Tuesday 24. 3 2020

The curfew was lifted for 8 hours today from 6.00-14.00. I think we have enough food, but Steve would like to go shopping for fresh veg. We knew there would be a lot of people everywhere and were right; people had been at the stores from 6am and by 7am the queues were long.  Steve measured one at 400 metres and the other at over 500 metres.  When we passed them later on taking a walk to the park it was a pretty depressing sight to be honest; long queues of bored people, hot and sweaty in oppressive heat and breathing through masks (by law).  I wanted to go to the park with my family to lift  my mood up, however it had the opposite effect. Steve and the kids didn’t want to put their masks on to start with (they are uncomfortable and introduce other contamination risks), but they had to, otherwise we would be stopped by the police.  We were all hot immediately, and the sweat was running down our backs and from under the masks (we are entering the hottest time of year now).   Park officials threw us out after 30 minutes saying that the park is closed despite it never being busy during the week anyway. 

The boys went ahead as Steve had to get back for a meeting, but myself and Emilka had 2.5 hours until the curfew would return, so we tried to do some shopping.  Our favourite local SPAR was closed and the queues to Keells and Cargills Food City still enormous, so we took a chance and went to the Cargills Express in our apartment complex. We were lucky, only about 10 people ahead of us, but the shelves were almost empty. However, we managed to buy three bags of food and household stuff. Emilka was very happy, Steve and Misa happy too.  They don’t support stockpiling either but my “lax approach” to replacing what we have consumed is apparently killing them!

The children had semolina for lunch, which they love and which reminds them of their Czech grandmother, whom we remember a lot and often talk about as she is self isolating being at risk group. Steve currently works downstairs in the business center and the children are gaming and chilling as they don’t have school today. Teachers were given time off to go shopping in the small window between curfews. We may go swimming in the evening. I tried to buy some fruits and vegetables over the internet, as they are going to allow delivery, so we’ll see when and if they bring it to me.

A friend who was repatriated to Canada gave me 12 bottles of UHT milk (Ultra Horrible Taste as Steve calls it!), 72 eggs, a kilo of onion and garlic, a large glass of Parmesan cheese and mayonnaise and some small things, so now we have enough, hence I am not panicking.  Oh – two cans of Guinness and two of London Pride from her husband for Steve, too!

Let’s try to survive this difficult situation somehow. It will get tougher but cannot last forever.

Some pictures below from the internet of today’s queues for food and of our short time in the park. 

Rennie