OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.
I have finally used up my lockdown book voucher at the Book Lounge today and have started reading three of the four books I bought. I also got myself the Moleskin diary for 2021 – it’s time to face the new year.
The day began and ended with reading. And there was editing and a lunch date with my love at FYN and a visit to the Book Lounge in between. It is an absolute delight to be able to read properly again, although I must say that the next Bosch novel wasn’t planned until I had listened to the President last night and just needed the safety of a fast-paced story to distract my brain before falling asleep.
Infected people are suffering and dying, the healthcare workers are exhausted beyond their endurance and begging us to be more careful and wear our f@#$%^& masks, and all we can do is whine about the new regulations! Yes, they were not entirely clearly laid out and they did limit us in our privileges substantially after midnight, but PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING AND DYING AND WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF HOSPITAL BEDS! Also, despite the partly vague wording, the President’s message about the regulations is quite obvious: limit your interaction with others to an absolute minimum and stop the spread of this terrible virus. The easiest way was to forbid social gatherings of any kind. Funerals are tricky, of course. But without understanding the importance of the ritual, one should perhaps refrain from comment.
And please, people, let’s not start bitching about the beach again. We have all seen how people just gather on the beach and party as if there was no pandemic killing us left, right and centre.
I also see how people confuse their general grievances with the government (mostly all legit) with their grievances against the regulations that are primarily intended to keep them safe. Don’t start demanding the stop to corruption just because your booze delivery did not reach you in time for the new year’s party you were planning on the beach. Take a real stand against corruption – at all times – if you really mean it. You want a concrete plan for the distribution of the vaccine next year? Sure, demand it, but do it because it is the right thing to want to understand, not because you are suddenly upset that you can’t get drunk with your friends in the park over the weekend.
What is the difference between meeting your friends in your home or at a restaurant? Well, for once, the restaurant – if well chosen – will be a controlled, well-organised space where social distancing will be easier than in your kitchen where your friends will want to hug, assist or stand right next to you when you make the tea (not consciously, but because it is so much easier to forget about the danger when you are in a familiar, relaxed place). Also, in a restaurant, you will be contributing to saving someone’s job – just saying.
(If you stay at home entirely and just read books for company and pleasure, you will be super safe and will be saving lives and livelihoods, mine included.)
And if a place does not feel safe, leave. Report them to the authorities if necessary.
I have been finding that it is much easier to negotiate and stay safe in public spaces like restaurants, hotels, museums and shops than in people’s homes.
If we had truly cared about one another and used common sense, the second wave would not have gotten so fatally out of control. Perhaps the regulations of level three will help us get back on a safer path. I would love to see people channelling all the energy that they are devoting to fighting, defying and complaining about the regulations to just protecting themselves and their loved ones from the virus.
Just please start wearing your mask correctly. Please.
I went for a short walk today in the afternoon and saw two young men walking right next to each other and talking with their faces turned to each other the whole time – their masks were hanging loosely around their necks. Apart from this now being illegal, what’s the point of those masks just hanging there …? I really despair.
Culinary highlight of the day and the entire lockdown, including home delivery when nothing else was possible in the beginning of the pandemic: FYN. Note the divine oysters and the brain food :)
No alcohol. No problem. The non-alcoholic cocktail I had and the green tea my love enjoyed were perfect and just added to the delicious adventure.
My love and I were meant to see a friend in his garden on Thursday, but we are not going to. No social gatherings means no social gatherings. And that’s sad, but also okay. We will do it late in January or sometime in February. If we behave wisely, we will have many opportunities to see one another in the future. And we might all be alive and well.
We can also start practicing burning those candles. My area is loadshedding at ten tonight. Just because everything else is so easy nowadays, right? Sigh.
Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.
“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”
— NICD
Karina Magdalena 