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

— @HaggardHawks

Has the state of disaster been extended? Are we still in lockdown? I think we are, at least judging from the Covid-19 protocols at the Baxter tonight, but I am not sure. I need to catch up on today’s news. Apart from a Zoom meeting with a future Karavan Press poet and a coffee with an amazing woman at the Vineyard, I spent the day trying to deal with my inbox and the admin backlog. I am almost up-to-date. Almost …

Got my Open Book Festival tickets today! :)

Apart from a sore arm, no side-effects after the booster. None! I just feel that I am safer from contracting a severe case of Covid-19 than ever before, and it feels great!

In the evening, we watched Lara Foot’s adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K. I found the puppets, the dance elements, the sound and light, the background cinematography and the set mesmerising, but I did wonder about the narrative bits performed by a few of the actors in-between and was not entirely convinced that they worked for me. I couldn’t help wondering whether the scene-linking content could have been somehow incorporated into dialogue and film. Still, this is my second-favourite Coetzee story (after Waiting for the Barbarians) and it was wonderful to return to it in this form. And to be in a theatre! Ah, always a treat!

Now: bed.

Good night.

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

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

— NICD