14th. No new views from the house. The electrician has been in and installed all the plug points, light switches and fittings, but these are not really photo worthy!
On our walk along a drainage canal through some agricultural land and near to some woods, Cassidy and I put up a Boar this afternoon. I ran away from us and towards the road. Shortly after it disappeared onto the road I heard a thump and when we arrived the pig was dead and the car was looking the worse for wear. The driver was unhurt. The pig was a female and I fear she may have had piglets because her teats were engorged. She was enormous, I would guess about 70KG.
I have spent the last few days cleaning up, sanding down and applying oil to a piece of driftwood. My friend Michelle expressed a desire for it a few months back when we were walking our dogs on the beach but said it was to heavy to shift. The next day I went down with the van and a strong rope and dragged it through the sand up to the road. Lifting it into the van and out again at the other end was a mission! However now it has had several months of drying out it is much lighter. Looks a bit like a Baobab!
It is her birthday on 1st April but I will deliver it to her tomorrow on my way to finalise the delivery of the BIC’s for the bedrooms. This will be my last outing as I have decided to “self isolate”. Obviously I will be taking Cassidy out regularly but no more social visits or shopping. I have enough supplies for now and the super market near the new house has on-line shopping and delivery facilities. Not sure how I am going to handle the succession of deliveries that are to take place around the beginning of April but we will cross that bridge when we get there. I am also less sure about Jonathan’s visit to install the kitchen on the 14th, we are in regular contact and will have to wait and see how things develop. All rather scary.
18th. Well we are 2 days into the government mandated lockdown. I never did get to finalise the delivery for the BIC’s as the shop was already closed. Also closed are all shops except food shops, pharmacies and tabacs. All bars, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, libraries, clubs, gyms, sporting locations etc etc. Effectively we are not allowed to go out except for one of the following five reasons.
Go to and from work
Go to a medical appointment
Go to care for a sick family member or to look after children
Go for essential shopping
Go out in your area with or without dog to exercise, individually.
So this is what the beach looked like on Cassidy and my afternoon walk yesterday.
All this is totally handleable EXCEPT that work has stopped on my house and we were on time for 31st March delivery. I AM GUTTED! I have no idea what is going to happen next and I suspect that Phénix doesn’t either. I have e-mailed Samuel (sales person) and am awaiting a reply. The current lockdown is for 15 days and I am not entirely clear what they hope to achieve with this. The virus is not going away in 15, 30 or 45 days. It is only going away when an effective vaccine is universally available. 18 months?
We need to keep in touch with friends and family as regularly as we can.
Photo from today’s walk with view across the bay to Royan.
Towards the end of the walk I passed the small beach by the port where there was gathered a group of teens, six, three of each. Picnicing, playing music and with way less than a meter between them. Back onto the main beach and there were a few people sun bathing. Glorious afternoon but hey guys this is not part of the deal.
19th. Lovely long beach walk in the early morning. As usual almost empty. This is the view back towards St Georges from the Point de Suzac beach that you can only access from St Georges beach when the tide is very low.
Luce hailed me when passing this afternoon and told me she had met a woman who had told her that the municipality was going to close the beach because of the behaviours like that which I had seen yesterday. BLOODY SELFISH BASTARDS. Apparently we are going to be restricted to walking no further than 500mt from our places of residence. I will wait to be formally informed before I stop my morning walks but I will start taking them even earlier.
25th. No more photos for a while. As the restrictions have indeed tightened. All the rules listed earlier are still in place but the excersize period Nationally has been reduced to once a day for one hour within Two klms of your residence. Carrying all the previously noted documents plus the new govt attestation includes the time you left home and the fines go up to Euro 1500 at the top end! Locally it is worse because the Mayor has decreed that in St Georges we can only go withing 500m of home and be out for half an hour and his dictate trumps the National one! Because I can’t do the distances I have started jogging and doing more of the stair running and have added deep breathing sessions. Still doing lots of gardening. Still doing a load of research to try and identify some companies that are working on testing; treatment; and vaccines for Covid-19 to try and bolster portfolios. The weather is improving. I am keeping in touch with friends as much as possible and so far in good spirits.
STAY SAFE.
29th. A couple of days ago the PM announced that the lockdown, which should have come to an end on the 31st, is to be extended to at least the 15th April. I fully expect it to go on for longer. These two photos were taken from the centre of St Georges looking down the beaches in each direction.
31st “The March winds will blow and we shall have snow!” and indeed we did yesterday along with the coldest day of the season. But is was wet snow that later turned into rain and it did not settle. Although we still have a strong and quite cool wind it has certainly warmed up to-day so I have been back into the garden.
capetocarpe 