OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

I did have grand plans for this day, but after an initial bout of energy, a deep lethargy set in and I read – a lot – replied to all work-related emails, but otherwise managed very little apart from a slow walk in my garden. No counting the loops, but admiring the manifestations of autumn on the property and talking to Mozart, who eventually left his nest and followed me around.

Part of the afternoon was spent listening to the radio and reading some more. Glinka and Ms Monroe accompanied these activities.

The Covid-19 numbers in the Western Cape are rising and our hospital capacity is already being tested according to credible media reports. One needs to add the word ‘credible’ here, because a big part of the challenge of confronting everyday life in a pandemic is finding reliable information about what is happening. Although I must admit that I read/watch some of the other stuff with fascination, too. And I promised myself never even to attempt to pronounce the word ‘Hydroxychloroquine’.

This statement by Mia Malan at the end of her article, “Wretched and rank with politics”, gave me a lot of food for thought: “We have no cure, no vaccine or treatment for COVID-19, at this stage. But we cannot afford to allow this to be the only factor that unites us. We cannot afford for our chief weapons against an epidemic that is changing life as we know it, to blunt one another.”

Integrity, reliable information, rigorous debate and the will to aim for the best possible outcomes for the greatest number of people is a tall order, but the alternative is lethal chaos.

And having one’s head in the sand is not an option right now when so much of our future depends on individual responsibility. As one of my friends said, we need to think clearly and hard about our role in facing this pandemic. Every bit helps. Every wise decision has the potential to save a life, or many, including one’s own.

I have been given unsolicited advice: a complete stranger suggested to me that I should stop looking at the numbers. I understand that this strategy might allow someone to cope with current stress levels, but it is not an option for me. Staying informed and cautious, especially if I have the luxury of being able to do both, is the way I hope not to end up in a hospital during a pandemic when every single ICU bed that can be saved might mean that someone who needs it will have a chance of returning alive to their loved ones.

If the price for this is anxiety and insomnia for the foreseeable future, so be it. As I have written a while back, all of this is difficult because we are trying to survive a deadly pandemic. Some things hurt because they are supposed to hurt. Denial won’t make them go away.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home. No unsolicited advice from strangers, please (it only drains my already low energy levels).

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

A very slow start to the day. I just did not feel 100% and with this horror in the air, one’s mind immediately begins to migrate to problematic spaces…

I stayed in bed and read about the numerous cases of people presumed dead, wrapped in sheets or blankets, buried alive, and crawling out of their mass graves during the 1918 pandemic in the Cape… I am rethinking coffins and cremations.

After a dose of the plague, eventually Ms Trollope did brighten the morning and, because it is World Bee Day, I drew this:

I think the bee inspired me, because by the time I got up, I became as busy as a… After some computer work, I returned to a story I have been writing for a competition. Today was the deadline for submissions, so it was time for the final polish. I haven’t submitted writing for competitions in years – butterflies, or rather bees, in the stomach, that’s for sure. Now we wait and see.

I have been cold all day, despite the wonderful sunshine outside. I ate my meals (exceptionally healthy today) outside, but I wasn’t in the garden long enough to soak up sufficient warmth for the rest of the day (rum tea and hot water bottle to keep me going). After submitting my story, I went outside to watch the sunset and listened to the radio in the ever-dedicated feline company of this home.

The Western Cape’s Covid-19 infection and death numbers – combined with the fear attached to my sudden dip in well-being earlier today – are difficult to process.

Let there be light and warmth and gentleness. And a restorative sleep.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

A whole, uninterrupted night in my bedroom bed. Amazing.

Wild Earth live safari also delivered the goods today, not only in wildlife terms. My love, when reading this, please skip the next image and paragraph. It’s girl talk.

[I haven’t been able to watch Wild Earth much in the last few days, so I do not know whether David is a new guide etc., but he, his jawline and The Hat made me sorry that I wasn’t a romance writer, because otherwise he would have been written into a safari romance by the end of this week… Melissa, I hope you are reading this and still watching Wild Earth! I am counting on you!]

To return to wildlife observations: hippos are still shy about wearing their masks in public.

And on a much more sombre note: recently, I heard from two friends living overseas who have family in South Africa – both lost loved ones in Cape Town in the last few days. It wasn’t Covid-19, but because of the pandemic my friends could not be here to say goodbye in person. I cannot imagine the additional pain this must bring. I don’t know how one copes under such circumstances.

Shaken by the latest news, I stayed in bed longer than usual during the last two working weeks and just read for a while. I am reading about the flu of 1918 and, bizarrely perhaps (it is a strange combination), the latest Joanna Trollope, Mum & Dad. I love the descriptions of Spain in the novel. They make me want to put on a summer dress, stroll through vineyards, eat courgettes and drink two bottles of wine for lunch with a loved person… Day-dreaming is allowed.

By the time I got up and got organised, it was time to meet with my Mom and Krystian on Skype.

It was good to see them and to talk about gardening, an old freezer that Mom needs to get rid of and, most joyously, Krystian’s first outing with his partner to a restaurant since the reopening of the gastronomy sector in Austria. It is reassuring to see that a life post-lockdown is possible.

Before starting work in the afternoon, I checked on the Frog Prince (I haven’t eaten him, but I can’t prove it, because he was very photo-shy today), cleaned the pool, swept the stoep and sat in the sun with Joanna for a little while to soak up some vitamin D. Mozart is sheltering in place in his nest, but he came to cuddle while I was in the garden.

The afternoon was work-related reading, editing, emails and a Skype call with Lester Walbrugh, to catch up and update our plans for his debut short story collection, Let It Fall Where It Will. I have had so much literary joy working on this book. Lester is a brilliant, versatile writer with an incredibly distinct voice. It is an honour to work with him and to be able to share his book with readers in the next few months. We were hoping for an autumn launch, but because it is a debut, we want to be able to celebrate it with all the fanfare it deserves. We have a few great ideas, but they will have to wait for obvious reasons…

Not a very long working day today, but a rewarding one.

In their testimonies, survivors of the influenza pandemic of 1918 in South Africa often mention three things that either helped them to stay healthy or helped them in their recovery: garlic, buchu and brandy.

*She opens the liqueur cabinet in the hope that a gin will do…

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Wide awake at four a.m. again. I migrated to the TV bed with a hot-water bottle and coffee. Found a weather channel that was broadcasting half an hour of waves crushing over a secluded beach. I fell asleep again, listening. With my eyes closed the sensation was uncanny. In my head, I travelled to all the beaches I have ever loved…

In the night, I saw the news that my lovely neighbours had lost a friend to Covid-19. A number becoming a name. An invisible threat becoming terrifyingly real.

Monday. I took out the bin, watered the orchids (two are releasing new flower stems), cleaned up the kitchen and decided to walk outside. The balmy air was so enticing, I could not resist. And after transferring the bath water from last week’s bath into the pool yesterday, two buckets at a time, I needed some ‘ordinary’ exercise. Sticking to side streets, I managed to avoid people, but the few I saw astounded me: is it really so difficult to put on a mask correctly and to keep it on for the duration of an outing? I passed one neighbour I know and he had his mask on the right way and his dog was very happy to be out and about on his usual route. We said hello from the distance of a few metres, exchanged the latest news and went happily our separate ways.

I saw these two on my walk and envied them, their closeness, their freedom.

Preparing my breakfast, on the radio, I heard arguments for and against the quick reopening of the economy. I think most people are for, but looking at the inability of so many of us to do something as simple as wear a protective mask properly, I have my doubts about our readiness to proceed to level three, even our ability to keep safe already at level four, to keep generally safe during the Covid-19 pandemic – at least as safe as humanly possible…

This message arrived mid-morning:

Refuse collection delay this week: COVID-19
A staff member at our Collections Depot in Woodstock has tested positive for Covid-19. Management was advised today of the result. As a result the facility is shut down for deep cleaning and sanitising. This is the second depot to be shut in under a week and we will have very limited resources available in the next few days. We will therefore not have capacity to service all refuse beats. Residents and businesses are requested to please keep their refuse on their properties until their scheduled removal day next week, when any excess refuse in bags will also be removed. We do apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause.

I tried picturing the faces of the men and women that usually accompany the collection truck in my street. We often talk. They usually make me smile first thing on a Monday morning. Thinking about the risks they are exposed to at work and what they must be going through right now, I felt afraid for them. As a society, we should be apologising to them for the dangers their jobs entail.

And this is when I remembered reading about John Rawls’s ‘original position’ in The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands, my all-time favourite philosopher. Rowlands asks: ‘How do we ensure that the society you live in is a fair one?’ And explains: ‘Just as we ensured a fair slicing of the pizza by making sure that the person who sliced it didn’t know which slice they were going to get, so we ensure a fair society by allowing a person to choose how it is to be organized, but by making sure that when they choose this they don’t know who they are going to be in this society.’

One could employ the same principle to every business wanting to operate during the Covid-19 pandemic: every business owner/manager should organise the workplace in such a way that they would feel comfortable working at any of the positions available in the company, and just to make them think twice, I would propose that they think of their grandparent, parent, spouse, partner, child and friend occupying the other available positions. If they feel that they have safeguarded the safety of all these positions to the best of their abilities and official guidelines while asking people to return to work in a pandemic, then the company is ready for business.

I had to show something to someone in person today (all level four stuff). We arranged to meet in an open space that we were both allowed to be in, parked our cars a few meters away from each other, wore masks, disinfected hands before handing over the object under discussion, never approached closer than two meters, discussed the business at hand for a few minutes, smiled with our eyes, wished each other well and went home. None of this is easy, but if we want to take care of the people we work with and keep them safe, we need to think, be vigilant and extra-cautious.

And the reasons are simple. Earlier today, my love sent me an article written by a NY ICU nurse: OUR GRIEF: A NURSE’S EXPERIENCE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. Two quotes:

The reality is, the people who get sick later in this pandemic will have a better chance for survival.

This is the tiniest, devastating snapshot of one patient [a twenty-three-year-old at death’s door because of Covid-19] and one family and their unimaginable grief. Yet, the weight is enormous. The world should feel that weight too. Because this grief, this heartbreak is everywhere in many forms. Every person on this planet is grieving the loss of something.

My neighbours lost a friend. 164 other families in the Western Cape are in the same position, grieving for loved ones. While waiting for their test results, the refuse collectors working on our neighbourhood route are fearing for their health tonight. As of today, around six thousand people in the Western Cape are trying to survive a Covid-19 infection.

These are not mere numbers.

I am not asking for a fair society – I am not that naive. But a safe working place for people already working and those about to return to their jobs under level three should be a given. Ask yourself: would you do the job yourself or send a loved one to do it? If yes, we are all good.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home. Have a drink, if you still can.

To health!

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

The Cats and I spent the evening yesterday watching a wonderful documentary on Luciano Pavarotti. I love opera, but Pavarotti was ‘before my time’, and the documentary put his name into context and was enlightening in all kinds of other ways. Loved it.

I slept through the night in my bedroom bed. Yay! The nights are getting colder and my home is turning into its own winter version: a fridge. Soon, for about three months, we will be experiencing temperatures of about thirteen degrees Celsius in the house, unless I light a fire in one of the fireplaces to make a room more bearable. My TV bed doesn’t have an electric blanket, and my hot love is all alone in his own bed across town, so my feet take forever to heat up without help. In the next two weeks or so I will have to move permanently into the bedroom and reserve the TV bed for insomnia emergencies only.

It was a remarkable period, not only because of the high mortality but because, on occasion at least, South Africans rallied round to help one another in a way that has not occurred since.

There were ‘sorrows in the air.’

… was the most lethal runaway disease outbreak in the country’s history.

In effect South Africa was a country under siege. Cape Town’s main streets ‘are almost deserted in the middle of the day’, observed an awed journalist. ‘Business has become quite a secondary consideration, and sight seeing and amusements have lost all attraction … Cape Town is like a city in mourning … and nothing is talked of or thought about other than Influenza.’

In the face of the terrifying crisis, assistance across the deep barriers of race and class flourished briefly as the interdependence of everyone’s health was made abundantly clear. When it came to health, no man, woman or child was an island.

Recurrent in their recollections are words and phrases like ‘bodies wrapped in blankets’, ‘carts’, ‘coffins’, ‘mass graves’, ‘soup kitchens’, ‘pulling together’, ‘pitching in’ and ‘co-operation’.

As one of them remembered, ‘Cape Town was a veritable city of the dead.’

Excerpts from In a Time of Plague: Memories of the ‘Spanish’ Flu Epidemic of 1918 in South Africa by Howard Phillips (2018).

It is uncanny to read this book NOW.

BTW: I love – LOVE – book ribbons! In a Time of Plague has one :)

I should have been watching ‘my’ new team, Bayern München, tonight, but DStv has not delivered and I am not desperate enough to connect to other sources. I had a look at Twitter a few times just to see what’s happening on the field:

Also saw this:

I could say, ‘Rub it in!’ But I am going to be all smug with my one remaining can of beer and my popcorn, and try live Korean baseball instead. Ha!

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

A nearly screen-free day, so I am keeping this short. Had another gap in the night, hoping that it was day already when I woke up, but it was only three a.m. and Glinka was sleeping on my back between my shoulder blades. So I just waited for sleep to return while listening to the familiar white noise of Mama TV in the background.

We only did a tiny bit of work this morning, writing an acceptance letter to an author who will be publishing with Karavan Press. I will do everything I can to keep this dream alive and together with a team of wonderful people to assist me it looks like it will be possible, pandemic, economic apocalypse and all. I am channelling my inner Mary Wollstonecraft, Emily Dickinson, Marie Skłodowska Curie (who is distantly related!) and Virginia Woolf. (While doing this, I promise to stay away from childbirth, radioactive material and rivers. But I will remain sheltering in place – according to the Western Cape Covid-19 dashboard, we have had more than nine hundred! infections in the last twenty-four hours. Deep, deep breaths!)

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, reading, braaing, drinking wine and loving the sunset. I read the wonderful article about Poland in the latest Getaway magazine and it filled me with travelling longings. Mozart had another longing – he wanted to have his tummy rubbed while I was reading.

Auntie Helen, we really enjoyed reading Nancy Richards’s interview with you. We are considering LISTENING to Charlotte, but don’t know how yet… And we are definitely ordering a hardback copy for my Mom to keep until I can visit her in Austria again. This is one of those books that I insist on having as a hardback!

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

— Jane Austen

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Yep. Fifty.

Last night, another three hours on Skype with my friend Michela. Girls’ talk. We met at university in 1996. She was the South African pioneer in our department. I followed in her footsteps. She still teaches SA literature at the university in Vienna. A love impossible to deny or forget.

I think my headaches might be the result of too much screen time. I slept through the night, but had important Karavan Press admin to get through in the morning, so I got going shortly after waking up. With lots of coffee. Lunch, some more emails, more work, and then a short visit with a cat who had an operation yesterday, but her only human is an essential worker and could not look after her in the afternoon, so I offered to check up on her. She was all fine, purringly happy to see me.

I read an upcoming poetry collection in the afternoon. Poetry always restores me to myself. Pamela Power asked a few authors to share their favourite rereads with her and posted the results on her Go See Do Reading Matters today:

The Joy of Rereading

I didn’t think of poetry, but yes, I return to poetry all the time. And my all-time favourite poem, by Rilke, still gives me goosebumps, no matter how many times I read it.

Lösch mir die Augen aus: ich kann dich sehn,
wirf mir die Ohren zu: ich kann dich hören,
und ohne Füße kann ich zu dir gehn,
und ohne Mund noch kann ich dich beschwören.
Brich mir die Arme ab, ich fasse dich
mit meinem Herzen wie mit einer Hand,
halt mir das Herz zu, und mein Hirn wird schlagen,
und wirfst du in mein Hirn den Brand,
so werd ich dich auf meinem Blute tragen.

Melissa A. Volker luckily remembered poetry and said: “I re-read poetry. I have a thirty year old anthology and I always read the same poems.  Robert Frost. Robert Herrick, Louis Macneice. Especially Meeting Point. I love that one.” No wonder the descriptive passages in her prose are infused with a poetic sensitivity.

My favourite Aunt is celebrating her birthday today. I am drinking a glass of lovely wine to her health! I hope she was able to celebrate despite everything.

The global numbers are crushing. 4.5 million confirmed infections. Over 300 000 deaths. Almost four times the number of inhabitants of Jelenia Góra, the city I was born in.

Just in case anyone was wondering why we are sheltering in place…

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Your Honour, the Mermaid made me do it! And I hope that all the Water Spirits of the world, especially of the dry Cape, will forgive me my water-sinning last night. I was desperate.

After the President’s address, which I, unlike many others, found pitch-perfect, I was torn between gratitude and anxiety: gratitude for the now, anxiety for the near and distant future. I understand that it could have been much, much worse, and I am grateful for the lockdown with all its imperfections and blunders, but the high infection and death numbers in the Cape are deeply depressing and do not bode well for our future in Cape Town. Like the President said, every number is a life – a life surrounded by loved ones and dreams. Illness and loss precipitated by something as simple as a conversation with a friend… It is tragic.

Mr Mozart, once again, knew that he was needed and sat with me throughout the address and then watched over me late into the night. He allowed me to kiss his head and hug him after the President had said that bit about kisses and hugs being things of the past…

I watched Cyril Ramaphosa apologise to the nation and felt humbled. I cannot imagine what it must feel to have this burden on one’s shoulders. How does he sleep at night?

I fell asleep sometime after midnight, and slept deeply, but when I woke up just before six a.m., I found it impossible to open my eyes for nearly two hours. One of those days when I did not want to face the world. Eventually, when I did, I was rewarded with the sight of the Cat Ladies sleeping peacefully next to each other at the bottom of the bed. And they allowed me to join them for a while.

Coffee, some reading, and then work, work, work (plus headache) until the end of the day with only a short break for lunch.

My first book delivery of the level four lockdown arrived via courier in the morning, a most fitting title, me thinks…

But the most exciting book news of the day belongs to the breath-takingly beautiful Charlotte!

Helen’s debut novel – sheer joy! One day, soon, we will hold her in our hands, and she will be hugged and kissed and treasured. Even if we won’t be able to hug her author for the foreseeable future – the book will have to stand in for Helen.

Dear Helen, if you are reading this, please know that we will throw a huge party for Charlotte when it is safe and allowed to do so, and we will celebrate in style. Until then, I send you and Charlotte love and some flowers from my Mom’s garden:

Congratulations and HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY, dear Friend!

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Mozart came to visit late last night, but did not want to stay after Salieri hissed at him from the other side of our TV bed. Sleep came eventually, but not for long. Yet the gap sometime after midnight wasn’t as bad as the previous one. I just listened to the voices on the TV and enjoyed the warmth of my duvet and thought of very little until Morpheus welcomed me in his arms again.

By the time I woke up, the light was bright outside and even though my motivation was not exactly soaring, I got up, made coffee and treated myself to yoghurt and honey in my bedroom bed where a novel I had to abandon for a manuscript (report written and sent today) was still waiting patiently with some beautiful lines:

If their hands should touch as they walked, their fingers brushing as if seeking the heat and scent of each other still on their skin, well – who was to know? Only those two – a secret shared.

I had known her. But that didn’t matter. What was between us wasn’t silence. It was speaking without words. It was breathing without breath.

It was us. It was we. And on we went, together…

I suppose that depends on your point of view… If the truth brings opportunity or merely pain.

This is what happens when a poet writes prose. Thank you, Katherine Stansfield.

I wish I could have continued reading, but a lot of work was waiting today and I had to get going.

At lunchtime, I skyped briefly with Mom and Krystian. He is visiting again and Mom asked him to cut her hair. He did a brilliant job – she looks stunning! Some of us will discover hidden talents in this Covid-19 chaos. Then, I braved the outside world and got into Topolino for a ride around the neighbourhood and food shopping again. The ride was wonderful, the food shopping just depressing. I need to find a less crowded shop next time. It was horrible where I went.

The experience made me think of the latest clothes shopping regulations. I understand that some people need new clothes right now, but I will knit, crochet or darn before I enter a shop without a good reason. I am still wearing some of the clothes I wore when I was a teenager, so I will be fine for a while yet.

I am most excited about all the lovely magazines I bought today. FAIRLADY has an article by Cathy Park Kelly that I have been looking forward to reading, and COUNTRY LIFE includes a Nancy Richards interview with my dear friend Helen – always a treat! And GETAWAY features an article about Poland. Yay! I just need more time for leisure reading again…

After all the hand disinfecting and washing today, I realised how much I enjoy simply washing my hands for a few seconds when it is just me in the house and a piece of chocolate melts in my fingers and I can lick them and then wash them without thinking of life-saving, hand-washing techniques…

The proofs of the next Karavan Press book arrived today, but there was so much other work to complete first that I will only get to look at them properly tomorrow morning. Ooooh, but the book looks lovely at first glance!

A few days ago, I registered for a UCT webinar in the ‘Unlocking COVID-19: Current Realities, Future Opportunities?‘ series with Dr Iraj Abedian and Professor Alan Hirsch that took place today. A strange experience again, but I was interested in the topic, “The economics of pandemics”. Glinka, of course, wanted to be part of the conversation. Professor Hirsch emphasised trust and cooperation in the process moving forward and the phasing out of the lockdown. It all made a lot of sense.

Upcoming UCT online conversations also sound fascinating:

• Wednesday, 27 May: ‘Ethical reporting during times of crisis’
• Wednesday, 10 June: ‘What is the new normal? Future scenarios’
• Wednesday, 24 June: ‘Community leadership in times of crisis’
• Wednesday, 8 July: ‘The role of young, African entrepreneurs during COVID-19’

But now, it is time for another address by the President, and I have my G&T and tissues ready.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD