Morning Morning!
Tuesday April 14, 2020
How did you sleep? Well? I hope so. You need to rest your mind, rest your body, ‘re-boot yourself for another day of same’ as my friend remarked on her FB page yesterday. The way her son had expressed himself the night before.
7.14am.
I’m on my outside deck if you want to know, with my laptop on my lap. Just as they were intended, I suppose hence the name. How many of you sit with your laptop on your lap? I bet not many. I bet they’re mostly on a desk inside. Shame, I’m really sorry about that. I wish you could feel what I do right now. A soft sense of utmost calm. The sound of Egyptian geese, guinea fowl , a turtle dove, and a host of other little tweeting birds. Some with longer chirps, others with a little tweeee sound. I wish I could identify them all for you but I’d need an app for that. Or a bird expert. Or my dad. Dad doesn’t own a laptop. Never has even owned a computer mind you. Not interested he said.‘I’m too ooold he said,’ when I suggested that he should at least get whatsapp installed on his cellphone so he can share in the visual images my sister and mum and I send to each other on our family group chat. One of the many. (Ooh here comes the brilliant light. I’ll stopped typing for a minute. The rays are shooting down now like a beam pointing straight at me! Morning Sun! ooh, now I can’t see my laptop. Stared straight into it while trying to take it all in…you can’t do that for too long.)
Rays not as sharp now. More scattered in all directions. Too bright to look at. (oh…even a rooster I hear in the distance and the constant squawk of geese. Noisy buggers. Sounds like they’re having a meeting of sorts. Love that. Hadedas.too.)
Losing my thread here now… sounds quieter now.
‘There’s something quite homely about an ironing board in the lounge’ said my husband yesterday when we’d finished dinner and he went upstairs to watch the news. He always watches the news after dinner. And at many other times too. I confess to not watching the news much because I will absorb it from so many other sources in the day. And to be honest, it makes me a little anxious. I can’t bear to see images of people crying at funerals in New York, and the violence they seem to want to share about the way South African authorities are trying to get compliance of people in vulnerable areas by beating them. It’s bloody horrific the measures that are resorted to. But I also cannot bear the bad news of mass media. I wish they would be more balanced in what they chose to air. Don’t you? I mean there really are a lot of good things about South Africa. He actually called to me last night though to watch an expert detail our Covid- 19 trajectory as being different to that of UK. Great news. I read it later somewhere else before I went to sleep.
The ironing board in the lounge. Yes, I agreed. It did create a comfort kind of feel. It reinforced that this is our home, where things happen. It’s real life here. Not locked away in the laundry, all neatly packed away, but we can’t live like this, permanently can we? I mean all disheveled and slovenly? It wouldn’t feel right after a few days and it would start to annoy us. It would seem chaotic, untidy, just a mess. For now, though, a bit of it is fine. Extraordinary times. And to be honest, I think many of us- though for sure not the majority in our country (bless them, please I beg) – are finding a great sense of peace at home. Sewing, painting, baking tons of bread! Everyone sharing their talented baking skills with perfectly shaped ciabattas going into the oven, hot cross buns all over the show. In fact, one of the last things I read last night (without reading the article) was a NYT article with exactly that title. ‘Why people are baking so much’.
Oh well, perhaps it seems like nothing I share here is original today. You’ve probably read it all, seen it all, added your View from your Window to the FB page.
We all so similar I suppose, in so many ways. Which is why we want to read what other people write? So that we feel connected to each other, to shared experiences in order to validate our own? But perhaps one of the things we are enjoying most is the ironing board in the lounge feeling.
The one other thing I would love to do is let our bunnies out of the cage and let them run around the garden. I cannot bear to see them caged like that, waiting for food and attention. I want them free! But ja, the dog will catch them for sure. (ooh here she is, scratching on the door – she’s spotted me on the deck.)
I’m back. Biscuits and some hugs and licks and love shared. One last thing I want to share though – yes, I can’t believe it either – is a pic of our first ever mielies we’ve ever grown. We picked the first three yesterday. Actually, our beloved gardener planted them in amongst the other veggies I’d asked him to plant a few months without me even knowing and they’ve grown beautifully!
I miss him. I miss his smiley face. His relentless energy and happy disposition. He is as much part of this home as the grass that continues to grow, and the trees that begin to shed their leaves. Perhaps that’s why I found myself sweeping the driveway yesterday. Because I could feel him there, sweeping and humming and singing a particular phrase I can’t understand in his native Malawian.
1000 words. Time to go. Can’t sit here blogging and getting sentimental all day.
Look after yourselves wherever you are. I’m here too.
And enjoy the peace and comfort and smell of baked bread or feel of cotton and thread.
Sending much love to you all from the tip of Africa, beautiful Cape Town.
xxx
PS. You’ve received this a day after it’s written because I’ve scheduled it forward remember?I haven’t gone mad. Yet. It’s also not Day 10 of Lockdown in South Africa, it’s Day 19 today. I only started this lockdown diary on Day 8.
Niki Malherbe 