July 26

Today is a wonderful day.  There is no particular reason it is a wonderful day - it just is.  It's getting warmer which is great as the winter has seemed to have dragged on and on.  A few weeks ago, I made a promise to myself not to do any work on a Sunday.  It is very easy to fall into a trap of spending the afternoon marking or preparing work and I am just not going to do it.  I would rather spend the time during the week making sure that everything is done so that I can have one day when I don't do anything.

Instead, I spend the day doing my favourite things: I water all my pot plants (and talk to them) and then I sit and read a book.  It's wonderful.  I love that feeling of 'just one more chapter', that real delight in reading, rather than a feeling that I have to read.

I really believe there is much to be gained from relaxing and just spending the day doing what you want. There is always so much to do, so much to organise and complete and sometimes it is nice to just push all that aside and say, 'Wait!'.

July 25

At breakfast, John asks me if I mind him going to a stamp club meeting this afternoon.  This is one of John's nerdy activities, but I have no objection.  I used to enjoy collecting stamps when I was a child and learned quite a lot about different places in the world, like what currencies they used and what was important to them.. I always remember finding out the Helvecia was the Swiss name for Switzerland. John has a look at his phone to confirm that the meeting is at a friend's house and discovers that the meeting is not this afternoon, but this morning and has already begun.  

As John has missed the meeting, he decides to go and help a friend with his car.  It is an old Citroen that is being rebuilt.  If John has his way, our garden would be full of old wrecks just needing a 'little' work before they can get back on the road.  As it is, he only has an old Panther motorbike in pieces in the garage.

I decide to make a cheesecake.  Earlier in the week, I made cream cheese by straining two packets of Masi (cultured milk) through a piece of cheesecloth. It is so much cheaper than buying cream cheese from the supermarket and is much tastier.  Instead of cream, I use Lacto (sour milk) and instead of creme fraiche, I use a double thick yoghurt.  The cheesecake is perfect, except for the fact that when I take it out the tin, it falls over to one side.

When I was at high school, I had a Science teacher whose experiments never worked out.  When we wrote up the notes afterwards, we always had to write: If this experiment had worked, the results would have been . . . It is the same with my cooking.

July 24

According to the precepts of Feng Shui, we should not have anything blocking our doors and windows as this way you block the flow of energy. Feeling we need a great gust of energy, I put an old blue carpet of ours, that has lain rolled up on the back veranda for about two years, on Bidding Wars at the beginning of the week.  

John was not convinced anyone would buy it and suggested we give it away, but I had no idea who to give it to and felt it would be easier to advertise it for sale and have someone come and fetch it.  I set a starting bid of $5 and, quite amazingly, it eventually went for $20. 

Today, a man comes to fetch it.  He has driven all the way from Gwanda to pick it up.  Gwanda is not that far away, but quite far when you consider the problems getting fuel, the roadblocks and the fact that the carpet is not in the best of conditions.  However, he is over the moon and happily rolls it up and puts it in the boot of his car.  When I ask him how he got through the roadblocks, he says he told the police he was going to see someone in hospital and they let him through.

With our ill-gotten gains, we go out for a cup of coffee.  Sian and Ellie have a milkshake.  The combination of an outing, a treat the fact that we got rid of the old blue carpet lifts all our spirits.  I go to sleep wondering what else we can get rid of.  The energy is already beginning to flow.

July 23

Today we receive a very odd enquiry through Airbnb. It comes from someone whose name is Cfghdj.  That on its own is cause for concern.  They tell us they would like to stay for two weeks in August, but could we contact them on their whatsapp number to discuss availability.  Because Airbnb automatically picks up if you have tried to bypass their system by giving out your phone number, they have carefully typed their number out in words and inserted all sorts of random words to try and avoid being caught.

Please contact me on forty number two and three and three, followed by seven and eight, and then six.  And so on.

We are immediately suspicious but send a message anyway, asking what they would like to discuss.  The whatsapp profile picture shows a very thin young woman with dyed blonde hair throwing her head back in laughter.

A couple of hours later, we get a reply from someone in Romania.  They tell us that they work in the travel industry and that a certain amount of money was set aside for travel to various countries this year, but this travel has been cancelled due to the virus. They suggest this plan: they will book to stay at our cottage for two weeks, but no one will actually come.  The business they work for will pay for the accommodation and we will keep half and give half to this person, Cfghdj.  No wonder they are throwing their head back in laughter.

We decline the offer.

July 22

The strain of the last few months is beginning to show in Sian and Ellie.  Don't get me wrong, they don't suffer from starvation or poverty; their lives are way better than so many other people.  But, at the end of the day, they are human.  They have spent the majority of the last few months at home and, although they have seen friends from time to time, it has not been the same as going to school.  They miss the day to day interaction with friends, class mates, teachers - even people they don't particularly like.

The further delay to schools opening and the recent imposure of a curfew have only added to a sense of 'nothing is happening'.  It's good to have plans, dates to look forward to, events to write in our diaries.  The blank page of the future can be quite daunting.  

On a Wednesday evening, I usually go to a meditation class, but because of the curfew it has been brought forward to the end of the afternoon.  The good news for Sian and Ellie is that I can drop them at the stables where they do a bit of work grooming horses and taking the miniature ponies out for some exercise. 

I really enjoy the meditation class because it reminds me to let go and just see the situation as one that will pass.  My mum got very angry with the government.  She would spend hours going through all the terrible things they had done and how they had ruined everybody's life.  I used to try and tell her not to take it all to heart because then they have ruined your peace of mind as well.  I don't think it was in her character to not get involved.  If she heard of children dying in Somalia, she took it very personally and tried to think of ways that she could help them.  If I told her of a friend going through a difficulty, she would be up half the night trying to think of the solution.  

I don't want to be like that - not because I don't care, but because I saw the damage that it did to her health.  I feel it is important to feel the gravity of a situation but also be able to distance yourself from it and somehow trust that the universe, God, whoever or whatever it is out there, will sort it out.

July 21

A 6am-6pm curfew is imposed.  Shops and businesses have to close by 3pm every day and the town centre must be clear by 6pm.  Of course the curfew is nothing to do with curbing the spread of the coronavirus and everything to do with curbing political dissent ahead of next week's planned stay away. There is some suggestion that the curfew is a way of closing shebeens (illegal bars) and parties, but no one is really convinced.  

Some people question why Zimbabweans aren't more concerned about the spread of the virus and I think it is because we believe that the precautions that have been put in place are nothing to do with protecting our health.  We do not believe that the government does anything to help us or out of any motivation to keep us safe.  We therefore view all restrictions with some suspicion.

I take Sian horse riding in the afternoon.  I really enjoy driving out to the stables and watching Sian ride.  I start reading an Agatha Christie novel, A Pocket Full of Rye. I remember watching the series with Joan Hickson playing Miss Marple when I was about 12.  My grandparents were living with us and watching a murder film was a family affair.  I always wanted a large family, but ours could not have been much smaller.  All of my dad's family lived in the UK and my grandparents were the only people here on my mum's side and they retired back to Wales not long after we watched A Pocket Full of Rye.  To me, Joan Hickson was the definitive Miss Marple; no other actress has quite captured her character. 

July 20

Today we receive the news that a well-known Zimbabwean journalist has been arrested for inciting violence.  I have been watching his Facebook page with some trepidation as he has become more and more outspoken.  He has uncovered numerous fraudulent activities that involve the government and embezzlement of thousands of dollars.

As hard as it may be, I really do think that Western countries should stop giving aid to countries such as Zimbabwe. I am doubtful of the true intention behind aid at the best of times.  In Zambia, the car parks of restaurants and cafes always contained a number of aid agency vehicles.  We had a friend who kept an electrical shop who told us that every month, aid workers would come in and blow hundreds of dollars on the latest equipment because they said they didn't know what to spend their huge salaries on.

I believe that African countries can survive on their own.  Many of them are incredibly wealthy, especially in terms of their mineral deposits, and the problem really lies with the governments.  Corruption is a huge problem.  Many people may say that corruption is found in every country, which is true, but it is done so blatantly in Africa.  Millions of dollars is taken at one time and no one is held to account.

John goes out to the weekly shopping.  He has lost his bank card which means he is using mine.  This drives me mad sometimes when I go to pay for something and find my card is missing.  Today, John is wearing odd socks. He says he has given up trying to find a pair of matching socks.  It really is a mystery as to what happens to that missing sock in the laundry.  The odd socks on their own are tolerable, but John wears them with his sandals because he is suffering from cracked heels.  He does look quite eccentric. However, this is all water off a duck's back to him.  John is the only person I know who is completely comfortable within his own skin and he really does not care what anyone thinks of him.  It's his family who suffer instead.