Lockdown: The First Days by Janet de Witt

Janet lives on the North Shore of Auckland, and is a developing writer, who relished the isolation of the  COVID-19 Lockdown to spend many fruitful hours immersed in writing. Since attending Deborah's Memoir and Biography course in 2017 and embarking on a biography, she has been honing her skills. She finds the regular sharing and support of her writing group immensely motivating and the topics they write on provide stories for her own personal memoir.  
 
The day dawned. Already two days in and I'm starting to forget the date. Good to stop after multiple trips to the supermarket and Mitre 10 garden centre.  Yes, I did buy extra toilet rolls and paper towels along with extra fruit and veges and I set up my 96-year-old Dad with food, etc. 

The dark autumn morning was sooo QUIET. No car noises, neighbours’ curtains still drawn, no-one up and about.  The day stretched ahead but I had my priorities.  The list of 'to dos' was well formed in my brain but quickly relegated to a cold, rainy day.  Usual routines were carried out:  turf Audrey the cat off my bed; feed the cat, (she's now returned to my warm, empty bed): savour cups of tea; ​eat breakfast. As the sun rose, the weather warmed, and gardening tasks called.   I had checked the moon planting calendar the night before, so I knew that I was on target for planting and preparing the ground. I prepared my snow pea bed with recycled bamboo poles (freshly released from shrivelled tomato plants), spread some worm laden compost of my own and then bags of compost. All observed by Audrey, now arisen.

Under the spent sprawling courgette plant, I found a couple of silver beet plants. My friend Chris, up the road, wanted one for extra greens during lockdown, so that was dug up, along with garlic chives and basil plants that needed her green fingers. We did a two-metre spaced exchange later in the day which doubled as my solo walk. My grumpy neighbours, also walking, surprisingly said hello from the other side of the road.  I transported my plants in a non-returnable plastic bucket and placed them on her steps. She had left me a bunch of parsley in a paper bag, camouflaged in her avocado tree. 

Next, I decided to water some new celery plants and citrus trees, dry from the preceding months of drought. Done. In the process I spotted neighbour Clare, laboriously wire brushing her basement concrete blocks. I proffered my water blaster. From beyond the two-metre perimeter I instructed the novice water blaster in the art, on her driveway. She needed a review a few days later when I spotted her almost gouging out the mortar! But she was grateful, and it felt good to help her. She had thrown some chive plants over the bushes earlier in the week. Sitting on the deck later in the day, hearing kids play over the fence I felt comforted by knowing there were people around me.  This distancing feels so strange. 

Later, the onslaught of Covid-19 statistics and strategies on TV got a bit too much. In an attempt to distract myself my viewing dropped to a low when I hit on the Kardashians for ten seconds. The next day my daughter added me to her Netflix account. Took all of five minutes! Why did we not do that years ago? Thanks Anna.
  
I have felt the need to talk to other friends living alone, my Dad, my daughter and my son and family in Switzerland. They were two weeks ahead in lockdown with a young baby (first grandson who'd been due to visit in April). Bryan must have a weird view of his Nana, her moving face framed in a small black frame singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! I so wanted a big hug.

As I head to bed — no housework done today just talking and gardening — it is interesting to contemplate four and potentially more weeks ahead. The garden looks good and Audrey is thrilled to have so much attention.