Our first day at the lower level three and, if my brief foray out of the apartment to hunt bread from the local bakers this morning is anything to go by, the next couple of weeks will be tough. There were so many people around it was almost impossible to stay two metres away from […]
Lockdown: Day 33
Today is our last day at level four lockdown. Not that level three looks much different for most people, including us, and we are warned that, if we don’t behave ourselves, we will be back to level four. I smile as I type that, imagining Jacinda putting on her best schoolmistress voice and ordering us […]
Lockdown: Day 32
When we were in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, last year I was dismayed at the amount of graffiti we saw; it was everywhere. It’s a perfect example of how easy it is to take your local surroundings for granted – there’s very little graffiti in Wellington, and if any appears it always seems to […]
Lockdown: Day 31
It’s a weekend, so it’s a longer walk and, again, we headed to Mt Victoria. We paused at the side of a wider section of path to allow a family to pass, two adults and three small children. The woman herded the two smallest in front of her with the words: ‘remember when we meet […]
Lockdown: Day 30
Last weekend’s paper carried an interview with Marian Keyes, in which she said that lockdown in the middle of a global pandemic is not the time to be particularly productive. It’s especially not a good time to write the novel you’ve always been planning – because we’re in fight or flight mode all our brain […]
Great Britain: Part Six – We’ll Take the Low Road
In a change to our current schedule I return briefly to the travel blog and November 2019. On our final morning in Aviemore we wake to a whiteout. Heavy frost covers everything – the lawn is white and our black car beside it wears camouflage. A fluffed up ball of blackbird sits on the hedge. […]
Lockdown: Day 29
I’m watching a lot more TV than I usually do, a combination of keeping up to date with the situation and that, in a smaller living area than we are used to, it isn’t half a kilometre away at the other end of the room and I can actually see it whilst I’m preparing/eating dinner. […]
Lockdown: Day 28
All the best apocalyptic movies have a hidden danger lurking somewhere in the silent streets, just waiting for our heroine (or hero) to fall asleep, make a noise, or say ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ Then they pounce. Or crawl slowly as dramatic music plays. With a suitable gravelly voiceover, I now report that […]
Lockdown: Day 27
It’s that time of year. The time when my dreams are haunted by columns of figures and my days are filled with excuses to avoid doing our tax returns. This year, being in lockdown, I should find it easier to plant my bum on a chair, stay inside and just get on with it. But […]
Lockdown: Day 26
Most days I can nail this lockdown thing. Yes, I’m frustrated by some aspects of it, as no doubt most are, but I can look forward to the end: when I can shop without having to queue to get into the store, and I can find everything I need in there; when I can get […]
