I find it not only discouraging but rather maddening that the wearing of a mask is such a political statement. The recent parody of wearing a mask using the song from Beauty & Beast was so spot on – the government should use this as a national message.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m so glad that the weather was so good up north – I know lots of people who needed that time outdoors before winter sets in!
The mask debate is the same here – most people are wearing them in public, but not everyone. We continue to stay home with daily walks around the neighborhood (without masks as it’s outdoors & we social distance if anyone else is out).
I’m getting tired of it all, too, but am still enjoying getting lots of scrapbooking done.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The wearing or not wearing of masks is a universal topic, I think.
LikeLike
For us in Ontario masks are not open for debate any longer, it’s you must wear unless you have a doctor’s note to say you cannot, although I think some businesses are tired of trying to police this themselves. The Great Pause has been a time to get lots of those PHDs in order (Projects Half Done).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, I think that there are a lot of PHDs around the globe. We have a few and call them the-jobs-we-didn’t-want-to-do-in-the-first-place …
LikeLiked by 1 person