Day 30

Sunday, April 19: I’m pleased to hear British writer Neil Gaiman say on RNZ this morning that we shouldn’t expect to come out of lockdown having taught ourselves Swahili, written a new novel, or performed other remarkable feats. It will be enough, Gaiman says, to simply get through this period well, to enjoy whatever we’re doing, and be kind to ourselves. That’s our job at present.

I tell myself something similar on aimless days. I think it’s the lack of structure that I struggle with most. This is the most sustained period of unstructured time that I’ve ever experienced. In my childhood, the family mantra was that you got out of bed in the morning and you “got cracking”. My parents never fully understood the teenage thing where Margot and I wanted to sleep late at the weekend, especially after a party night. The “cracking” rule applied seven days a week; with the accompanying rhythm of farm work, garden work, house work and school work.

Rhythms and tasks have changed many times since then but I always get cracking, have places to go, people to see, stuff to do. When I look back on what I did during the pandemic crisis, I’ll remember some moochy days and also days of quiet satisfaction, of things accomplished. There is no structure, no great plan, no foreign language learned or novel written but somehow lockdown life finds a rhythm of its own.

Today it takes me 20 minutes to walk down our short street because I meet four neighbours and we enjoy a chat, standing in the sun. I continue the walk, my fingers itch to pick a solitary ripe lemon I spy on a tree adjacent to the footpath. It is a flash of yellow among the green but I talk firmly to myself and walk on. I’ve already done that, picked (or pinched?) a “last lemon” without asking and it severely impacted on the G&T of the friends whose tree it was. I never heard the end of it when I confessed; they certainly didn’t buy my story that I was saving the lemon from potentially rotting on the ground. I’ve been a nervous forager since then.

 The afternoon is given over to cooking produce that has legitimately landed in my kitchen. At one point I’ve got three pans on the go and I’m whirling around, stirring stuff with wooden spoons. There is Chunky Monkey chutney in the oven, mushrooms simmering gently, rhubarb and apple stewing happily. The One World: Together at Home event is streaming on television in the background and I don’t quite get to the quince paste. Maybe tomorrow.

Later, I slice up a precious lemon – also legitimately obtained – for a Zoom gin with friends. We typically get together during the Christmas holidays but now we are raising a glass in our bubbles in Hamilton, Sydney, Mt Maunganui and Tauranga, picking up where we left off in the golden summer just gone.

 Food matters: the instructions on the Chunky Monkey Feijoa Chutney recipe clearly say to leave it two weeks before eating, to let the flavours develop. I can’t resist a smidgen with cheese and crackers before dinner. It’s got plenty of lovely kick, and more to come. I accidentally write Funky Monkey on the label and one jar still has its original relish brand on the lid. Nigel Slater may say I’m setting myself up for condiment confusion in the future.