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

— @HaggardHawks

On the 27th, it will be a year of lockdown in SA. Reading comments and listening to people today after the Level One announcement, I realised that the third wave is in the making. We are one year into this and we know exactly what to do to keep, if not hundred per cent, then at least relatively, safe, but we are still being simply careless with one another. And I know that I have been part of the problem by not always being cautious, strict and assertive enough. Perhaps I have been extremely lucky, too. But I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes. I don’t want to run out of luck. There are ways of living one’s life and enjoying many activities, also with others, without endangering one’s and other people’s well-being in the process, so why should I not follow the simple rules and keep as safe as I can?

I keep repeating to myself: I don’t want to get ill.

Financial Times: Yuval Noah Harari: Lessons from a year of Covid | Free to read

Monday. The usual tasks, work, dinner with my love, Skype meeting with my family. In the evening, the inaugural National Poetry Prize winners have been announced during the monthly Off the Wall poetry reading.

First prize: BUSISIWE MAHLANGU “I wear mother’s bones” (R10 000). Second prize: MELISSA SUSSENS “A New Veterinarian Spends a Compulsory Year Working at a Slaughterhouse” (R3 000). Third prize: STEPHEN DEVEREUX “2020” (R1 000).

Over forty people tuned in for the announcement – a lovely crowd. It was inspiring to hear the poets read their work. Great stuff.

With Burma in the media again for all the wrong reasons, I often think about this stunning novel.

“Now dusk-mauve darkens the sky, and just before the big lights crack on and erase everything, a flood of indigo ink writes up the night.” (The Lizard Cage)

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

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

— NICD