June 19

I take my dad for a haircut.  He hasn't had one in months and he looks like some nineteenth-century politician with long, hairy sideburns or a mad professor who has spent months in a laboratory.  On the way home, we pick up the film we are going to watch tonight: Tolkein.

We have the first film club meeting since February.  Not many people come, but it is also very cold and it is quite nice to just have a small group.  I did some research about the film and discovered a couple of things about Tolkein.  One is that his name is pronounced Tolkeen.  The other is that he was a very committed Catholic and that his faith shaped his writings.

However, as is the way these days, the producers of the film decided to leave his religious leanings out of it.  I find this very interesting.  Why is it that a modern audience takes such umbrage to religion?  If Tolkein was a Catholic and you are not, so what?  What is it that makes people feel uncomfortable about finding out that a favourite author was religious?  Is it because many people love his books and he has become a cult figure of sorts, so when you find out he was a deeply religious man, it doesn't sit well if you are not? This is typical of our increasingly narrowing outlook on life in which everyone we like must be like us or they are the enemy.  

Or is it the fact that he was a Christian that is the problem?  Would a modern audience be more willing to forgive him his religious beliefs if he had converted to Islam or travelled to India in search of yogic enlightenment?

There is so much I could write about this.  One of my favourite books is The End of the Affair by Graham Greene.  Greene was a lapsed Catholic who explores the idea of a vengeful God and whether, by hating something, you can bring it as much into existence in the same way that you can by loving it. Yet the film changed the story quite considerably, confirming that there is no God, rather than exploring the idea that there could possibly be one, even if it was a vengeful God.

There are some people so used to Christian or church bashing that they will not acknowledge anything positive about the religion.  In general, although they talk about all religion being 'made up fairy stories', in reality, they centre on Christianity.  Part of this is a cultural thing, but it is also because they would feel more uncomfortable attacking Islam, for example, not only because they no little about it, but because it may also be seen as a form of racism and they like to think they are quite open-minded.  Muslim-bashing is the realm of far-right extremists.

One of the big problems of our world is our growing inability to see the grey areas in life.  I don't like Christianity therefore all Christians are horrible people therefore I do not want to know that Tolkein was a Christian otherwise I won't like his books anymore.  That's how simple minded we have become.

Religion has inspired some of the greatest works of art, literature and music the world has ever seen.  Political correctness, on the other hand, inspires nothing but an empty conformity.  

June 18

It is a cold, brittle day.  As I drive into town, the streets are deserted except for a rather half-hearted petrol queue.

I go to pick up some money from World Remit.  Already the queue is long, despite the early hour and the cold.  I am worried I will get to the top of the queue and be told the money has run out. The lady in front of me tells me that the coronavirus is a terrible thing.  A man asks the security guard on the door if he can withdraw money using his Visa card and is told that he has to write a letter, explaining why he wants to withdraw money and what he's going to spend it on.

Thankfully, I am able to collect the money that has been sent to me.  As I leave, I think a man in the queue says something to me, but he is singing along to the lyrics of a song playing on the radio. I go and fetch my trousers from the tailor's.  She asks me if I tried to come into town on Tuesday when the army was sending everyone home. She tells me how everyone except civil servants was turned away.  Doctors and nurses were allowed to go to work, but sick people weren't allowed to go to hospital.

It's Thursday so it's out mammoth washing day - or night, I should say, as the municipal water only comes back on at 5pm and will be off by about seven tomorrow. The young man in our cottage does not bring his laundry up and is still out by the time we go to bed. I have sent him a few messages and John says it's his own fault if he doesn't get his washing done.  He has to learn to be responsible.

June 17

Sometimes after lunch, I play Scrabble with my dad.  I have never played Scrabble so often in my life as I have done over the last three months. You know when you've playing it often when you are reading a book and find yourself looking at words and working out their score, or you know without thinking about it that Kappa is the tenth letter of the Greek alphabet.

Ellie is a keen Scrabble player, but Sian does not enjoy it.  What she has yet to realise is that Scrabble is a game of strategy, more than words.  She is of the thinking that if a word is long, uncommon or has deep and meaningful connotations, it should be worth more than the rest.  Actually, it's all about using those triple word scores and high point letters.  'XI' can get you thirty three points on a triple word score, but 'ASSIDUOUS' will only get you 10 on blank squares.

We decided that if a word is in the Scrabble dictionary it can be used, a decision we have come to regret sometimes as just about anything, even the most inane of utterances, like 'eh', can be used.  I do wonder if Scrabble hasn't been dumbed down quite a bit.

I was not a great Scrabble player three months ago, because, like Sian, I looked at the word, rather than where it was placed on the board.  John is quite good and often comes out with words that make two words, if that makes sense, going in different directions.

I am always annoyed when, after staring at the board for about fifteen minutes, I grudgingly put down 'tent' as my best attempt and John says things like 'I can see a 16 and a 24 - but if you want to go for 4, that's OK.'

The army is off the streets today as all civil servants have been offered a 50% pay rise and part payment in US$.  The catch is that the US$ has to paid into an account from which you can only withdraw bond cash.

June 16

We wake up to the news that the army has shut off Bulawayo.  Workers are not being allowed to board buses and only civil servants are allowed to go to work.

The first response is that this is a coup - or probably another 'not a coup'.  Some weird things have been happening lately.  Last week, a press conference was called at which it was announced that all rumours of a coup were unfounded.  It seemed to me a strange thing to announce, a bit like saying the weather today is not hot.

After quite an extreme lockdown considering our low number of coronavirus cases, the government has relaxed things quite a bit and it seems that only children are not back doing what they usually do - going to school.  Another report talks of church leaders called to State House to pray and declare the virus finally over and done with - what is that all about?  Have the riots all over the world made the government scared that something similar will happen here if people are too cooped up?

Whatever is reported about today's action by the army, you can be guaranteed that you will never know the actual truth.  The interesting thing is to watch the reaction of people here to this sort of happening.  It's just another thing, another day.  We ask each other a few questions, shrug our shoulders and walk away.  Life goes on as it always does.

June 15

So here we are, back to normal, whatever normal is.

Usually, John cooks the main meal, but since I have been working from home we have an unspoken agreement that we take it in turns.

I feel John tries too hard with meals.  He spends ages looking through recipes and researching various herbs and spices and produces things like Moroccan Chicken in an Apricot and Cumin Sauce and Four Cheese Macaroni. Without fail the apricots have to be replaced by something else, like raisins, or just more cumin, and the four cheeses are reduced to one, sprinkled sparingly on the top, with extra mustard.

I am much more simple in my approach.  I am an egg and chips girl.  The first thing I look at in a recipe is how long it will take to cook. Forget fancy ingredients as well.  Adding marmite to a cheese sandwich is what I consider the height of luxury, although I do often envy John his rocket, lettuce, fennel and baby spinach with sweet tomato jam sandwiches.  

Sometimes I think I only really cook for John.  Whenever he goes away, the girls and I delight in having scrambled egg and toast.    I am enjoying cooking though and I have definitely improved in some areas.  I have even got pastry down to a fine art.  The art of cooking is no longer in the cooking, but in finding anything to cook. Even basic foodstuffs are not always available and, when they are, are very expensive.

I remember back in 2008, when the majority of shelves in supermarkets were empty of everything except pool chemicals, and my sister and I were going to write to Jamie Oliver and invite him to come and do The TM Supermarket Challenge.  This involved going round the supermarket ONLY ONCE and finding ingredients that you could actually put together to make a meal.  We thought he would fail dismally, especially if he could not go back and pick up that packet of kapenta or tin of spaghetti in tomato sauce he had dismissed on his way round.

June 14

The most wonderful thing about being somewhere like the Matopos is being reminded of what is important and what really isn't worth worrying about.  When you are out in the bush or on top of a large rock overlooking the landscape beneath, you have this wonderful sense of separation from the world.  All that you worry about, all that you give so much importance to suddenly seems, not ridiculous, but irrelevant in the great scheme of things.  You realise that the slogan that holds the most truth is not Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter, but rather No Life Matters. Not really.

That is not to say you should go out and obliterate half the world's population.  I do not mean it like that.  What I mean is that our lives in terms of the history of the world are nothing.  Humans give themselves so much importance: we stamp our feet and wave our banners; we want this and that.  'I'm important!  I'm important!' we shout. 'Listen to me.  I am the most important person here!'

But when you look at the world from above and see humans as tiny little ants rushing here and there, clutching this and grabbing that, you realise how it is all just a game.  Shakespeare put it so aptly when he wrote of life: 'It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.'  

Matopos is a wonderful place because of the silence and the majesty of the boulders, piled one on top of another.  Huge stones are held up by tiny ones; some look as though they are about to roll away, but they have been doing this for thousands of years.  This is a landscape that has seen so many people come and go, everyone strutting and fretting his or her hour upon the stage but ultimately heard no more.  The biggest problem with our world is the ego, the insatiable desire to dominate, to be right and to be on top of the pile.  We need to understand our insignificance.

We return home in the afternoon, ready to face another week.  My goal is to try and push things away from me and not get involved.  It is true what they say in meditation: you need to be an observer.  Stand back from your life and take stock of it.

June 13

The fire is still going slightly so we build it up and make breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast.  The toast gets rather overdone.  

All I want to do is read, but it seems the rest of the family has other plans.  First of all, we climb the very high kopje behind the cottages - well, I don't go right up as I stay with my dad who would find it a bit too difficult to go right the way up.

Then we pack a picnic basket, go on a bit of a game drive and stop at the campsite for lunch.  There are other people there, unfortunately.  I don't like other people being around!  

The book I have brought with me is Catcher in the Rye.  I have wanted to read it for years.  I have this weird thing though.  I like to read a book which is set in the place I am in - unless I am at home.  At home, I can read anything set anywhere. But if I was in France, I'd like to read a book set there (but not in French!) and if I went to Mauritius, I'd like to read a book set there.  I don't know many books set in the Matopos though; yet it doesn't seem right to read a book set in New York while lying out in the sun here.

We try to find an iron-age smelter that is marked on the map, but as we have no idea what we are looking for, we have no idea whether we found it or not.  We decide that a crater in one of the boulders must be it and so we can tick that off the list!

Supper is sausages on the braai.  Unfortunately, the girls left the bathroom window in their cottage open and a monkey came in and helped himself to the potato salad we had brought with us. I had taken it out of the fridge as it was too cold and everything was being frozen.  The lettuce, unfortunately, did get frozen and turned to water.  When we thought we had forgotten the tomatoes as well, it looked likely that supper was going to be a very small snack.

In the evening we play Scrabble.  Ellie wins by about a hundred points.  Ellie is very good at scrabble because she looks up words in the Scrabble dictionary which seems to allow the most bizarre of words, like zo (a Tibetan cow) and lu (Scottish form of loo).

I can't believe it is only 8.15 when we go to bed.  I feel like it is at least midnight.

June 12

I am up early to finish off all my marking and set work for the day.

Around 12pm, the girls and I go out to collect the Indian take away we have ordered from a friend down the road.  Butter chicken and tandoori chicken - it smells so lovely I wonder if it will make it through the day.

We pop into the post office to see if a parcel my sister has sent has arrived, but are told that no post is coming through from overseas.  This doesn't sound quite right as we do get letters.

We set off for The Farmhouse around two o'clock.  It is great to be leaving Bulawayo - the first time in months.  There is one police stop, but they wave us through.

In the late afternoon, we go out to watch the animals being fed.  There are giraffe, zebra, warthogs, wildebeest and kudu. Because of the drought, some of the animals from the game park come in, looking to be fed.

At night, we light the braai, make some rice and warm up the food.  The Farmhouse is usually full board, but they are currently offering a self-catering option.  However, I do feel they either need to provide more in the way of utensils or tell you to bring your own.

The food is lovely - especially when it is washed down with a glass of crisp, cold bargain bonanza white wine.  For dessert, we have the cake the girls made for John.  It is a lovely chocolate sponge that looks absolutely perfect, although they tell me that they had to stick bits of it together with icing as it fell apart!

After supper, we play Time Flies, which is a mixture of Pictionary and charades.  Despite the fact that you can still hear the odd car or lorry thundering down the Kezi road, it is so nice to go to bed in a different place, away from the troubles of the world.

June 11

There is great excitement in the house as tomorrow we are actually going away for the weekend. We are going to The Farmhouse at Matopos, about half an hour's drive from Bulawayo, but we could be going half way across the world, we are so excited.

In the last five years, the longest we have been able to get away for is about eight days, and that was three years ago. The girls packed their bags a few days ago; they usually take half their wardrobes, but have finally got packing down to a fine art.  Usually, the packing would go like this:

- what to wear if it is hot on Saturday

- what to wear if it is cold on Saturday

- what to wear if it is not too hot or too cold on Saturday

- what to wear if we have to change for dinner and it is hot

- what to wear if we have to change for dinner and it is cold

- what to wear if we have to change for dinner and it is neither too not nor too cold

Repeat for Sunday.

There are a whole lot more 'what ifs'.  It is also important to note that what you planned to wear on Saturday cannot be worn on Sunday, even if it wasn't worn on Saturday.

I am trying to get through a load of marking so that I can go away without the shadow of unmarked work hanging over me.  I am also trying to decide which book to take with me - one that I am rereading as I am teaching it or one that I feel I should read as it's a good book or one that I know I will enjoy.  

June 10

I can never work out why children and men are so useless at finding things.

Ellie: Have you seen my grey jumper?
Me: It's on the top shelf of your cupboard.
Ellie (after forty-five seconds of looking): It's not there.
Me: It is.  I saw it this morning.
Ellie: I have just looked and it's not there.
Me: (after going straight to the shelf in her room) Here it is, Ellie. I told you it was here.
Ellie:  But you didn't say it was under the purple jumper.  You just said it was on the shelf.

Another scenario:

John: I can't believe it.  We're out of sugar already and I just bought a bag on Monday.
Me: It's in a tin on the second shelf of the cupboard, next to the salt.
John: (twenty seconds later): It's not there.
Me: A green tin - with SUGAR written on it.
John: Nope. No green tin.
Me: (walking into kitchen and going straight to the shelf and finding the tin of sugar): Here it is.  In a green tin, next to the salt.
John:  Oh, you didn't say a light green tin.  I was looking for a dark green tin.
Me:  We don't have a dark green tin.
John: Don't we? Oh.

Elizabeth is worried about her grandson who has been living with her since the lockdown began.  He finished his A levels three years ago and did very well and wanted to go to university.  At the time, Elizabeth just laughed cynically and said: 'How is he going to go to university?  He will end up a gardener just like everyone else.'

Since leaving school, Antony has not even been able to get work as a gardener, although this is partly his fault as he considers himself beyond menial work.  He did have some sort of apprenticeship with a cement company, but it all fell through.  Now he sells firewood outside Hillside shops.  Elizabeth tells me he spends all his money on getting drunk.

'All he wants is nice shoes and clothes,' she moans, 'but how can I buy these for him?'

When I ask if he helps her with money, she just laughs so I take that as a no.

June 9

It is John's birthday on Friday so we are frantically trying to find him a birthday present.  This is difficult at the best of times; nigh impossible now.

In the afternoon, Sian, Ellie and I go into town.  We have arranged to meet a certain lady outside a certain shopping centre to buy a bottle of whisky.  She phones me when we are there and says she is just driving in.  I see her, cross the car park and exchange money for a bottle of Famous Grouse.  Feeling like a drug dealer, I return to the car.

The next stop is a house in Suburbs to buy a bottle of wine.  It is far cheaper than that being sold in the shops.  I have not drunk wine for a few months so this bottle, which is probably dead cheap in South Africa, is like some rare limited edition.  I almost fasten it down with the seat belt.

After dropping the girls at the stables, I go to drop my trousers off at the tailor.  They have been going round in the back of the car for about two weeks, but this is not unusual for me.  I will find something that needs mending and it will stay on the chair in the bedroom for a couple of weeks.  Then one day it will make it to the car and then finally to the tailor.  Picking it up is equally long and drawn out as I usually forget that I need to fetch it until the tailor phones and asks if they can sell it to defray expenses.

At a hardware shop, I end up having a long chat to the owner and another customer about ridgebacks and what to feed them.  Rolo is in a constant state of hunger and we just can't keep up with the amount of food he seems to need.  The customer suggests that the owner phones his daughter in Australia who is a vet and asks her advice. He promises he will and will phone me tomorrow.  This is the lovely thing about Bulawayo: people you don't now at all can be very kind and put themselves out for you.

June 8

The old part of our house - the thatched piece - is very cold.  Like many houses in Zimbabwe, it was built to be as cool as possible in the hot season, with little regard for the winter.  The dining room receives no sun at all and is like an ice-box to sit in.  The lounge is a little warmer, but not much.  This morning, we lay a fire in the grate and all work here.  It is very cosy.

I finish my proofreading course.  I am so glad I have actually finished something!  I can actually tick something off my list.  I have wanted to do a course like this since I was about 25 so it has only taken me 21 years to get round to doing it.

Everything is looking very grey and dry, but there is a beauty to this season.  It always amuses me to see the gardener who works for the house opposite us, out each morning sweeping up the dust.  It seems he has a hatred of anything that might look half alive.  Our neighbours are like this as well.  One day I luckily returned home before the gardener started pulling out each and every bit of grass left on the verge we share with them.  I told him specifically where he was allowed to clear up to and so there is a definite line now.  On our side is brown grass and leaves and on their side is dust. Our side looks better.

June 7

I get a message from someone in the UK asking if they can book to stay in August. They are one of those people who write messages in capital letters: HELLO.  ARE YOU OPEN FOR BOOKINGS IN AUGUST?  They make you want to tell them to stop shouting.

I tell them I don't what is going to be going on in August.  I very much doubt they will even be able to travel here. ALL FLIGHTS ARE NOW OPENING UP they write back.  I have to take a step away from my phone.  I can feel them breathing down my neck.

We agree to keep in touch and see how the situation goes.  For a start, we will need definite dates from them. A GOOD IDEA.  WILL LET YOU KNOW ASAP.  I don't like it - the capitals or the ASAP.  I feel these people are going to parachute in one day, announce 'WE"RE HERE!' (probably with a volley of exclamation marks) and demand to be shown the way inside immediately.

Exhausting!

June 6

I sincerely believe that you should always do something for yourself.  It is hard sometimes to set aside time to do this, especially when there is so much going on in our lives.  My mother sacrificed herself totally for her family and, as a result, we came to expect her to always be there for us at the drop of a hat.  I think it's important that my children see that I have something I enjoy doing and that there are times when this takes precedence over what they want to do.

Writing is a difficult occupation because it is so solitary.  Unless you ask for advice on a character or a plot, it's not something that you can involve other people in.  The total self-absorption breeds resentment at times.  I know that Sian and Ellie are far more likely to leave me alone if I am marking essays than if I am writing my book.  Perhaps it's because they know I don't like marking essays, but enjoy writing.

Today, I  am pleasantly surprised as I manage to do a lot of writing and am very happy to note that I have completed twenty-five chapters.  It took me ten years to get This September Sun completed and another ten years to finish All Come to Dust so the fact that it has taken me two years to get this far with my third book is a sign that I may actually be working faster and being more focused.

One thing I have been grateful for about the lockdown is that it has given me time to spend writing.  I'd like to challenge myself to finish it by the time we go back to school, but that might be pushing things a little too far. 

June 5

I have taken to talking to the mustard spinach growing in our vegetable garden.  They were not doing very well after being transplanted and so I gave them a bit of a pep talk and told them they could make it.  Every day, I tell them how much progress they have made and now I am really happy to see them thriving.

More and more I feel a disconnect with the outside world and a stronger inclination to spend time in the garden or out walking.  I am getting to the stage where I would like to cut Facebook out of my life for a while as there is so much hatred going around.  The self-righteous anger of some Facebook users makes me sick, but I try to stand back and say 'well, that's your anger, not mine.'  Since I began meditation at the beginning of the year, I have tried to become more conscious of what makes me angry and how to respond.  There was a time when I would have replied to posts without thinking; now I know it's just not worth it.

I have been doing yoga for some years, on and off and usually in a class, but now I do it on my own, usually once, but sometimes twice a day.  It has helped my life considerably and I feel my day is missing something if I don't do even a fifteen minute routine.  

Religion and belief are those things that are so hard to talk about unless you are with like-minded people.  I have always had a spiritual interest.  In my childhood, it was mixed up a lot with a vengeful God who punished you for the smallest of wrongs.  I tried different churches and always felt very depressed after going to a service.  I never felt the great joy that other people feel.  I consider myself to be quite open to different beliefs.  I certainly wouldn't say there is just one and that is it, but for me the greatest sense of spiritual peace I have found is in meditation.  I am not great at it.  Sometimes I think about supper and sometimes I just say 'right, this isn't working at the moment', but in general I am getting better and feel a great benefit from it.

In the afternoon, it appears to build up for rain and the sky is very dark.  We go to fetch tomatoes from a friend who sells them on behalf of someone else.  It rains somewhere: there is that beautiful smell of rain on dust, but it does not rain at our house.  It's Bulawayo, it's always raining somewhere else.

June 4

A friend of ours had a burglary last night and so John goes off to help repair the burglar bars and replace them so that they are not so easily removed.  John is not a businessman.  He will do this sort of job and not charge even when he is offered money. He makes excuses like 'the job took ten minutes - how could I charge?' or 'I was going that way anyway and it was as easy as changing a light bulb'.  A couple of years ago, an elderly lady used to phone him every day about something or other that needed to be fixed.  Most of it, John reckoned, should have been thrown away, but he would dutifully glue bits of a plate back together or put a handle back on a pot.  Eventually, we both realised that what she wanted most was the company.

It seems that everyone has become so angry recently.  When I teach argumentative writing at school, I always say that it is important to acknowledge the other side of the argument first.  For example, 'while there is some evidence to suggest that prisons can make people into worse criminals than when they went in, there is more evidence that shows that in fact prisoners are reformed during their sentences and may emerge with a better education or having learnt valuable skills.'  I also tell them never to say things like 'if you believe this, you are a complete idiot.'  However, the 'real world', for want of a better description, as I am not sure what is 'real' anymore, does not operate in such a way.  What I cannot understand is that on a platform such as Facebook, the people you are conversing with are supposed to be your FRIENDS.  These are people I assume you have had some sort of non-cyber interaction with - you have gone to a party at their house, you went to school together, you got drunk together, you have celebrated birthdays, weddings, the birth of children together.  Then why, oh why, do you talk so badly to each other?

The irony is that the tolerance of different views is what has created democracy and it is this very democracy that is now at risk.  Allow people their views; allow them to justify their views.  If you don't agree, EXPLAIN why and then agree to disagree. Accept that not everyone sees the world the way you do and try to understand why that is so.

As I say to all my pupils, when you have to start swearing, insulting or being generally derogatory, then you have run out of words and have essentially lost the argument.  Like a caged animal, you resort to violence as it is the only means left to you.

June 3

If you have been following my blog, you may remember a German woman who stayed with us in early January.  She hardly ever left the cottage and used up our wi-fi three times.  When she left, she wrote a negative review, describing us as a 'rip-off'.  Well, it appears her stay was so bad that she would like to come and stay again.

I cannot believe it when I see she has booked to stay with us in December.  My hands tingle with anger and it is difficult not to reply at once.  What I think is that she probably discovered that most places do not provide unlimited internet and, if they do, the rooms are much more expensive.  As she hardly even stepped outside and is obviously something of a recluse, she realises that our cottage is quite a nice place for someone wishing to hide away.  

She obviously did not really have a problem with anything except the Internet, but I feel she should understand the damage that a negative review can give to a business.  An apology at least would be welcome.  

It still baffles me why she came all the way here to stay indoors and why she is prepared to come again and do the same thing.

June 2

I am very excited as I have decided to go to the Archives this afternoon and do some research.  I have not been there for a few months and have a long list of things I need to find out about.  I phone them at 8.30 to ask what time they close, but the phone just rings and rings.  An hour later, I phone again and a tired voice informs me they close at four o'clock.

'Great,' I say.  'I will see you later.'

'What is your name?'

'Bryony Rheam.'

'I see.  Unfortunately, we are not open to the public at the moment.'

This is very disappointing news.  I am quite happy to sit with my mask on while reading through old newspapers and books.  I will possibly be the only person there as I often am. People walk round town with no masks on at all and stand two inches apart in queues, yet I can't go and sit by myself in a room empty of people.

In the afternoon, we go out to collect a pawpaw tree I won a bid for on bidding wars and also buy a few more herbs and vegetable seedlings.  I drop the girls off at the stables and go and pick up some cheese I have ordered.  In fact, it's not just cheese, it's camembert made locally by someone. Like I said the other day, this is how you shop in Bulawayo.  Although driving around to all sorts of places can be a bit annoying at times, it is nice to support local people.

June 1

Today, I am annoyed with myself.  Ellie's teacher tells me that Ellie has not handed in around 16 pieces of work.  Ellie is usually quite a conscientious pupil, so I am a bit concerned as to why she hasn't done her work.  It turns out that some of the assignments, she has submitted, or at least thought she has, but they have not been sent through.  Others, she does not even know were there until the teacher suggests where we can find them.

I am annoyed because I must admit, I do not check Ellie's work.  She is a very independent girl and likes sending off her work when she is finished rather than have me check it.  Also, what she has submitted always comes back with a positive report.  Still, I cannot escape that feeling that I have been a lazy parent.

When I was at school, I always thought teachers' children had some private inroad to extra information.  They discussed exam papers at dinner or their parents coached them at the weekends.  When I started teaching, one of the first things I noticed was how many teachers' children were not top of the class or form; in fact, they were often C students, B at best.

Unless you are a teacher, you will not understand how much time we give to students, especially at the moment.  Many of us will willingly arrange times to help pupils, even if it means giving up break and lunchtimes and marking extra work.  However, we are ironically guilty of deserting our own children and their needs.

May 31

I have been promising the girls that we will try and make marmalade for some time now so today we look through some recipes and decide on one that looks quite easy.

Everything is going well until it comes to the point where I think the mixture should be thickening up.  Boil for 10-15 minutes says the recipe, but nearly an hour later, we have made little progress. Following instructions,  I put some saucers in the freezer and every now and again drop some mixture in, watching hopefully for it to wrinkle, but it just sloshes around.  It's time for some Facebook help.

Now, this is one of the things I do not understand.  Having received lots of messages from friends about how to rectify our runny marmalade, it is blazingly obvious that marmalade needs pectin in order to set and oranges don't have much.  Therefore, why doesn't the recipe say add lemon juice?

My mum said once that women are quite funny about exchanging recipes.  She claimed that some people deliberately changed the recipe so that it would not work out when someone else tried it. I always thought this was a bit of a conspiracy theory, but I do remember one friend of mine in the UK really taking umbrage to someone asking her for her recipe for coq au vin and writing the woman a long email explaining why she couldn't divulge this information and why it was rude of her to ask.  I do feel that if you are going to put a recipe on the internet, though, it's because you want people to use it, like it and think that you are wonderful for inventing it.

In the afternoon, I mark essays. On the Rheam side of my family, there is a history of Quakerism.  Rumour has it that my great-grandfather got into a lot of trouble for riding his bike on a Sunday.  Although I think this is a bit extreme, I really do wish I lived in an age when doing work on a Sunday was frowned upon.  How nice would it be for someone to say: 'Oh no, Bryony, you cannot possibly do any work today.  Doing so will only incur the wrath of God and lead to eternal damnation.'  Sigh.  Those were the days.

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May 30

A few weeks ago, I managed to buy a packet of oats, but have not seen them for sale since.  We decide to live life on the edge and make oat, peanut butter and banana muffins. We follow one of those Facebook recipes - those videos that make everything look so easy: all the ingredients are neatly weighed out, everything mixes up as it should and, when it appears from the oven, is totally perfect.

Sian asks why our baking doesn't follow quite the same course: flour spills on the counter, egg yolk dribbles on the floor and some of the muffins cannot be extracted without the use of extreme force.  I tell her they are unlikely to put videos of all the failures on Facebook.  I am sure a lot of editing takes place.

If it is one thing that annoys me about many recipes, it's the measurements they use.  I just do not understand how you can measure flour in milliliters.  Isn't this something we learnt at school?  Place 310 milliliters of flour in a large bowl.  Why not use grams?  The Americans, in particular, drive me mad with their cups.  For goodness sake, have we not moved on?  How big is a cup?  Old recipes are not always much clearer though.  I have one book that just says: Add the milk and stir without saying how much milk this involves.  And quarts?  Who on earth measures things out in quarts?  Do you ever hear anybody go into a shop and ask for a quart of milk?

We also make pizza for supper and are halfway through when we realise we are very short of anything that may constitute a topping.  Mushrooms, bacon and pineapple are like saying caviar these days.  We are lucky enough to have cheese at this stage of the week. Fortunately, we find some olives and a green pepper and use a bit of chicken as well.

In the evening, we watch a film called Elizabeth is Missing.  It is really good - about a woman with dementia who is convinced her friend is missing, but no one takes her very seriously. I had an idea a while back for a similar idea. As usual, it has remained an idea.

May 29

Today is the second anniversary of my mum's death.  I think of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay: Time does not bring relief; you all have lied.  Looking back on the last two years, life has been a struggle.  If you know that feeling of struggling awake in the morning and trying hard to get out of bed, you will know how I feel when I say that's what my whole life seems like.  Of course you go on after someone's death; you laugh, you have really good days; you plan for the future, but the pain is always there.

I have not been to my mum's grave since her funeral for a number of reasons.  One of them is that I do not believe she is dead.  I don't believe people just die and that's it.  I prefer to think of her in some beautiful place, most likely a garden or looking in to see what my sisters and my dad are doing.  A grave emphasises death, and I don't think many people would find a graveyard a happy place.

However, today I decide to visit her grave and I buy her favourite flowers, which are brown, gold and yellow chrysanthemums and carnations and John, Ellie and I go out to the cemetery.  We tidy the grave and leave the flowers.  Sian and Ellie also made up posies of their own from flowers in the garden.  The cemetery has filled up a fair bit, and, very sadly, looking at the gravestones, many of the people who have died are under sixty.

Before we leave, I have a few minutes of silence by myself and get the distinct feeling my mum is standing beside me and saying, 'I'm not there.  You do not know that, don't you?  I've got far too much to do.'

The cemetery is right on the edge of town, near State House.  This is the area in which King Lobengula had his Bulawayo which he burnt to the ground when he heard that he had been defeated by the whites.  Nearby is a place known as Dawson's store and we stop here to have a look.  Dawson was a trader, one of the few whites allowed into Lobengula's territory and he lived in an area known as White Man's Camp.  There were very few white men in the area at the time.  One was William Usher who had jumped ship at Cape Town and made his way up to Matabeleland where he was given permission to enter by King Lobengula and ended up marrying one of his daughters.  On the night that Bulawayo burned to the ground, Usher and a man called James Fairburn sat on the roof of Dawson's store, believing it was the safest place to be.

A hotel called The Grange was built at the same site and operated by Leander Starr Jameson for some time.  Parts of it are really run down and quite dangerous - rotten floorboards and caved-in ceilings.  Yet the garden is beautiful and well kept.  I wonder how many ghosts walk round it at night.

May 28

Today is a hard day.  None of us feel like working.  Ellie, in particular, finds homeschooling difficult because she wants to see her friends and she enjoys afternoon activities and playing sport.

As an emotional pick-up, we go second-hand clothes shopping in the afternoon.  One thing I do find a little frustrating at times is how you can't just go into a shop, or even two shops, and buy everything you need.  Due mainly to the dire economic situation here, many people sell things from home: jam, biscuits, cakes, shoes, cheese, plants - everything really.  If you want something, you can probably find it, but you will have to organise a time to come and see the goods - a time which is inevitably changed three or four times as one of you realises you have another commitment.  Then you have to find the house - this can take you deep into some unknown parts of town and then you barter over prices or offer what you can in US dollars, cash, or ecocash, all of which have their own rates.

In the evening, we hear the news that Zimbabwe's coronavirus cases have suddenly spiked.  A few weeks ago, this would have struck a note of terror in me, but at the moment I am really over the whole thing and just want life to return to as normal as it can be in this crazy country.