April 14

The days have this regular rhythm to them.  I get up and edit my writing for about an hour and then everyone else gets up.  We have breakfast and then all go our own separate ways until about 11 o'clock when Sian and Ellie, getting bored, begin to close in on me.  After lunch, someone might bake something to eat, we do some watering of the garden or take the dogs out for a walk.  Then it's evening and time for supper after which we either play a  game or watch a DVD.

Today, John is up early and goes out to collect our milk and cheese order from Sedgemoor and get some vegetables.  One of the difficulties that life in Zimbabwe has presented us with is finding cheaper alternatives to some of the things we eat.  Breakfast is a good example of this.  Because things like Weet-bix and corn Flakes have become so expensive, we tried switching to porridge.  Oats then became mealie meal and occasionally I have bought packets of various things like strawberry flavour instant mealie meal which have not gone down well.  Over the past couple of weeks, we have tried to finish off these half-used packets and John is now working his way through 2kgs of sorghum porridge.  As I said yesterday, he eats anything - even if he does make a face as it goes down.

I don't feel great today.  I have a bit of a headache caused by eye strain and I didn't sleep well last night.  I feel much better after I have had an afternoon nap, something I really cherish as they are impossible to fit in during school time.

In the evening, Sian makes supper again. This time, it is vegetable fried rice.  We watch another two episodes of The Crown.  It strikes me how much people used to smoke in the past.  Every time someone speaks, they light a cigarette.  Old Queen Mary lies in bed, puffing away and then complaining about the effects of lung disease.  I almost coughing myself by the end.  Both my grandparents on my mum's side were very heavy smokers and I think I can credit them with the fact that I do not smoke.  I remember their yellow fingers and the heavy smell of cigarettes that followed them everywhere.  

In the episode we watch, it is December 1952 and London suffers from a four day fog which kills off 4000 people.  At the end, we are told that modern analysts think the figures were more like 12 000.  12 000 in four days in one city!  It certainly puts the coronavirus into perspective.

Watching The Crown makes me realise that my gran could still be alive now as she was the same age as the Queen, but she died when she was only 68 - but not, strangely enough, of anything to do with heavy smoking.