Alex Hallatt 12/13/21 Alex Hallatt 12/13/21

Arctic Circle Cartoon - What Plastic Recycling Numbers Mean (Mostly That You Can't Recycle)

Plastic recycling is complicated. Much of it isn’t recycled locally and has to be shipped overseas to process it. Even when it is processed, it has to be clean for it to be recycled.

All of which means that a tiny percentage of plastic is recycled and the rest is landfilled, or littered, or drifting around in our waterways.

Alex Hallatt 12/3/21 Alex Hallatt 12/3/21

Illustrated Epistle Extract: Is it Safe to be Let Off the Leash?

We are waiting this week for more details of the new COVID traffic light system which comes into effect on December 3. It will mean less lockdowns and less restriction of movement.

People who are doubly vaccinated will be let off the leash, particularly in Auckland, where they have been in lockdown for over 100 days. Travel out of Auckland is is kicking off from the 15th of December. My sister has booked a flight to see us in Christchurch a week later. Hopefully by then they will have ironed out the kinks.

Not being let off the leash as much is Molly. She has been a very bad girl, attacking other dogs for no reason. Only a few, but randomly, nice dogs, and luckily dogs that belong to people we know. It's upsetting and embarrassing (she hasn't drawn blood, but she has come away with mouthfuls of fur on two occasions. Not a good look.).

A dog trainer came out to the house on Thursday. Although she gave me some general training tools that I will put into practice, she couldn't explain why it was happening. Only to continue to work on training her to not only to obey our commands, but make her own good choices! I'm not sure how this is going to work…

This is an extract of my Illustrated Epistle, which goes out once a month-ish. It is a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a cartoonist (specifically, mine). I'd love it if you signed up at the bottom of this page, or here:

http://eepurl.com/cCOOeD

Or head to the archive to read more here.

Alex Hallatt 10/27/21 Alex Hallatt 10/27/21

Arctic Circle Cartoon - Chocolate Goes Off???

Based on a true story.

I put together a pandemic stash for when we wouldn't be able to go out because of COVID in our community. COVID hasn't got to our community yet. I didn't rotate the stash in the time since the pandemic started and found that, yes, chocolate can go off!

Alex Hallatt 8/28/21 Alex Hallatt 8/28/21

Illustrated Epistle Extract: Level 4 Lockdown in New Zealand and Loving It

When I emailed our extended family to say that we were back in lockdown in New Zealand, my almost brother-in-law asked how many cases had put us there. The answer is one. This has been a focus of attention of foreign media, but was no surprise to most Kiwis who valued the relatively normal, COVID-free lives we had been living during most of the pandemic.

I’m delighted that we have a trigger-happy government that put us into complete lockdown within a day because one person in the community tested positive for COVID-19. Because we have the luxury of giving elimination another try. And it just might work.

Click to see options for using the image

Level four is the harshest lockdown level in New Zealand and it is way stricter than lockdowns in other countries. Only essential workers can go out to work. Everybody else has to be at home unless you need to buy groceries, go to the pharmacy/post office, or go out to exercise. I had a cold when we went into lockdown and though I said I had no reason to think it was the novel coronavirus, the local health centre invited me in for a test (like all COVID-19-related healthcare, testing is free). The last time I did it it wasn’t so bad, but it’s really uncomfortable if you have a sore throat. Then we had to absolutely stay home for two days whilst I waited for the results. Thankfully negative.