Lockdown 41/47 – A strange day at home

Day 41 of my diary of a LOTR Fan Museum owner during our national lockdown (extended from 28 to 47 days: 33 at level 4, 14 at L3) – in NZ we’re uniting as a country to beat Covid-19 to break the chain and save lives, but …

Yesterday was a bit of a weird day in the new job of STAY HOME, be kind. Cool because both yesterday and today, NZ has had no new Covid cases!!! Yahoo.

On the personal front, I had a bit of a tummy bug and I spent most of the day drifting round in my dressing gown - but unlike Bilbo, I wasn’t drawn away for an adventure.

I must say, it seemed very weird to have a sick day while I was already home - this from someone who’s gone to work most weekdays for the last 30 years where a sick day at home was quite novel.

All this made me think of Bilbo’s amazing dressing gown in the Hobbit, and my friend Peter from the Brisbane Tolkien Fellowship who has this costume in his fan collection.

Peter is a huge Tolkien fan and is well known in the fan world for this and for his Tolkien-inspired poetry books. Through Peter I’ve been lucky enough to meet other members of the Brisbane fellowship. It’s really fun to follow the Tolkien fan community online, especially when I’ve met or been in communication with the members. There’s such a feeling of camaraderie and friendship through our shared interest. I’ve been lucky to meet quite a few fans through the Museum.

One of Peter’s pics of himself as Bilbo in his dressing gown relaxing in front of Bag End reminded me of how I was feeling yesterday. If I smoked, I’d definitely have wanted to smoke longbottom leaf as I’m sure it would have been medicinal!

I’m completely over the tummy bug today, but I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from the LOTR fandom bug?? And I don’t want to. So, despite the world-changing events going on around me, today I’m just celebrating our country’s good news, and the fact that I’m staying home at Bag End and enjoying the ongoing adventure of LOTR fandom. Best wishes, Kathy xx