Diary of Covid-19 confinement, day twelve

From our evening walk around the village

Extended confinement

Last night it was officially announced by the French Prime Minister that our original fifteen days of confinement, due to end on 31^st March, has now been extended to at least 15^th April. Anyone who has caught even a glimpse of the news headlines in the last two weeks won’t be at all surprised by this and many of us feel a further extension will be likely. All current rules on lockdown remain in place and you can find the form you need to fill out every time you leave home here. 

 

Attestation to fill in before leaving home

Maybe it is time I admitted that this has been my cunning plan all along. With Adrian often working away from home we have spent many birthdays and anniversaries celebrating from afar in different countries. April is a special month for us as it’s our wedding anniversary on the 17^th and Adrian’s birthday on the 22^nd. Looks like this year we won’t have any choice but to be together for both, yippee!

What we will do to celebrate, I’ve no idea but I know the things we won’t be doing. We won’t be cycle touring this Easter on Ile de Ré, as we had planned, especially now the poor little island has been invaded by over 5000 germy Parisians, looking for somewhere better than Paris to sit out the lockdown. We also won’t be returning to the Pays Basques just yet to climb the mountains we had such fun doing last May, but I will have to come up with something special as it’s Adrian’s 50^th this year. 

Jackfruit and wraps

It’s a wrap

Our first sample of Jackfruit last night was a hit, even if it raised some skeptical comments from some of our friends. It certainly smelt more fruity than meaty when I opened the can, and I’m guessing by itself it doesn’t have much flavour, but once cooked in the sauce of spices, tomato purée and vegetables, it did a pretty good impersonation of meat and we all enjoyed it.

 

Ed working in the orchard

Today’s exciting activity was hoovering the dust mice from behind the TV cabinet, and we even moved it out from the wall to properly get underneath and behind it. That is a job that doesn’t happen often around here, and it showed. My daily barrow of weeds was accompanied with a barrow of prunings today, cutting down the many plum tree saplings that seem intent on taking over the potager. As our garden waste tip is currently closed, weeds are being stored in an open barn where they can’t re-root into the ground and the prunings were all shredded by Adrian and added to the compost heap. My courgette seedlings will enjoy the fresh homemade compost later in the year.

Ed has been doing his best to get a bit of driving practice in, mowing with the tractor mower and the orchard is looking fantastic with freshly mowed grass and fruit tree blossoms.

Tonight our clocks go forward an hour, so I guess that is one less hour of confinement to endure and at least when I wake up at 6h15, as usual, it will actually be 7h15 and I’ll only have fifteen minutes to wait for the boulangerie to open.

Lockdown library 

My reading suggestion of the day is Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris. I first read this book over fifteen years ago and it is a very special read, one of those that stays with you and the characters pop back in your head even years later. For a little bit of magic between the pages, don’t miss out on the current 99p price reduction on Kindle UK.