Tales of the Unexpected.

So...I should been at Brisbane airport now ready to fly back to the UK but that plan has all had to change. How quickly everything has changed the World over?I have applied for a travel voucher from Emirates to be used in the next year which will transfer the cost of my abandoned flight to one in the future. I am still waiting to hear about it as I guess they are inundated with requests at the moment.After the 'Book Cave' closed I was expecting to be out of work but on the contrary I have been in pretty much every day so far for at least half a day. We have dusted and cleaned all the book shelves and are now checking all the electronic tags are correct. It's very quiet and we are all keeping a safe distance from each other and using lots of hand sanitizer.Today, for the first time, most of the school children stayed home while teachers were at schools preparing 'online' teaching programmes or producing hard copies of work for those without internet access. The schools are still open for the children of those 'essential' workers. The local village school down the road only had one pupil today while the school in town had thirty. A member of staff at the school in town has been told to go into self isolation. I am sure we will hear more on that if test results come back 'positive'. I was there last Wednesday but didn't really get that close to anyone.Will has been out of work for a week. He has applied for the job seekers allowance but the form filling is utterly ridiculous. Today the Government announced it will pay employers $1500 a fortnight to keep people attached to the business, so that sounds promising and he has already had contact from the Cheese Factory about it so we shall just have to see how that pans out.As well as the National borders being closed to everyone except Citizens and Permanent Residents, the Queensland State border with New South Wales is now also closed with only freight being allowed through. Everyone is being told to stay home for Easter and not head off on camping trips over the coming holidays.I managed to sneak across the border the other day to get some 'chook' food. There were signs saying the road ahead was closed but at the border there was no one to stop me.This last weekend there were local elections to elect local councils and mayors. It was the first time I have finally been able to vote since coming to this country now that I have my citizenship. Every citizen here has to vote by law and failure to do so incurs a fine. We had applied for postal votes to avoid crowds at the polling stations but by all accounts it wasn't too crowded as polling stations had been open all week for early voting.The only thing fraught with danger these days is going shopping! The supermarkets now have lines to show you where to stand to avoid close proximity to others while you wait at the till. One supermarket was providing cloths and sanitiser to clean baskets and trolleys. You are still lucky if you can find antiseptic wipes, hand sanitiser, antiseptic handwash,  toilet roll, flour, pasta, rice or frozen vegetables. I did manage to get some yeast today though for the first time in a fortnight.What will happen next? Everyday I wake up and wonder what the latest news is. Strange times indeed but we all have to stay safe and keep others safe and eventually, all this will pass....and then what?I don't think it is ever going to be the same again.