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

— @HaggardHawks

Glinka, Harry & I.

Laundry, vacuum cleaning, sweeping, floor washing, gardening, FA Cup and editing – or: Sunday. There was a hair-drying walk around the neighbourhood, but I felt strangely weak and needed some time to recover afterwards.

The greying Witch of Rosebank.

Highlight of the day: Mount Nelson’s famous Afternoon Tea, delivered to your home. What. A. Treat.

The Mount Nelson and I, even though I have never stayed there, have been having a love affair for many, many years. For me, it is a place of celebrations, dreams, ideas and luxury for the soul. Above all now, it is a literary place, where I meet my lovely writing friends when we have something wonderful to toast or when we need to drown our sorrows in a bucket of G&T. The hotel has a black resident cat who comes and says hello when one is lucky.

Today, Glinka decided to fill in and appeared on the opposite side of the table just to make me feel as if I was at the hotel, and not in my own lounge. But she kept her distance. The Afternoon Tea was clearly not designed with feline connoisseurs in mind – not a hint of tuna, and the salmon sandwich was on white bread, and Glinka only does brown (she is watching her figure).

We are really enjoying reading about Harry Bosch. We loved the TV series, but never read the books. I bought the first three in the series in one volume at a second-hand shop for R85 a year or so ago, and last night we dug in. Good stuff.

I don’t know what it is, but I tend to have either nervous breakdowns, cunning creative ideas or other great epiphanies while on all fours, washing the tiled floor in the passage with a lappie (I do have a mop, but I don’t trust it). Today’s insight found on a dirty floor:

Eventually, all umbrellas will walk out on you.

Yep.

(No, I wasn’t drinking at the time.)

The local taxi industry announced today that they aim to infect as many commuters as they possibly can with Covid-19. As if their driving wasn’t enough of a national health hazard…

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home. Avoid taxis, if you can.

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

— NICD