Thursday, April 9: Some days feel muddly and frustrating, some are enjoyable in a weird kind of way, always I’m blessed to have family, friends and neighbours in my loop, if not in my bubble. Actor Robyn Malcolm says something similar. I watch her this morning, talking to Stuff’s Carol Hirschfeld for the video series Inside My Bubble. Malcolm is pragmatic about lockdown; she feels pretty lucky when she hears how unlucky some people are. She says she’s doing okay at home, enjoying being with her two kids, staying in bed in the morning with a coffee, going for walks, just mooching around.
Mooching is a lovely descriptive word, a good fit with lockdown days, doing things slowly, without a great deal of purpose. I’m mooching more this week than I was last week, starting things, not finishing them, moving onto something else. The vacuum cleaner sits in the hallway, I intend to take it upstairs to sort out the dust under my bed. But not now. Likewise, the eyebrow tint kit so urgent a short time ago is unopened and my eyebrows are liberally speckled with silver.
When someone asks me what I did today, I can’t say straight off. Although the kitchen calendar says I was to be at the hairdresser’s at 9am, a sign of past times.
I’m living in the moment, trying not to think about what happens at the end, when we get out of this. At just over half-way, the statistics indicate some optimism about the success of the Government’s pandemic strategy. We may have turned the corner. The experts remain cautious, though; there are no assurances, we can’t stop now, and we could be cycling in an out of different levels of lockdown for months. Alongside this is the huge challenge that feels like a rock in the stomach, rebuilding every aspect of life as it was just a short time earlier: families, businesses, the entire economy, welfare agencies, health services, local bodies, media, agriculture, horticulture, tourism, airlines, communities, and more, are all deeply affected by the crisis. So much support and goodwill will be needed.
We’ll still be in this together.
Dog tucker: Lamb knuckles were strictly for the dogs on the sheep farm of my childhood. To be fair, my father had a hungry team of canines to feed so some of his homekill was always earmarked for them. Later, I find out what I’ve missed, the rich, meltingly tender meat that benefits enormously from slow-cooking. Tonight’s dinner is a real treat: hogget knuckles from Anna’s parents’ farm, the dish cobbled together with various pantry items to hand. They bobble for hours in the slow-cooker, keeping company with a can of Italian cherry tomatoes, chopped onion, garlic and ginger, a generous tablespoon of tomato kasundi, and chicken stock. The meat falls off the bone, served in its red sauce over steamed rice and frozen peas. No extra shopping required, generous leftovers for future meals, and I have the delicious bone marrow all to myself. There are some benefits in a solo bubble.
To follow, Jackie’s excellent Louise Cake made with fig jam rather than traditional raspberry. And another fig drop to play with in the next few days. #kindfriends
