On Sunday the 5th of July Wendy and I went for a very pleasant day hike in the Modderfontein Nature Reserve that had just opened under the new lockdown level. It was so wonderful to be out in the sunshine and fresh air.
We had no sooner finished our lunch when a guard cycled up and in a very serious manner informed us:
“You are not allowed to picnic here, and alcohol is forbidden on the premises!”
Wendy had one sip of her wine left so with an exclamation of “oh!” she flung the remains from her glass onto the grass, much to the shock and surprise of the guard. We had a good laugh and chat with the guard, then packed up and parted ways. I was feeling content after having had a small measure of normality back in my life.
Leah, my domestic helper, phoned in sick on Tuesday the 7th of July. I gave her strict instructions to phone when she felt ill, rather than to come to work. It turned out that she had contracted COVID-19. She was very ill, showing all the known symptoms, amongst others loss of taste and smell. By her own account she at one point thought that she was not going to survive. Thankfully, she made a full recovery and returned to work after 3 weeks. What an amazing lady. And just for interest’ sake, she is also not part of the stats because she refused to go to the clinic or hospital, believing that that was a definite death sentence!
On Wednesday the 15th of July Roger’s mom and Sue came for lunch to celebrate Mom’s 89th birthday which would be the next day. She lives in Arbor Village, a Methodist Retirement Homes facility. They were not allowed any visitors. We could see how badly the isolation had affected her. She is hard of hearing and external sound stimulation is almost non-existent, exacerbating the loneliness even more. She has hearing aids but seems to not bother wearing them when she is on her own. We had a lovely afternoon and noticed a remarkable improvement in her demeanor as a result of just being outdoors and having company.
It was Adri’s birthday on the 14th of July. They could not go out for dinner thanks to lockdown, so Francois decided to get some takeaway Indian curry dishes as a treat; besides that, he had been feeling off-colour and ‘sniffling’ for a few days. When he walked into the house with the food she said:
“That smells amazing, I can hardly wait!”
That was when he realised that he had the food in his car and had not smelled it at all. He went to the doctor the next day and got his test results one day later: positive! Somehow we all expected him to be the first to get ‘it’ due to his work, in and out of Municipal offices and interacting with car dealers on a daily basis. By Monday I started worrying about him. He looked and sounded terrible and by his own account:
“I thought I wasn’t going to make it”.
Thankfully, that day seemed to be his lowest point. He started feeling better the next day and although his recovery was not as quick as he would have wanted, he did make a full recovery. The return of his senses of taste and smell would take months though.
In the meantime, Roger was very busy ‘revamping’ the hangar in order to create a more pleasing space for us to spend weekends at. Thanks to Sean, Louis and others at Silver Creek for their inspiration and encouragement.
