The Lockdown Logbook

Well, New Zealand has managed to survive two days of total lockdown, in what we are told is an unprecedented, yet very necessary, move to stem the coronovirus plague.  We are not usually so obedient -- it must be because we like our prime minister.

After all, what other country has a leader who talks informally to her people from the privacy of her couch at home, wearing sweats after putting her toddler to bed?

It must be admitted that we are pretty original.  In Italy, during lockdown, the people sing to each other from balconies.  In New Zealand, we have dress-up Friday. As the Guardian reports:

Proving that clothes maketh even the virtual man, many New Zealanders are spending their second day of a nationwide lockdown dressed to the nines as part of the burgeoning #formalFridays movement.

The practice, introduced to the world by US talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel, encourages the millions of people currently under lockdowns or working from home in self-isolation, to take off their tracksuits for a day, and instead, dress fancy.

The snappy dressing stands in contrast to the last glimpse the country had of its prime minister Jacinda Ardern before lockdown, when she appeared on a Facebook live video, recorded from her couch in a tracksuit after putting her daughter Neve to bed. She apologised for wearing the sweatshirt, saying putting a toddler to bed could be a “messy business” so she wasn’t in her usual workwear.

https://www.facebook.com/jacindaardern

And, as for me, I was wearing Paula Ryan -- of course, being my favorite New Zealand designer.  But it was indeed, yet another strange day.

Today is Saturday, March 28, the third day of lockdown.  It is raining and a gale outside, which meant that the stern government message about not leaving home -- which is aired before the news in the morning -- seems more than a little redundant.  However the last two days were fine, and I did go out for a walk.  

We are allowed one recreational walk a day -- or so goes the recommendation.  The first day I had two walks -- the first to the building where my doctor has her surgery, and which has a whole floor requisitioned for flu jabs.  Seasonal flu, not the plague one.  The building is in the entertainment part of town, Courtenay Place, so it was quite bizarre seeing the streets empty, the bars and shops and restaurants all shut.  There were policemen dotted around.  One called out to ask why I was out, and when I said, "Flu jab," he said, "Good one," and gave me a big grin and a wave.

At the flu jab floor, there were two nurses, and just one patient, on his way out.  They are only seeing one at a time, thirty minutes apart.  One nurse came out of retirement for this, and we had a good gossip -- from one side of the huge room to the other -- about life in our childhood days.  Walking to school, the dental nurse with her foot-driven drill (in the "murder house"), homemade bread, ginger beer "plants," how we built huts and ran around in bare feet, swam in rivers, climbed trees. 

My recreational walk was in the evening, as it is still daylight saving. I walk up past my old university to the cricket ground, and then down a long path to the street at the back of our building. I saw no one at all.  Quite a change from threading through crowds of students, most on the cellphones and totally unaware that you are walking straight at them.  Yesterday, I took the same walk in the morning, and saw quite a few people.  Everyone veers well away as we approach each other, but there is a smile and a wave and a called-out greeting.  And there was a little more traffic, too.  The government has suddenly decreed that delivering firewood is an essential service, and so there was a surprising number of trucks carrying kindling.