A pinch and a punch for the first of the month – or hares and white rabbits, whatever you say to bring a bit of luck on the first day of the month. It is the first day of spring in the southern hemisphere, and is celebrated as National Wattle Day in Australia – if you follow that link to a plethora of images and information about the flowering Acacias that Aussies call wattles, you’ll learn more about them and their place in our history than you ever thought you could know about wattle.

The Golden Wattle was incorporated as an accessory to the design of our national coat of arms in 1912. And that has absolutely nothing to do with what I have been up to in the month since I last posted here. I haven’t been posting much anywhere – I am perhaps as active as normal on Facebook, but posting a bit less on my other blog, pickledgizzards.com Keeping in touch with our far flung family members also needs a fair bit of time, and that that seems all the more urgent in this dreadful pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed everyone’s life in an infinite number of ways. Touch wood, so far there have been no cases in the families, and I’ve not heard of deaths of anyone I personally know. Mike and I are in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, where we’ve been living for many years. Now that he is retired, this was to have been the year we found ourselves a new home in Australia, got our stuff there out of storage there and settled into retirement living with a bit of travel. But, sigh, we’re still here, so thank goodness for our own house and garden. Uruguay’s handling of the crisis is very good, with a low number of cases and deaths, a well organised health system that has never been stressed, and clear concise updated information through one voice to a people who trust the system. The country is surrounded, though, by Argentina and Brasil, where the virus is ravaging the populations. Clearly, any lapse in the well controlled closed borders could bring similar catastrophic effects here.

We are all shocked daily by stories and images of the painful hardships and death totals that this virus has brought to people all around the world. Certain images are sticking in my mind, and this quilt is the first of what might become a pandemic inspired series.