And again we lead with the dastardly Spikes...

Monday brought the very depressing news that Sarawak has run out of ICU beds.

On Wednesday, Malaysia hit records both for new covid cases (6,075) and for new clusters (22). And the overall death toll went beyond 2,000. As Between the Lines pointed out yesterday, it took 11 months to record the first thousand deaths. It's taken just over three to cross the line into the next thousand...

Thursday's statistics were no better, with 6,806 new cases (608 of them in Sarawak), another 24 new clusters, and a horrifying 59 deaths. Here in Kuching, Kampung Boyan, the pretty little area across the river where we used to go walking in happier times, has gone into an EMCO (that's the really rigorous form of Movement Control Order).

Where is this all going to end? It's pretty scary...

And prospects for vaccination seem to keep receding. We'd been told the efforts would really be ramping up by June, with beefier loads of new supplies hitting our shores. Now those bulk shipments aren't going to get here until July...

The Malaysian government decided not to offer the AstraZeneca vaccine officially, but instead to make what it had already secured available to the general public on a voluntary basis. There was a big scramble for the last lot, and Sarawak opted out anyway. Now there's another batch in the offing, and this time Sarawak residents also have the chance to throw their hats into the ring when registrations open on May 23. Our age-group is being prioritized, so we'll be joining the electronic queue as soon as we're able. But I'm not holding my breath...

Let's move on. I'm going to have to start putting black edges round The Gazette at this rate...

As I explained here (and check out that post for an interesting story about World War II volunteers from Sarawak), circumstances pushed us to hire a car for three days this week. Limitations notwithstanding, this did make a nice little change.

So, on Wednesday, between hospital appointments, we popped over to see the barrage that controls the levels on the Sarawak River. We've driven over the top of this, and of course we mentioned it when we had the flood. But we'd never seen it up close and personal.

There were already a couple of fishermen and a pack of fairly laid-back dogs there, but we ignored them all, took some photos, and then retired to the car to eat our early-lunch buns.





It's ages since we've been on the northern side of the river. It's a different world over there, with lots of space, hardly any high-rise, and some notable buildings:



Two days running, we took the opportunity to drive over to the Taman Botani (which is a bit too far to walk to now that there are a) masks; and b) no sit-down eating/drinking opportunities). There's always something beautiful there.






The birds seem to be in particularly fine form at the moment (click here for some of yesterday's birdsong).

But the highlight was coming across a whole flock of one-spot grass yellows (don't ask me why they're called that when they clearly have multiple spots...) emerging from their chrysalises:





It felt like an enormous privilege to witness this extraordinary miracle of nature.

Now that there's no dine-in, the car also enabled us to pick up take-away from the eateries in Jalan Padungan that aren't on the Grab network (doing this is normally not feasible because it takes too long to walk home with the food). So we had beautifully garlicky fish-ball noodles one day from the Hong Kong Pau Cafe, and yesterday we indulged in our favourite char kuay teow. We ate it straight from the package, sitting in the car near the park. Which made it feel a bit like a road trip.

A bit...

Finally, the week's gallery: