Wednesday, April 8: My grandson Henry phones from Auckland early this morning.  He’s had his own phone since Christmas, ahead of being at intermediate school, and I love seeing his name flash on the screen. He’s becoming very grown up. “Hi Nana D,” he says, happily, “thank you for the Easter eggs, they’ve just been delivered.” His sister Libby joins the chorus, “Thanks, Nana D.” Henry explains they’ve already divvied up the haul (quick work) but he adds, of course, that they’re saving them for Easter. There are an odd number of eggs in the count; Henry says generously that they’ll give the extra one to their parents to share! All I want now is for Penny’s Easter eggs to land in Papamoa before the weekend, and I’ll be a happy grandmother. It is a treat for the kids at a time when I won’t be able to deliver in person.

I get the chocolates online, thanks to a helpful tip on a supplier from my friend Barbara. Our network shares such information in lockdown and there are now useful contacts for door-to-door deliveries of fruit and vegetables, meat, wine, bread, vegetable seedlings, fish (Auckland) and, of course, chocolate.

 Is this a good thing? Aren’t these items pretty much available at the supermarket? I don’t have the answers to my questions. On the one hand, I worry that the increase in essential online suppliers risks spreading the virus, with more staff at work in factories and similar, more couriers on the road, more contact between people. On the other hand, online orders are helping many smaller, independent businesses remain viable, and may save jobs. It’s supporting the little guys and keeping many of us out of the cauldron of the supermarket, or from spending tedious time trying to bag online delivery slots. And the supermarkets will survive this; some of the little guys may not.

Such dilemmas – and the lack of clear answers – are now part of daily lockdown life. In the meantime, the box of wine that arrives at my door this morning from an independent retailer is very welcome. As will be the Easter eggs in Auckland and Papamoa.

What’s for dinner? Our 96-year-old uncle reports from his solo bubble in Auckland that he’s having beef olives, like his mother used to make: slices of beef schnitzel rolled up with homemade herby stuffing, and secured with a toothpick. Nice work, Alan.

At my place, the deepfreeze reveals a hitherto forgotten packet of fish, and some naan from the Kurdish Bakery. The naan purchase seems a lifetime ago. So tonight there is another round of a favourite fish curry, the recipe gleaned at Vaima Restaurant in Rarotonga, on a golden holiday with friends.  A rough guide: lightly fry two chopped cloves of garlic in a pan (I sometimes add finely sliced red capsicum at this point), add a generous dollop of Thai yellow curry paste (or a homemade one), stir to release flavours. Add a can of coconut cream, decent splashes of fish sauce and sweet chilli sauce, and a pinch of sugar. Stir through on the heat, add chunks of chopped white fish (monk is good), simmer for about five minutes, add a handful of any chopped greens – broccoli, beans, or peas, etc – cook another few minutes, stir in a little more fish sauce and chilli sauce. Taste, taste, taste. Serve on steamed rice with chopped coriander, Vietnamese mint, or another other herbs.

Note: I think the Balinese curry paste from Day 6 will work here if you’re of a mind to make your own.

Tuesday, April 7: Emails, texts, phonecalls and similar bring others into my bubble every day. Making up for the lack of real-time people. This morning there is an email from my friend Hilary, in Cambridge, with the story of her granddaughter Maggie’s 9^th birthday. Hilary is in a linked bubble with her daughter Hayley, who lives nearby on a rural property with her four kids. Maggie is the youngest and she has three older brothers.

Maggie loves her friends but they can’t be with her on this lockdown birthday. Instead, her family turns on a country fair for her, with sack races, pony rides, apple-bobbing, egg-and-spoon races, sack races, busting balloons with darts, and guessing the number of sweets in a jar.  Hilary makes one of her legendary sponge cakes, decorated with a maypole, and they have jellies, little cakes and cheerios. The big brothers join in the games, and Maggie says it is one of her best birthdays ever.

Hilary writes that maybe we’re all learning to appreciate more the simple things: family meals and cooking, bike rides, long walks in the Autumn sun, the phonecalls to friends, the hellos to neighbours, and the love of our friends and family. Happy birthday, Maggie.

Small things:

It’s easy to forget. This morning my neighbour Mary walks her dog up the road by my house. I rush out to say hello, instinctively move closer to talk, remember lockdown rules in time. Pull up pretty much bang on 2 metres.

A few years ago, a former customer from my husband Bill’s old pharmacy gives me an indoor plant, Streptocarpus, in his honour. I’m not very good with pot-plants so I put it outdoors in a sheltered spot. Today it rewards my optimism with a perfect posy of purple flowers.

Monday, April 6: I want to go shopping. The last thing I bought was an iceberg lettuce and even that’s off the table because our neighbourhood greengrocer has closed. One day it’s open, with queues out the door, the next day the gates are shut and a blackboard sign announces temporary closure. We’re not sure what’s happened.    

I don’t need anything much but I’d just like to get in my car, drive into the CBD, browse in some stores, walk down Barton St to Poppies, and inhale the scent of freshly printed books. Poppies helpfully sends emails in lockdown, recommending titles, relevant websites and various in-home entertainments. I’m loving how some retailers are staying connected with their clients. I’m not moaning, promise, I’m totally committed to staying home, helping to flatten the curve, and stop coronavirus from ravaging our beloved country. I just dream about breaking out.

In the meantime, I rediscover the vicarious pleasures of window-shopping and I swear I know almost every item in the large double windows of Smiths General Store, in Claudelands. Smiths sells an eclectic mix of homewares, vintage glassware, china and kitchen utensils, some garments and shoes, art. Many things. The window displays haven’t changed since lockdown but each day on my walk I pause and look in, and occasionally I notice something different. Today it is delicate blush-pink sherry glasses with fine stems. It’s a long time since I drank sherry, and I already have a collection of dusty “wedding present” sherry glasses. I don’t need the pink glasses but I want them. And I reckon there’s a pair of cool black sneakers that have my name on them when we get out of lockdown. Or maybe the pink ones? I’ll have another look tomorrow.

Missing: as above, the local businesses I know and love. The silent, shuttered shops in my suburb are sobering, a daily reminder of how retailers are hurting. It dampens any random late-night temptation to shop online and send New Zealand dollars overseas. I’m saving them for locals, in better times.

Thank you: for all the friendly messages about the blog. It started as a daily diary for my grandkids to maybe read in the future, an account of what their grandmother did when she was grounded in strange times. It’s a pleasure to widen the circle.

Sunday, April 5: Every Sunday morning – in the previous life – I walk around Hamilton Lake with Venetia and Rosemary and we meet their respective husbands, John and Neville, for late breakfast at Grey Street Kitchen in Hamilton East. I’ve recently become addicted to GSK head chef Ashleigh Brodie’s terrific Chilli Scram, spicy scrambled eggs topped with buffalo mozzarella, toasted seeds, herbs, and homemade chilli jam.

Today I recreate the Sunday ritual, with a cast of one. A long, looping walk River Rd, acorns from Hamilton East’s oaks crunching underfoot. Nostalgia moment: a detour down Von Temsky St, where I lived when I became a cadet reporter at the Waikato Times. Back then – in the late 1960s – my mother decreed that nice girls didn’t go flatting in their first year out of school. (They didn’t have pierced ears, either). So I found private board for a while with a family in Von Temsky St and walked across Victoria Bridge each morning to the Waikato Times office in the CBD. The old house is still there, screened by two flats.

Back home, I cook Ashleigh’s scrambled eggs, substituting feta for buffalo mozzarella and crispy fried shallots for toasted seeds. It’s creamy, spicy and crunchy. The missing ingredients are my friends, the GSK staff, and Dove Chen’s excellent coffee. Venetia says front-of-house staffer Celine has sent a message asking if we are all doing okay.

Also missing:

1. Daylight saving. The shortened evenings signal that winter is on its way. May the sunshine stay constant while we are in lockdown.
2. The French Film Festival, scheduled March 19-April 5. I put the programme in the recycling tonight, the pages still stickered with movies I wanted to see.

Saturday, April 4: It takes me about 30 minutes to buy an iceberg lettuce at my local greengrocer. Half of Hamilton seems to have cottoned on to the shop being open and there are long queues. And, of course, a strict one-in-one-out policy. Is it worth the wait? Answer: I’ve have nothing more pressing to do than buy a lettuce.

The iceberg is a thing of robust beauty, and I strip the outer leaves for the worm farm. Wash everything thoroughly, the lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions and leeks, all tucked into my turquoise-and-grey backpack.

I bought the pack to take to Italy a few years ago. It made the trip twice, and it’s also had several outings to Rarotonga. The holdall for a previous travelling life: iPad,  pashmina, glasses, phone, passport, wallet, water bottle. Now it’s my lockdown shopping bag for the five minute walk to Claudelands village.

Richard and daughter-in-law Sonya are playing “the kids are the parents” today in their bubble with Henry and Libby. The parents are liberal and the kids scoff chocolate before lunch and seem to have permission for an early afternoon gin. They enjoy scrambled eggs for dinner.

Small comforts:

Afternoon tea with my book, and a Volare hot-cross bun slathered in fig jam, curled up on a comfy rolled-arm couch. In my childhood, the couch is in the bay window of my grandparents’ homestead at Kawhia, and I read my grandmother’s novels from its depths. There are genteel romances such as The Winning of Barbara Worth and With Juliet in England. Physical contact between lovers is a squeeze of the hand or a chaste embrace. My grandfather’s Popular Mechanics magazines are piled at one end and I carefully move them to the floor before I stretch out. The faded couch is my happy place in these lockdown days; I treasure its history.

Friday, April 3: Today was to have been packed with Feast Waikato events. I’m mourning the loss of this festival celebrating the best of Waikato food and hospo talent, and thinking about all the restaurants, cafes, bars and producers hit so hard by this crisis. Kia kaha to those who water and feed us so well. You will be back, we will be back.

I walk locally, shop at the superette, talk to neighbours, and to friends and family on the phone. I’m in touch with my nieces and nephew, my sister’s children; I have this huge need to stay close to cherished family, mine and Bill’s.

Late afternoon, there are drinks in our subdivision’s shared carpark. It is the perfect venue for our households to gather at a safe distance, raise a glass, and enjoy real-time company. There is an excellent turnout, laughter and stories about how we’re all coping. There are many offers of help and support. “Let me know if there is anything you need?” is the phrase of the day. It is immensely cheering and our small community abounds with goodwill.  We’ll do it again next week.

I’m still reading The Mirror and the Light. While I’m in awe of Hilary Mantel’s prodigious research and beautiful writing, the book gets darker and darker at each page. The references to the bubonic plague, and untold deaths, are eerily familiar. I will do the last 300 in daylight! I need something brilliantly mind-numbing after this.

Small miracles:

1. Discovering that what I fear is a crack in the ceiling of my entrance porch is in fact a wiggly line of dusty grime.

2. Getting a handle on the WordPress program for this blog.

Thursday, April 2: Another Nicola driveway detour, we talk in the early morning sunshine. I’m now in the habit of ambling around in my PJs for a while, so dress in haste when Nicola texts that she’s on her way. It’s the second day in a row that I pull on a camisole and t-shirt with no bra. Nah to the bra? Standards are surely slipping. But still doing make-up and must-have red lipstick. Before lockdown really kicked, in I ordered a DIY eyebrow tint kit online to obliterate the white growing through the black (and to avoid close contact with a beautician). The courier parcel with the kit is neatly placed on my front step this morning.

 I’m guilty; this is a non-essential item. I hadn’t thought that through when I ordered it. The instructions look complex. Maybe tomorrow. A full makeover will be required when normal life resumes: leg wax, eyebrows, pedicure, hair cut, and so on. (My hairdresser Patrick texts permission for me to trim my fringe if necessary. Nothing else).

The second delivery of the day: Volare bread and hot cross buns, some for me, some for Guy and Anna. It feels good to be supporting a local business; fresh Volare hot cross bun and fig jam is a bonus lockdown breakfast.

It is a bright spot. Need one. The demise of Bauer Media in New Zealand – and legendary magazines such as The Listener, North & South, Metro, NZ Woman’s Weekly, and others – is a dark day for journalists and readers. This morning’s announcement is brutal, distressing, the loss of good titles and good people, the editors, writers, columnists, sub-editors, graphic artists, photographers and others. Many of them are household names. Messages stream between friends and journalist colleagues.  As one commentator says, “Is the biggest story of our lifetime the one that finally pushes journalism over the cliff?”

There are 89 Covid-19 cases in confirmed in New Zealand today, the highest number in a single day. And 1 million cases reported globally.

Some small miracles:

1. My watch works again. I cleaned it thoroughly, tapped it firmly on the back, and it resumed normal service. Tick-tock, huge relief.

2. Richard talks me through using WordPress so I can turn my daily diary into blog. He’s patient, it begins to make sense.

3. Nicola bikes to my place at Wine O’Clock. How good to have a friend who lives just a few minutes away. We sit with huge space between us, on well-wiped chairs. She conjures her own wine, glass and snacks from a backpack. For little while, all is well in the world. I place Nicola’s chair in quarantine when she leaves.

 

Wednesday, April 1: I turn my kitchen calendar to April and there are the events that have been noted in untroubled times: an evening at Poppies bookshop to mark the launch of the Auckland Writers’ Festival programme; the fabulous Feast Waikato weekend, with various lunches, dinners, cooking schools and a Sunday event at Hamilton Gardens; Easter with friends at the Mount; wedding at Hamilton Gardens, haircut.  All gone.

I’m overwhelmed by a delivery from friend Angelique Van Camp, of Wild Country Food. She sends a pile of freshly picked field mushrooms, Granny Smith apples and cucumber relish from her prolific property at Te Kowhai. Culinary gold and kindness in a cardboard box. Anna also – very kindly -leaves a supermarket bag on my doorstep. First World problem comestibles: risotto rice, coffee, Earl Grey tea and pancetta.

Nicola detours up the driveway on her walk. She stands by the letterbox and we talk to each other across the tarmac.

 Highlight: Rich, fragrant, earthy mushroom risotto for dinner. The taste of my rural childhood. The mushrooms that is, not the actual risotto. Mum made buttery mushrooms on toast. I do a lazy oven-baked risotto: in a heavy-based dish, sizzle chopped onion and garlic in butter and oil for a couple of minutes, add chopped mushrooms, then a cup of arborio rice. Stir through the butter and cook for a minute or two, add a slosh of white wine, two cups of chicken stock or water, bring to the boil. Cook, uncovered, at 180 deg C for 25 minutes, or so, until rice is cooked and most of the stock absorbed. Break up the rice with a spoon, add a little more butter, return to the oven briefly then remove and let it sit for a few minutes. Top with lots of grated parmesan, chopped parsley and some crispy bacon bits. Serves 2-3 people.