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

— @HaggardHawks

A day of turbulence. My early morning with Frida and the last pages of Mick Herron’s This Is What Happened were the last quiet moments of the day, and considering how Herron’s book ends, that’s saying a lot. I usually never skip to the last page of a book to see what happens, but the last few pages of this one were so tense and unpredictable (Herron has no qualms killing off characters that one likes) that I just had to look to relax.

But then: a bag of mixed news, almost too much for one day to hold. I am not sure I can even summarise it all.

The worst of it was the news of Mr Mozart’s cat mother, Gienia, ascending to Feline Heaven. Mom told me the news on Skype. The vet thinks that she was poisoned, and despite trying, he could not save her. I told Mozart, and we shared a bowl of chicken soup and sat together in the sun for a while. I went to say a little secular prayer at Anya’s hibiscus grave in the garden. She died in 2007, killed by a passing car. If there is a Feline Heaven, I hope that Anya and her cat mom are reunited in it right now. Here, on Earth, there are a few felines and humans missing them terribly.

The best of the news was that my friend’s husband who is still in hospital could communicate with her today. He is conscious and on the road to recovery.

On the literary front, this beauty arrived and made me happy:

And my brother sent me this beautiful picture from Austria:

And there were a million other things, good and bad, that happened. But… I need to get to bed.

(Just in case you are wondering: I am worried about the sharks off the island in my head. I realised today that I fed them Covid-19 positive ‘bait’… How ‘boneheaded’ of me. I hope they will be fine, despite the indigestion.)

In all this chaos, I did so much work today that I am falling on my nose. I did cook my small dinner on the fire tonight – a fire always calms me.

Our Covid-19 numbers are… too many. Well over 100 000 confirmed infections, over 2000 deaths.

I am tired.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home. Be careful who you feed to your sharks.

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

— NICD