Another week gone by... Given that our lives are nothing if not monotonous, it's odd that the days pass so quickly, and we never seem to get to the end of our to-do lists.

The covid situation in Sarawak continues to be a cause for great concern. Sunday brought a shocking new record (5,291 cases), and we continue in our unenviable position of Malaysia's worst state (17.3 cases per 1,000 people).

Given that scenario (and given that our positivity rate on tests is currently running at close to 17%), it is incredibly worrying that the authorities have decided to stop testing asymptomatic contacts... I don't see the logic of this. How can you deal with a problem if you don't know its extent? It's like owing a lot of money, and deciding you're not going to count debts under MYR 1,000. On paper your situation will look instantly better. But in reality you've just buried a problem that will come galloping back to bite you in the really near future.

So this will be our last graph, as we'll no longer have information that's directly comparable to what's gone before. But as you can see, that top line (Kuching) is still not going in the right direction:


As of yesterday, Malaysia's total deaths stood at 22,355 (compare last week's 19,486, and the previous week's 17,191...) On this level, Sarawak comes out quite well, with deaths per 100,000 people standing at 3.1 -- much better than the vast majority of other states (poor old Pulau Pinang comes out "top" with a whopping 18). But ultimately the location is irrelevant to what is a really tragic figure.

Anyway, what else?

Well, it was Malaysia Day on Thursday.


In Sarawak, we join in with the flurry of flags, but there's generally also a bit of discussion. And it's worth pointing out this Malaysia Day tribute to our heroic covid frontliners, courtesy of Between the Lines.

Very importantly, it's mooncake season! The Mid-Autumn Festival is next week, and we still hadn't stocked up, so one day this week we donned our two masks, and went back to Wing Hiong, whose mooncakes had impressed us last year.

New to us was this Shanghai mooncake. These are as spherical as the moon itself; the pastry is different from the classic mooncake, and I really liked it.



There's always a lot of discussion and no little polemic come mooncake time. Personally, I err on the side of conservatism on this issue...

The noodle of the week came from the Wan Xiang Noodle House. Wanton mee. We rarely have this dish, partly because you don't see it much here, and partly because the one we used to buy near our first home in KL was just so damn good that you fear nothing else would be up to snuff. But this was actually excellent. First up, the (hand-made) noodles had a fabulous texture:


Second, the wantons were irreproachably plump and tasty. Third, you can supplement the wanton soup with extra pork and "bursting meatballs". You know the kind of dumpling that has a liquid centre? Well, these meatballs are a bit like that. A meatball with gravy in the middle.

We continue to frequent the "peninsula" for some of our long walks. This week we've been out there twice, treading roads previously untrodden, which is always a bonus these days. It's a really nice area. Lots of interesting wooden houses, lots of birds, and no dogs.






But our other walks continue to be pleasant:








We kind of progress round the flat these days. We wake up at 4 am. If it's a really-early-morning-walk day, we have half-a-breakfast in bed, and set off at 5 am (when curfew's over). On our return we order noodles, and sit at the living-room table to eat them. If it's a not-quite-so-early-walk day, we have breakfast on the balcony, and leave about 6.30 am, and the thing we have at the living-room table after the walk is coffee and chocolate. The agendas converge again with showers, after which we take up our positions in the "back office" (I have a bed that I like to think of as a chaise longue, and a little portable computer stand; Nigel has his ironing board...) I zip out to cook lunch when the time comes, and we eat it at our respective workstations. In the evening we migrate back to the living-room to watch a little TV, eat a little supper, drink a glass of wine if it's wine night... If the schedule has gone according to plan, there's still time to read in bed for a bit before settling down to sleep at 8 pm.

Do you care about any of this? Of course you don't. But in a few years' time, when this whole freaking fiasco is -- I hope -- just an amusing memory, it will be good for us to look back, and say, my goodness, we were so flexible, we were so adaptable, we were so goddam inventive...