The COVID-19 diaries: rain

The gun emplacements around Wellington are a curiosity – built in World War 2 on the tops of hills to defend from possible invasions. They seem almost a folly – who would bother to come so far to invade New Zealand? Also they seem eminently sensible – Wright’s Hill has such a good vantage point. They are now ruins to be opened to the public on ANZAC day, when you can wander through the tunnels.

I guess I have been thinking a lot about the war lately because my lifetime has been characterised by a constant background anxiety – the threat of the nuclear war, the threat of war in the Middle East, the threat of imminent climate collapse, the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis – but so far I haven’t had to radically change my lifestyle because of any of these threats. I try to do my bit to stem climate collapse and I compost, recycle and ride my bicycle, but because the rainforests continue to be clear-felled and big industry gets huge tax breaks and we keep consuming like crazy, it feels kind of tokenistic.

But now, here, we are doing something real, because the numbers of infected keep jumping everyday, and it feels strange and strangely normal, and the threat is still as out of sight as it was from the top of Wright’s Hill in the 1940s, but I know there are patients in Wellington Hospital only a few hills away and we are safe in the tunnels of our houses.