Lockdown 1/28 - STAY HOME

Day 1 of my diary of a LOTR Fan Museum owner during our 4 week national lockdown - in NZ we’re uniting as a country to beat Covid-19 before anyone has died. It’s wonderful - but it’s …. weird, hard …

Up until last week I had a job - running a Lord of the Rings Fan Museum (The One Room Fan Museum). An unusual job - for sure; a fledgling job - definitely (surviving on savings after leaving my normal world job).

Now our Prime Minister has given me a new job - “STAY HOME”.

OK, great. Day 1 dawned this morning, and what does this new job look like? It’s a calm but slightly grey autumn day here in Wellington NZ. The streets are quiet. I hear the odd plane. It just feels so surreal and unstructured, that I find it hard to get moving.

I waved goodbye to my dearest, who is one of those rare folk doing emergency work (HR are a local hospital - yeah, someone has to hire and look after all those medics). I’m feeling rather bereft and a little scared as he leaves.

I’m otherwise calm. It’s been a big whirl of activity in the lead up - lots of family members to account for, including one lost somewhere between China and New York - now found in a hotel in Beijing, thank goodness, and safely stowed (along with her inseparable cat companion - see photo). Checking on dear friends. Shopping (without panic buying) for a few last essentials. We forwent the chance to have our last takeaways for a month, which I slightly regret.

Now it’s here, and …. So I thought I’d try blogging my way though. I’m no JRR, so probably no insights, but I’m thankful for his lantern in hard times.

Some ideas in the lead up - my dearest wants to paint the house - so the Museum is re-purposed to store the paint. I’m thinking of making more costumes - current cossie underway is a new Legolas tunic, and I’m wanting to do Theoden’s armour, but I may not have all the materials in need with me in the bunker. I welcome ideas.

Another ethic of the new job, as instructed by our PM, is “kindness”. So, I’m going to keep that in mind and be in touch with loved ones and see what I can do to help generally. I remind myself that there’s time - everything is slowing down. So, I can take the time to decide what to do with the time that is given me.

My thoughts go out to all of us experiencing this world-shattering event. I hope are all safe. Namarie