Hellooo my ducklings! Week 4 of the Great Confinement begins. So much email! This is what happens when you have nothing else to do. So let us acknowledge Margaret, who made Michelle’s biscotti, but with a white cake mix! There’s Nuala, whose daughter Caitlin celebrated a birthday Sunday with a drive-by celebration. Ann tried to have a Zoom cocktail party, but technology failed her, and she’s thinking of trying Houseparty. Rosemary goes to Zoom A.A. meetings. Erika still likes her glass of red wine, but is worried about everyone’s mental health as this continues. The quarantine, not the drinking. Ellen is supposed to move to Vancouver Island in June, where she is expecting her 3rd great grandchild in July (wow), but may have to postpone. Two weeks ago, just when things were starting to look pretty grim, Rina’s niece’s house burned down, and they lost almost everything. Raija, Wendi and Sherry all send their love, and Mary Ellen has asked me to keep posting daily after the COVID-19 crisis ends. Let’s jump off that bridge when we get to it. Thank you everyone. I love hearing from you at least as much as you like hearing from me.

 

I am deeply grateful that we are facing this crisis in springtime, as opposed to fall. The days are longer and brighter, lifting spirits no matter how worrisome the news may be. John and I went for a long walk with the dogs this morning, nodding and waving to our neighbours in the distance. John always wants to walk in the park, whereas I prefer to walk through the streets so I can check out the houses, and this pretty much defines our city mouse country mouse relationship. He would be happy to live at the cottage, or in the middle of the woods, endlessly puttering around, putting up trees and taking them down, whereas I need the bright lights of the big town. We also – literally – walk at different paces. He’s half a foot taller than me, and as such is always just slightly ahead of me, which forces me to scurry, and I do not like scurrying. I like to amble and stride, sometimes breaking into an actual lope, but scurrying is for mice. Still, the marriage continues.

 

What else? Well, I cleaned, and cooked, did laundry and even ironed. We have had a housekeeper/cleaning lady for 20 years. We hired her as a nanny, then, when the children grew up and went off, we kept her on part-time to keep house.  Obviously she can’t come to us during this period, so we are on our own – and yes, she’s being looked after financially, so don’t fret. She is, above all, a superb laundress, and an accomplished ironer, and as such has spoiled us rotten: crisp bed sheets, knife-edge creases on the boy’s shirts, a constant supply of fresh, perfectly pressed napkins and dishtowels. I tackled a mountain of laundry yesterday, and actually set out to iron some of it myself which watching “Moonstruck” on TV.  Not having touched an iron myself in decades, I scared myself with the steam button and actually shrieked out loud when it hissed at me. I have other skills.

 

I watched the Queen’s address today. I’m not an ardent royalist, but I’ve always loved Her Majesty, and, like million of others, I think of her as a benevolent, eternal force, a Fairy Grandmother of sorts, who asks us to be our best selves at the worst of times. She looked well, wearing emerald green and pearls, and praised the efforts of relief workers, as well as the sacrifices of those who have to remain at home. She asked that we come together to “use the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal”. She promised that better days are ahead, that we will see our friends and families, that we will meet again. I admit I cried a little. I miss people.

 

But we will meet again.

 

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