Two Saturdays by Jeanette de Heer

Currently Jeanette is living in a ‘solo bubble’. Together with Marilyn Eales she attended Deborah’s life writing course and belongs to the same life writing group. Jeanette has had many different occupations but the best one by far is writing. Currently she is writing a family history.  
 
Saturday 18th January 2020

It was a typical warm sunny January day when I walked across the road to my hairdressers to have my hair cut and blow waved. I wasn’t getting my hair done for any extra special occasion but it needed cutting.

That afternoon I watched the televised men’s doubles final of the ASB Classic tennis tournament at the Stanley Street stadium— tennis is my favourite spectator sport. The match can’t have been very exciting because I fell asleep while watching.

Later that afternoon I drove to my friend Sue’s place in Glendowie. We sat on her patio and enjoyed a glass of chardonnay.   We were having dinner together but Sue wasn’t cooking as she had had joint replacement surgery on her shoulder a few weeks earlier so we fetched a meal from a nearby Thai takeaway. It was delicious and accompanied by another glass of chardonnay.

After dinner we watched the singles final of the ASB classic. Two Frenchmen, Paire and Humbert were competing. Humbert won.

After the match we had coffee and I drove home.

Saturday 4th April 2020 Lockdown Day 10
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It was cooler this morning but I soon got warm vacuuming my apartment. Ouch! My right shoulder was sore as I hauled the vacuum cleaner around. I’m fortunate that I have cleaners, Tommy and Natasha but not while we’re in lockdown. Like many others, including my hairdresser, Natasha and Tommy have lost their livelihood. Fortunately, Tommy’s mother who lives with them has enough funds to support the family of three adults and two young children in lockdown level 4. I gave them double what I usually pay.

After lunch I had my usual siesta, read and listened to the radio. When I got up, I walked to the dairy down the road to buy myself a Saturday night treat, a trumpet. I took an insulated bag with me to carry it home so it wouldn’t melt. Usually I’m not good at delaying gratification but this day I was.

At six I sat down to watch the News with another Saturday night treat, a glass of my favourite beer, Asahi. Mostly I cook myself a good dinner each evening but on this evening I didn’t feel like cooking so I opened a can of tomato soup and heated a bread roll and had that.

Later in the evening I watched two episodes of “The Crown’ while enjoying the Trumpet.  Of course, it didn’t last through the entire viewing, but while it did was scrumptious.