Lockdown!

From midnight tonight, South  Africa is on lockdown.

( a word first coined in this year…)

Meaning that unless we have to go out to buy food or seek medical attention, we have at stay at home. The full rules are here, but for the majority of us, that one sentence sums it up quite nicely.

Bizarrely, there will be no alcohol or tobacco products sold during the 21 days (not legally, anyway), and so huge queues – with no social distancing – formed outside those kind of shops this morning. It does seem bizarre to put the population into lockdown like some sort of guinea pig in some dystopian experiment and then not allow them to access any of their usual goto coping mechanisms.

This will not end well.

Not that it was going to end well anyway.

I went for a last (out and about) run this morning, and got some last minute chocolate in to placate Mrs 6000, just in case there was a late rush.

We managed a late afternoon family dog walk. With the family dog.
The school field was chained up already. We had to walk around the block instead. The beagle was disappointed at the lack of Hadeda-chasing opportunities.

And now, I guess this is it. We stay home unless we have a genuine reason to go out. The situation is changing every hour, every day. But as it stands at the moment, I can’t see three weeks being enough. Nowhere near. Six or eight, maybe.

But who knows? See you all on the other side*.

 

 

* blogging is classed as an “essential service” and will continue throughout the SA lockdown.