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As I drove into work this morning, there it was flashing up in lights on the motorway, the familiar sign. 'Wash your hands', it said, and 'be kind'.

Here we go again.

Didn't we have a sense of foreboding as we saw in the New Year that 2021 may just not be as lockdown and trouble free as we may have liked?

But to be honest, I didn't see this one coming. It was very short notice for everyone.

Schools, not sure how many of those are set up to get online learning up and running so fast.

Businesses who have to roster staff at home or off, and potentially get online quick sticks, and those who have to shut up shop entirely: hairdressers, dentists, nail salons. Ironically over the next 3 days I had all three of those booked. Always the way isn't it? The one week you have the dentist and the hairdresser: boom, lockdown.

But it's all very sudden.

I had a bet with my husband last night - when we heard the PM was giving an emergency press conference at 7pm off the back of a cabinet meeting - I said nope, she won’t do it. She wouldn’t dream of locking us down again, there’s no appetite for it, she won’t get buy in, it’s too much, she’ll just want to front up and say some reassuring things and assure us all we will all be fine if we just be kind, and that we'll keep an eye on it, and we should just keep washing our hands.

My husband said I was dreaming. He said I had not read the room and I was out to lunch. He said if I hadn’t worked out by now how trigger happy the PM is on lockdowns then I’ve been living under a rock.

But I was optimistic. I was hopeful. I thought maybe a casual level 2 upgrade and some friendly mask and hand washing chat.

But I was wrong. I lost $50.

I hate it when he’s right. He was smug. As soon as the TV cameras showed her walking into the room he said “I win”. He reckons he could see it on her face.

I did actually text my parents prior to the 7PM announcement and ask if they had groceries in, and if not to go get some just in case. I also frantically texted my hairdresser to rebook me - look, priorities.

So we are back to the 1 PM updates, back to counting cases and genomic sequencing, back to queues at the supermarket and everyone walking the dog round the block 10 times.

Look at least it’s short.

Three days is manageable - my great hope is it doesn’t drag on longer than that. that the contact tracing and the tracking works at lightning speed. We know what to do, we've been here before, let’s hope it is just the 3 days, let’s hope it’s not spread any further, let’s hope it is indeed a short and sharp lockdown and we will be back to normal by Thursday.