Monday, March 23: Bugger it, I think, I’m only four months into being 70. Using this flawed logic, I go to my pilates class with Braidy Lidington, and then meet Dott and Brian and Dott’s sister Pat for coffee at Acuppa Café on Grey St. Pat returns to Canada the next day, and is worried about the trip. The café is dead quiet, we’re subdued, like we know we’re breaking the rules. The Covid-19 count is rising, the unspoken thought is that the Government’s Level 3 & 4 are not far away. No hugs on departure.
There are quick shopping stops on the way home: the Gouda Cheese Shop in Hillcrest for lockdown supplies of parmesan, Meyer goat cheese and gouda. Another customer comes in and stands too close. My unease is starting to bite. Then the Claudelands Superette for a few last-minute items. The staff member wears a mask and gloves: he looks at my white hair and says, “Ma’am, go home and let your children do your shopping.”
I find a small bottle hand-sanitiser (liquid gold) in a drawer at home. I pop it into my handbag. It could be weeks before I actually use my handbag.
At midday, Jacinda Ardern announces that Level 3 will be enacted tomorrow, followed by Level 4 at 11.59pm on Wednesday; Level 4 is lockdown of everything except essential services. For four weeks, or more. We need to choose a bubble of people to lockdown with, and stay in our bubble. Life as I know and love it is changing at speed. No control over what happens next. I’m numb, I go next door to my nephew Guy and his wife Anna, my great-niece Emme makes a cup of tea. I’m so fortunate to have them as my neighbours.
Facebook friends change their profile pictures to include the line, Stay the Fuck at Home.
Richard and Campbell phone; I’m all right, they’re all right. The Golf Warehouse in Tauranga, which Campbell manages, will close, Ellen won’t be able to get her Pāpāmoa Post newspaper printed and delivered, but it will go up online. Richard and Sonya will work from home in Auckland. Schools are to close. I can’t visit and help with kid-minding.
Missing my sons, daughters-in-law, and mokopuna Henry, Libby and Penny; wishing like hell that Bill was still here. I’m a social being, out of the house almost as much as I’m in it. Solitary confinement/bubble-of-one will be hard work. I talk to my sister Margot, also in a solo bubble. I want to circle the wagons, draw my family close. But it doesn’t work like this.
