Gentlemen, it is important to understand that the greatest risk to you at this time is not the virus itself; even though it does seem to favour attacking us…the greatest risk to you is inadvertently setting a precedent…for example:

• Today I mowed our lawn for the second time in 7 days…that’s twice the number of times I mowed it in the previous 3 years
• The pool doesn’t have a spec on / in it…it looks like a fountain, on a cloud…the sort of fountain naked Swedish angels would frolic in to the sound of trumpets
• I’ve played more games of hide and seek than I did as a kid.

These are dangerous things…one must be aware…you are welcome.

Probably the most notable and memorable thing that occurred over these last two days was the ‘instant feedback’ provided to me by my wife on Pretty Fly, by The Offspring, at volume, being ‘unacceptable’ at breakfast time. Oh well…

Some things I’ve noticed:

• The Covid-19 related humor which spread like wildfire across social media has all but dried up
• I’m doing more things slowly and deliberately…now the act of making the coffee is as important and pleasurable as the drinking of it
• I’ve come very late to the ‘binge watching’ party…it’s eating deeply into my sleep (which is shit at the best of times)
• Our dogs, and children have become a ‘collective’ – adults not invited
• I’m reflecting more on where I have, and haven’t been an arse over the last few decades
• Kids don’t see exercise apps as being the god sends that adults do…they annoy them intensely
• More to follow…

Mmmm….this ain’t going to be a walk in the park (see what I did there?). Hauled my bones out of bed, put on the excited dad face (which make me look high / like a drunk sailor / insane / special in the wrong way)…then spent 90 minutes making pancakes. Not because I like pancakes, but because that was 90 minutes taken care of. Must’ve made close on 50 of them. Small. To make the batter last longer. They got nailed by the family in 90 seconds. It was still only 9am. I did some half assed exercise thing….and had a loooong cold shower. It was 10am…still 4, sorry did I say 4, I meant 3, what was that? 2? yes 2 hours away from G&T o’clock…then a funny thing happened. My kids stopped fighting. My wife stopped asking me to do stuff…I’m not sure if it was the soothing Gin sliding its way through my system, or the awesome new AirPods Pro (noise cancelling) which I was breaking my 8 D Audio cherry with…try it if you haven’t (8 D Audio). Either way the day got better…like ‘you’ve been jogging barefoot on broken glass with a broken toe and then someone gives you a pair of Air Jordans and a foot massage’ better.

Snooze time called – 30 minutes nailed. Quick jump in pool, followed by a really slow, long bbq…because they’re slow and long, made interesting by some SA rock star doing a show from his rooftop…Sugarman rendition better than the original…thanks Ard Matthews. I hadn’t realised we were neighbours. Glad we are. It was awesome.

Then later they came…the first personal cheek cleaners of the pandemic. I was standing in the upstairs spare room (read, where the dogs and I often end up sleeping) and the valley suddenly erupted; 8pm. The nightly salute from windows, roof tops and tall trees each night to show support and appreciation for the emergency and health crews at the coalface of this shit show. There was whistling, shouting, strobe lights, cheering and mouldy, dusted off soccer world cup vuvuzelas … flashing, blaring and echoing down the valley…and I cried. The true madness of it all hit me. Better out than in. Day 4 to follow.

So today was a little different. Jumped out of bed. It’s a Saturday. I quickly realised it’s irrelevant what day it is…so it’s simply Day 2….but the sea looks so damn inviting.

Did the exercise routine…hung with the kids…manscaped myself to within an inch of my life…mopped the house…played bat and ball…ate…slept and hit the pino at about 3pm…why not. And now I’m writing this, after a quick distraction with Google’s 3D animals in the house. Scratching my head to think of anything profound I might have learned today…all I’m doing is scratching my head.

Looking way more forward to setting fire to some dead tree stuff in a metal bowl on legs, and cooking dead flesh over the flames, than I ever have…I can’t fucking wait, and I want it to take a long time…so maybe that’s something…could there be hidden pleasures we’ve all been missing out on because we have / had so many damn options? Who knows. I’ll let you know tomorrow….Oh, I’m also wondering if ‘lockdown’ is one word or two?

Day 1 started just like every other day, except it wasn’t. We all went about our morning stuff. Kids did kids stuff, we did adult stuff. I hit the home office.

About 10am things began to sink in. The dogs were getting restless, the kids were getting feral. Katherine was trying not to kill all of us.

Bat and ball came out. The exercise apps got downloaded and I found myself  in my undies doing star jumps in front of the spare room window…because, why the fuck not.

Monopoly came out. The kids fleeced me. I went back to work. Startup business to build.

5pm I’m glued to my screen, and Kath walks out of the house with a fat G&T and her shades on…she never drinks before the sun goes down, but today is not usual.

I’m being dissed about my ears on Facebook by my neighbour’s wife…we set into some banter. I then go looking for the family. It’s too quiet for me not to; and I find them outside our gate…with all of our road doing the same. Deck chairs out, drinks going down and kids walkie talkie’ing each other…for a while it felt like the nasty, malignant, odious virus was forgotten.

Then it was dinner, and bed. That was Day 1.

So like everyone in SA, we woke up on Friday 27th March 2020 in lock down. It’s not so bad. 21 days. It’s doable…bullshit. It’s going to be testing, but here’s the thing it can be testing and a total waste of time…or it can be testing and fruitful…and I suppose if you’re superhuman it might not even be testing. In fact it might be kind of fun if you’re an introvert in a big house with fuck load of toys and things to ‘explore’…

The thing is although it shouldn’t have, the lock down still sprung itself on a lot of us…we were up the coast, hanging and breaking the ‘beaches are all closed’ rule in Plettenburg Bay with about 50 other folk, dotted down about 5 kilometres of sand. We could have come back earlier but didn’t.

So, you wake up to your freedom having been removed. You understand why, but it’s still gone, and you’re feeling a bit sorry for yourself because you can’t go bodyboarding, or jogging or mountain biking, and you’re wondering which of the many walls of your largish, solidly built, indoor plumbed house (with swimming pool) you’re going to climb first and someone posts a shot of a 2 meter by fuck all tin and wood shack clinging desperately onto the side of a hill about 1,500 meters from where you are and you instantly hate yourself.

When you live in South Africa you can’t feel sorry for yourself…it’s not fucking possible. This is a good thing. Not the situation, but the ‘not being able to feel sorry for yourself.’ bit. For the majority of my adopted country, this nasty, invisible thing is striking very real fear into their hearts. How do you ‘social distance’, or ‘self isolate’ when you live with 15 people in a lean to the size a garage…and that’s not a double garage by the way. Once the virus hits the crowded townships it’s going to run riot, and there will be no where to hide…and the worst of it, it’s been brought into the country by the rich folk who fly…and continued to fly…to fly in for weddings in the wine lands, and business meetings (which could have been done on any of a thousand online tools) and it’s going to make it’s way into the townships because the people living there need to work every day, and they work for the wealthy infected folk as their maids, or gardeners and nannies. It’s cruel. So damn cruel.

South Africa has been given some grace. The virus took its time to get to us, and the government has done a great job of learning from the rest of the world – what to do, and what not to do…but I think we’re about 10 days out from hell being unleashed unfortunately…let’s hope not.