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

— @HaggardHawks

Christmas Day. My love and I spent the day being lazy together, first at my home, then at his, spending quality time with all the feline members of the family, and reading, sleeping, swimming, drinking bubbly and wine and having braai leftovers and Christmas cake. I treated myself to a sweet dinner with another small cake from the Hoghouse Bakery.

In the evening, I was on Skype with my Austrian family again. And now: bed. The Bosch Binge continues.

More sad news today, but also some good news. It is a constant emotional roller-coaster.

Last night, I had a nightmare about a post-apocalyptic landscape where everyone was lost and despairing. In the nightmare, I managed to find a freshly baked bread and was running to find my love to share the treasure when I woke up. For a few minutes, I was quite disorientated, but then the relief of our reality hit me – my love and I have bread and so much more to share – but even so, there are days when we struggle to keep despair and the feeling of being lost at bay. We are nearing three hundred days of lockdown. At the moment, the pandemic is raging again and we haven’t even reached the peak of the second wave yet. There has never been a good time to get sick, but now is probably one of the worst times to get infected. I keep thinking of the relentless pressure on the healthcare system, the people who care for us in our hours of need, how stretched and stressed they must feel, how utterly exhausted. I selfishly want to keep healthy, but I also want to keep healthy for them. They also need some rest.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

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

— NICD