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

— @HaggardHawks

When we visited Stirlings at The Ibis in Nieu-Bethesda earlier this year, I bought their immune-digestive-boosting tea. I have had quite a lot of it in the last twenty-four hours. And vitamins, and pickled lemons which were made with love by a dear Friend, and some lovely wine, and I have been surrounding myself with beautiful scents – my late grandma’s favourite perfume among them. I know these things will not save me from Covid, but they boost my morale during the quarantine.

The best news: my love is doing better, much better. We are cautiously optimistic that all will be well soonest. Covid is a bastard that way, we know, thus the caution, but also: my deepest gratitude to all my lucky-vaccinated stars! No symptoms on my side, and this time I got exposed to someone who was contagious for several consecutive days. I might be asymptomatic, super lucky, or the devil’s own (in Polish we have this saying about the devil not taking his own …). Or the vaccine has reduced my love’s capacity to infect me and my own capacity to be infected. Whatever it is, I am just grateful.

Work continued throughout the day yesterday and more is planned for today. Knowing that my love is better brings calm into the quarantine. I ordered food and coffee online for contact-free delivery and am going about my business. I am delighted at the announcement of the Pfizer booster shots being approved – I will be in line on the first day after the six months have passed since my second shot: end of February 2022. Something to look forward to in the new year. Another lovely thing to look forward to will be Cathy Park Kelly’s postponed launch of her memoir, Boiling a Frog Slowly. It was supposed to happen last night, but we will wait until safer times are upon us again. Yesterday, she celebrated with her family and I raised a toast to her and her beautiful book with Salieri catssisting.

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The Cats are loving the human quarantine, of course, and are the most loving company.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please.

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

— NICD

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

— @HaggardHawks

My love tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday. His symptoms developed suddenly and were confusing even to the doctor, who tested for COVID-19 just in case, but was pretty certain it was something else. It wasn’t, but after his terrible health scare earlier this year, I was more worried about my love’s general condition than the possibility of COVID-19. He is not great, but at home with excellent oxygen levels and under doctor’s supervision. He should be on the mend. I am thanking all goddesses for vaccines. He has a very good idea where and when he got infected because someone who was with him is experiencing the same symptoms and at the same time. He has informed all close contacts – fortunately there weren’t many and all are vaccinated and/or fully recovered from COVID-19 already. I am the closest and last contact before the test result.

According to the latest recommendations:

“For those in contact with a COVID-19 positive patient we quarantine for 10 days from the time of last contact … A negative test does not exclude a diagnosis of COVID-19 due to the possibility of a false negative result and thus a negative test does not allow the close contact to end quarantine early … It generally takes between 2 and 5 days from the time of contact with a COVID-19 positive person to develop symptoms. The best day to test after an unprotected exposure to COVID-19 is day 8 if asymptomatic or day 3 of symptoms if symptoms do develop. This yields the lowest false negative rate at 20 percent when doing a COVID-19 PCR swab. Our current false positive rate is extremely low at 1 percent.”

I have no symptoms whatsoever, so this is day one of quarantine and symptom-watch. The first time I was in quarantine after close contact with a COVID-19 positive person, I was really scared, for my friend and for myself. We hadn’t been vaccinated yet. Luckily, she recovered, I never developed symptoms.

When I suspected having COVID-19 myself (and it turned out to be a typical cold, the PCR test negative), I was no longer afraid for my life as I was fully vaccinated by then. Self-isolating wasn’t fun, but it passed quickly. This time around, I am worried for my love – not so much about COVID-19 itself as he is also fully vaccinated, but the management of his underlying conditions that the COVID-19 symptoms are making difficult to handle. Quarantine for me is – at least for now – only a logistical inconvenience (I have to shop online for essentials). I hope I will not develop any symptoms and test negative when it’s time to do the test, but I am no longer frightened for my life. My only concern is my love’s speedy full recovery.

Work from home continues as usual. Thank goodness Salieri and I got our paws on the latest Ballard and Bosch thriller before going into quarantine. We need a bit of thrilling escapism right now.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please.

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

— NICD

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

— @HaggardHawks

Long story why, but I was driving around Long Street and Bree Street late last night. What I saw happening in the bars and restaurants around there made me despair. When I think what trouble we take in order to gather in small numbers and still keep safe – mask, distance, ventilation, reason – to keep going in these precarious times, on a social and economic level … and then all these hundreds of people just partying with abandon, not a care in the world, nor a thought for the consequences of their actions. Deep sigh.

I haven’t been taking good care of myself lately, but I intend to work harder at it for the rest of the month, especially now when one’s immune system will need all the help it can get (over 16 000 new cases today …). So, I treated myself to one of my favourite things in the world this morning: a green juice. This one was from Organic Zone, but there are many place that make really nice ones.

I took my love’s cat to the vet today and had to do quite a lot of driving around town. The heavy traffic in Cape Town is back, big time. Luckily, one of my routes went past The Hoghouse and I picked up some goodies there for the weekend and beyond. In the late afternoon, I could no longer focus on anything productive or creative, so I opened a Hoghouse beer and made a fire for a dinner braai – the perfect way to end a busy week.

Mozart was first to join me next to the fire, but eventually all three Cats came and then my love arrived after work, and the five of us had a lovely, simple dinner on the stoep.

Salieri’s evening ritual: wallowing in the dust.

Sir Antony Sher passed away. I did not know that he was suffering from cancer, so the news came unexpectedly. I still remember reading his beautiful personal essay in Stephen Watson’s Cape Town: A City Imagined, and I was lucky enough to see him perform on our local stages. A great loss to his loved ones, and to the world.

Earlier today, I asked someone I work with how he was doing. ‘Horrible,’ he said with that panicked, end-of-the-year look in his eyes. ‘I can’t even explain. It’s just horrible. Horrible.’ I said that there was no need to explain and I wished him well. I hope he has something nice planned for the weekend. So many of us are barely holding on …

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please.

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

— NICD

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

— @HaggardHawks

Eggs Benedict in lovely company for breakfast – that is what I call a good start to the day! Not that it was really the start, because I was already in a Skype meeting at eight before driving out to the Food Barn Deli for my treat, but it felt like the best way of welcoming a new day. Coffee with my love afterwards, a few deliveries and errands, and the rest of the day was just staring at my screen and going through the items of the to-do list for today. Finished at eight – all done.

Despite the chaos all around, I have been sleeping again lately. I am always awake before six and it takes me a while to wake up properly, but I am not plagued by small hours insomnia. And it’s not like things have become easy, but we adapt, carry on, survive.

The infection numbers are rising big time again, but it remains to be seen how dangerous the new variant is and how people will react to the latest vaccination drive. I am scared/curious to hear what the President will announce this weekend. Thank goodness there is pink bubbly in the house, just in case.

My beautiful Salieri has gained a little bit of weight again – this makes me happy. The tiny-huge joys in my life.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please.

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

— NICD

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

— @HaggardHawks

1 December. December! How did this happen? The year is almost over and the festive season just ahead of us. Well! Have I got the perfect summer/holiday/beach read for you!

We launched Melissa A. Volker’s The Pool Guy at The Alma Café earlier tonight. I wore blue today to match the cover’s colours. But the book will make you feel anything but blue. It is a warm, happy read with great characters and a beautiful story with twists and lots of laughter. And apart from anything else, one of the characters is a cat with a name that still makes me smile when I think of it months later after the initial read! Melissa was interviewed by Sammi, whom we both discovered via Bookstagram. She is a wonderful book reviewer and, as we found out today, a fantastic interviewer. Social media are at their best when they can lead to such great encounters in real life.

And to top it all, there was Retha’s famous lemon meringue pie. The perfect dessert at the end of a great day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, dear Book Lounge!

The Book Lounge has a few copies of The Pool Guy on their shelves – I saw them when I visited today for their birthday :)

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please.

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

— NICD