Day 4 – 30 March
I call this first quiet Monday during lockdown ‘the sound of silence.’ Yes, just like in the song popularised by American rock band Disturbed. Since the beginning of the lockdown, I’ve been sharing on Facebook video songs close to my heart to add a positive note to all the tragic news and negativity unleashed daily by the coronavirus pandemic. You see, I’m an ’80s baby and still an ardent rock/alternative fan. Yesterday, it was Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy the Silence.’ The day before, George Michael’s ‘Faith.’ Without any doubt, ‘The Show Must Go On’ from legendary Queen was a fitting choice for the first day of the quarantine.
Peace and solitude have quickly become our reality (if one doesn’t count my unruly dogs barking loudly – whenever they feel like it – or the children screaming next door.) It’s only day four, and I’m used to this eerily silence. However, as Freddie Mercury famously said, the show must go on. It’s a working day, after all, although I am seriously tempted to snooze under the duvet and linger over my strong coffee with the book I’m currently reading.
As planned, today I bite the bullet and write the blogs detailing the first two full days of lockdown. I sit down at my desk with the exciting combination of buttered hot cross buns and cheese sandwiches on the side, and of course, the regular coffee mug. I take hungry bites while scanning the email inbox for anything remotely interesting and then checking my social media pages.
My husband is already downstairs, poised tall in his chair, the click of laptop keyboards the only sound in the house. No music or tv is playing in the background as not to disturb his work. When I go downstairs to replenish my coffee supply, he finally takes a break and drowns a big heap of bran flakes in fresh milk. Today he has forgone his jeans for comfy sportswear but has replaced his signature plakkies or flip-flops with a pair of warm socks.
Lately, I can feel the weather gradually cooling down, a welcome incentive for all South Africans to keep safe and sound indoors, except for those brief sunny moments spent in balconies and private gardens. Autumn is claiming her turn after a hot yet rainy summer season. The rains have shifted from thunderous tropical storms to softer drizzles, the kind I like to call ‘London rains.’ I’d lived for three months in the British capital back in 2005, sometimes not even noticing when it started to rain! I’d also called myself a regular townfolk by then.
I keep on blogging until my stomach rumbles, somewhat guilty of ignoring my growing fiction manuscript in favour of these #lockdown blogs. I’d rather do them now before I forget what my husband was up to and what cooking experiment was brewing in the kitchen.
Today it’s the vegetables’ turn to jump into the wok for an egg noodle stir-fry. I keep it green and simple with spring onion, baby marrow and broccoli. Meat is not necessary, but chicken breast is plentiful, so there you go, lunch is sorted. My cooking usually involves enormous quantities for at least four portions, which translates into plenty of leftovers for the two of us. Thankfully, we don’t have to cook every so often, which means our food provisions last longer, hence fewer trips to the supermarket during the twenty-one lockdown.
Speaking of cooking experiments, hubby has become a veritable MasterChef thanks to self-isolation (no more takeaways and trips to restaurants). Tonight he is making flatbread or naan bread by mixing only two ingredients – wholewheat flour and water. We don’t have yeast in the house, and it was sold out at the supermarkets last time we checked. No problem, though. If you don’t have the usual ingredients to make bread, but you still found some flour in your pantry, flatbread is the most straightforward answer to delicious homemade bread.
For dinner, we heat the last of the butternut soup and finish it with hubby’s record-time successful bread experiment: warm, flat pieces of delicious dough. All the while, the tv is on, and we are listening to Friends’ Rachel and Ross on-and-off relationship bramble on Netflix. I hadn’t watched the series until the end when it was first televised in the early 2000s, so don’t tell me what happens next (we’re at season 4). After a few short episodes, we’re ready to unwind with the good old and trustworthy Irish coffee.
We retreat for the night in the relaxing vibes of chillout music, and the soft glow and intoxicating scents of our Yankee Candles – midnight jasmine, and lemongrass and ginger. The first thing I’ll do after the lockdown is over? Buy another Yankee Candle, preferably named ‘the scent of freedom.’ I wonder how that smells.