Day 12 – Tuesday, 7 April 

I want to break free. I put a touch of foundation and mascara on my face for the first time in days and go to the nearest pharmacy after a week of confinement. Ironically, all beauty services and colour/make-up cosmetics are not available for sale during this lockdown. Looking good is not essential, but looking like yourself, warts and all, is downright preferable when you’re living like a hermit. I finally stock up on hand wash and bath products, vitamins, toothpaste, sanitiser and cleaning wipes. It’s a Tuesday morning, and the place is empty aside from a few other shoppers. Must be five of us in total. I avoid contact with other people and don’t linger longer than necessary. There’s a long queue at the supermarket across the parking lot, so I skip going there altogether. 

This seldom outing is a breath of fresh air in my daily clockwork routine: coffee, reading, writing/blogging (I am behind on my lockdown journal), cooking (today I make a creamy ham and mushroom fusilli pasta). Then more coffee, dinner, entertainment – movies or games – and rest. The sun is smiling dashingly on a perfectly blue canvas, and a new set of towels, bedding and clothing is drying outside in the garden. More dried clothes are stacked up and ready for ironing, perhaps the only household chore I shy away from and prefer to outsource, but in the maid’s absence, I bite the bullet and do it anyway. My husband helps with the clothes, and we take turns ironing in between hours of work. 

Tonight we are watching The Return of The King, the third and last instalment in the Lord of the Rings movie series – well, it’s mostly myself struggling to go through the three hours and a half of cinematic drama – feeling a bit tired and under the weather. I should rest. Instead, I go through the battle of Gondor and the assault over Mordor and feel elated as Frodo and Sam end their journey to cast out that damned ring in the pits of hell. It’s over. The Middle Earth and its men’s kingdoms are saved. A new king is crowned. The hobbits are reunited with their families. Only Frodo embarks on another epic journey after getting the sweet taste of adventure, this time without his trusted friends. Everyone is happy. As for me, I can only enjoy such epic voyages and foreign travels from the comfort of my couch, or through the pages of a good book. I’m almost done with my current fantasy reading and pondering where to next.