Jami's Project - Day 5

This is my daily entry in Jami's Project whereby she wants to create a collection of journal entries from people of different ages, from different countries and different parts of this country, during this 30 day Coronavirus period. She wants to highlight how "in this together" we all are, regardless of government policies, and the influence it will have on our wellbeing and to evaluate what individuals do to cope.  She has participants from Alaska, Canary Island, France, Canada and Norway.

Here it's a sunny, peaceful Sunday.  My daughter, who has been back home with me since Wednesday, is making the most of the sunshine and is outside putting my yard to rights.  She's one of those "can't keep still" types and over the past few days has already given the house a good spring clean.  It hasn't been so spotless since she was last here. 

I am so grateful to have her here with me.  Her presence will surely make this lockdown period much easier for me although initially I thought it might be difficult sharing my daily life with someone.  And I hope it will make it easier for her, too.  Although maybe not.  I suspect I frustrate her on a regular basis with my forgetfulness and lackadaisical ways.  And I don't eat near as healthily as she does, I more or less stick to the same diet I've had all my life.  I'm, to a large extent, basically a meat and three veggies sort of girl.  And lots of fruit.  I don't shun red meat and dairy products, although, to be honest, I probably eat more chicken than red meat.  I think she'd like to convert me to hemp burgers and the like but anything she says on the subject just washes over me.  Don't get me wrong, she doesn't preach or actively try to convert me, I just suspect she would like to.  Anyway, you don't need to hear all that.

We have frequent discussions on how the virus is progressing worldwide and give thanks that we live here in New Zealand where our government seems to be doing a good job of keeping us all as safe as possible.   We feel concern for my brothers and sisters and their families in Australia, my brother and his family in England and my niece and her little family in the States.  And especially for my younger son in Brazil whose baby is due a week from today.  We've started a guess the baby's birth date, weight and sex competition amongst family members.

We share Coronavirus jokes that we receive and have frequent laughs.  We have a glass of wine and watch Netflix at night, usually an episode or two of a favourite series of one or the other of us and a movie.  Luckily, we enjoy the same sort of entertainment.  Sometimes we start a discussion on something we've just seen and forget to watch, then have to rewind.

I'm feeling quite positive today.  The majority of us are surviving what would have been unimaginable a month ago.  We're learning a new language, all about social distancing, and it seems slowly moving toward physical distancing, lockdown is no longer a weird word that doesn't apply to us, we are settling into life in our "bubbles".  My daughter just discovered a large bottle of hand sanitiser under the kitchen sink that I had forgotten was there and we rejoiced like we had found gold.  (Not that it will replace soap and water in the home but we've rebottled it into smaller bottles to have in our cars.)

For us, life goes on.  And that is something to celebrate!   

Today's update:

514 total cases  

63 new cases
Nine in hospital, one in our local hospital
56 recovered
1 death