Day 15 – A walk

Seriously? Seriously.

We’re lucky (and organised) enough to be sorted for most of our shopping requirements. But with a couple of tweenagers in the house, some of the perishable items have taken a bit of a hammering. Bread. Milk. Fruit.

The fruit is not such an issue: we have a delivery coming today or tomorrow (supporting local producers and business) (more on here about this sort of thing “soon”), but bread and milk are staples. Not like stationery staples, obviously: are those even essential items, anyway?

I think I mentioned about the risk of shopping here, in that we are safe from the virus while we’re isolated in our home, but as soon as that isolation is broken, by someone coming in for lunch “to discuss masks and gloves”* or by me going out to buy stuff from Pick n Pay. So it’s not a decision to be taken lightly: I don’t want to risk bringing coronavirus into, but these are things we do need before we kill one another. Catch 22.

The thing is, when I did that “big” shop last week, I went to a proper supermarket and pushed a trolley around. It took time, and I was exposed to [gasp] other people for ages, but we needed food. Car journey, big supermarket, real life.

Yesterday was different – just bread and milk (ok, and bacon – always bacon), but all that was needed was an in-and-out job. The best place to do an in-and-out job is the mini-supermarket 600m down the road.

So I walked there. I walked there. I walked. Walked.

Feet. Fresh air. Legs. Tarmac. Sunshine.

I now have milk, bread (and yes, bacon). And 1.2km of proper stride length walking under my belt. Great news, guys: everything still works! Pavements still exist. My legs can still propel me down to the shops and back. I wanted to break into a little run, but that would have limited the amount of time I could legally spend outside.

And aside from actually within the supermarket (where it was still all very social distancy), absolutely zero contact with anyone else at all.

But please, please remember: this is a lockdown. Staying at home is the best way of preventing the spread of the virus. While my 10 minutes outside was absolutely (and weirdly) lovely, it was a necessary trip to buy essential items.
Not a jog or a dog walk.

Stay home, stay safe. Wash your hands.

 

 

* Context: here.

Day 14 – Deep Clean

To be honest, the living room and dining room (ok, it’s actually just one room) weren’t dirty. But we do have two kids and a dog, and a large sliding door which is open all day every day in the nice weather. So yeah, I can see where a bit of muck might have got in.

I went at it with some enthusiasm and managed to remove basically a whole garden’s worth of dirt and dust, and at least two beagles worth of beagle fur from the house. I honestly cannot believe that we were living with that.

And yes, I still fully support my assertion that that bit of the house wasn’t dirty, but paradoxically, it does look cleaner now. For a short while, our place (or at least one big room of it) could have taken pride of place on one of those fancy house shows. Until the beagle trailed some grass clippings in from out the back, at least.

Later today, I’m going to pave over the garden and maybe the beagle as well, and I think that will make a big difference.

In other news, spring cleaning is great for your Discovery (health insurance) points. OK, so I did do a little workout yesterday evening as well, but I managed 16,000 steps and I (quite literally) didn’t leave the house the whole day.

Again.

Day 13 – Most of us are strangers

It’s been a while since we’ve had some music on the blog. I know that not everyone likes it when I chuck a tune up on here, but given the circumstances, when I’ve had some free time between schooling and cleaning and… well… blogging, I’ve been listening to a bit more than usual.

This one is from the new album from Seafret and seems to fit with the current situation.

Most of us are strangers
Who want someone to save us
We’re looking out for angels
And something we can hold on

Decent listening if you’re looking for something chilled and calming in these unsettling times.

Stay home. Stay safe.

Day 12 – Still ‘togging

In case you had forgotten, I’m still sharing a photo each day of the lockdown.

You can see them here.

Today’s image is from an impromptu sesh yesterday afternoon, once the kids had finished their schoolwork and I had done the washing and cleaned the house.
I’m writing this post yesterday evening, and I’ve set it to publish a couple of hours later than usual today so that I can upload the image to Flickr tomorrow this morning so that you can see it when you’re reading this. (The Flickr one is different to the one below.)

We (the kids and I) played with some oil and water photography: a flat-bottomed dish suspended by some books (and a couple of cartons of UHT milk) above an iPad with some bright images on it. I reckon I got three half decent(ish) shots, post-editing, one of which I’ll pop into the album linked to above, and the other two I’ll at least stick onto Flickr if only to see how much better I get when (if) I try this sort of thing again.

All in all, it was a reasonable success: and another hour of lockdown boredom killed before some Minecraft (the boy wonder), a class Zoom call (the girl wonder) and some exercise in the drizzle for me.

As far as entertainment goes, it was completely immiscible.

Day 11 – pH

Some welcome rain yesterday. We still managed a day of fresh air and some exercise in the garden, but suddenly, Cape Town has gone all autumnal. Overnight.

Hopefully, it keeps people inside even more.

I got some useful advice on Covid-19 yesterday via the medium of WhatsApp, which might help you if you want to avoid the SARS-CoV-2 virus. [Spoiler: it’s terrible advice]

Damn that generally acidic virus! Combat it with well-known alkalis like… er… lemon and lime juice.
And damn that pH scale that only runs from 1-14.

“Sod that,” said the avocado farmers of South Africa. “We’re not going to be limited by your… your… ‘science’. We’re going all out for 15.6 – pushing the boundaries beyond the boundaries once again.”

Dandelions: “Hold my beer.”

 

Classic moments.