🐾 Featuring a very official pandemic briefing… an unexpected Isolation Flat… and the realisation that living in a bubble may be harder than expected
This story is part of The Diary of an Orange Cat — now available both as a book and as a podcast.
👉 Listen here:
Spotify
or wherever you usually get your podcasts.
🎧 Watch / listen to a preview:
STORY OUTLINE
As New Zealand settles into lockdown, Serafina takes it upon herself to organise a feline Pandemic Plan for the cats of Diamond Harbour. With reports of cats overseas testing positive for COVID-19, she insists that the neighbourhood cats must do their part to protect their humans.
Her solution is an “Isolation Flat” — a shared bubble where Weasley, Ron, Squeak and the others can quarantine together for two weeks. Armed with strict rules, labelled food, hand sanitiser, and a great deal of seriousness, Serafina is determined that everyone will follow the plan.
At first, life in the bubble seems manageable, but routines quickly become strange, tensions rise, and Weasley begins to wonder whether saving lives is supposed to feel quite this exhausting.
BACKGROUND
This episode was first written and published on my website on 24 April 2020, during New Zealand’s first nationwide COVID-19 lockdown.
At the time, the country had introduced a four-level alert system to manage the pandemic, with the strictest restrictions beginning on 26 March 2020. For weeks, people stayed within their household “bubbles,” travel was heavily restricted, and daily government briefings became a familiar part of life.
Like many people, I found the strange mixture of anxiety, routine, and dark humour impossible to ignore. The idea of cats creating their own version of lockdown — complete with rules, bubbles, panic buying warnings, and one particularly over-prepared organiser — felt like a natural extension of Weasley’s world.
Serafina’s “Pandemic Plan” owes more than a little to the formal tone of those daily public briefings, while Weasley’s need to line up his toys reflects the small compulsive rituals many of us developed during uncertain times.
Looking back now, there’s something both funny and oddly comforting about revisiting that strange period through Weasley’s eyes.
THE REAL CATS
This story features several of the regular Diamond Harbour personalities who inspired the fictional feline cast.
Serafina, of course, takes centre stage here with her highly organised leadership style and unwavering belief that everyone should follow the rules properly. Ron remains more interested in snacks, kayaking, and avoiding responsibility wherever possible, while Squeak is mainly concerned with food supplies and maintaining his personal grooming standards. And Weasley, as always, finds himself caught somewhere in the middle—trying to be sensible, while quietly wondering if everyone around him has completely lost their minds.
hat I never play with. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the cat door flapped behind me. I was home. Nothing bad was going to happen. Everything was going to be alright.
***
You can read or listen to The Isolation Flat, plus all the rest of the chapters in The Woes of Weasley – The Diary of an Orange Cat.
🎧 Prefer to listen?
Spotify – The Isolation Flat
Or wherever you get your podcasts
📚 Prefer to read?
You can find the full story, along with all chapters, in The Woes of Weasley – The Diary of an Orange Cat, available in print and eBook on Amazon.
