March 21st 2020: Coronavirus Day 7

It's been a week since we started self-isolating or social distancing.  We feel OK at the moment.  We've kept busy.  Today Peter cleaned his walking boots, cleaned the lime scale from a tap nozzle, put up a hook for my apron in the scullery, put up a picture in the TV room and took the garden furniture out of the shed and put the tables up. Together we cleaned the downstairs loo and the TV room.  I did a pile of ironing and made phone calls to Kate and Gill and Jo and sent a text to my aunt.   I made stracciatella a la Romana for lunch from a recipe in the Guardian Feast section.   Chicken broth, parmesan, eggs, lemon rind and polenta.  It was very good.  I did some gardening - as much as I could manage having pulled a muscle in my back in the morning with over-enthusiastic dusting! In the evening we had Jamaican vegetable curry which turned out well.  And I started knitting a jacket for Pearl for next winter.  So small accomplishments. 

Etty 'cooking' 

We got WhatsApp messages from Rupert and Laura in Southwold, with pictures of Etty, and had a long conversation with Eliot.  We are worried about the children and grandchildren and they are worried about us.  

The news tonight laid great emphasis on the need for people to stop hoarding food and to stay at home.  It's hard for those with children cooped up in in London, but 'escaping' to the coast and tourist spots is not going to help stop the spread of the virus.  We may see compulsion before too long if people don't stop 'going out'.  We are supposed to be two or three weeks behind Italy in terms of the virus and today they announced that people must stop exercising out of doors.   It's very challenging.  These are exceptional times.