Tuesday, December 29th, 2020
My main entertainment and exercise is going for walks.
Yesterday I went for a two hour walk with my friend Hedda, whom I have know ever since I began work and spend three months in Indonesia on my first assignment. She took over some of my work when I left my first job. We lived in Hanoi at the same time and so on. We have a very long history together. Our usual Christmas ritual is to meet at the Christmas market before Christmas eve; alas not this year. There are no markets.
Today Nils and Nadja stopped by and we went for a walk in the local park. At the end of our walk it began to rain so we ended up on mum’s covered patio with a bottle of red wine. Again, we go back decades. They came to my high school friend group when we were all at Uni, me in Cape Town, everyone else in Hamburg.
Tomorrow I am seeing Mirco a high schhol friend for a walk. That is the state of socializing these days – socially distanced walks.
In years gone by my friends would come over on either the 27th or 28th of December and we would all catch up, enjoy good food and wine. This year all we enjoy are walks in the rain.
I did manage to get some chores done. I went to the market and bought groceries for the next three days. I dropped two parcels at the post office, bought supplies to take to DC and bought four weeks-worth of lottery tickets. May the luck be with us.
Our old year plans were shot today. Between my aunt and the neighbor and the various COVID risks I have convinced mum to cancel her plans to play cards that night. Instead mum and I will spend the evening at home; cook a carp, watch a movie and maybe play a game of rumicub. Four weeks from now mum and her friends will have been immunized and can play all they want.
Corona infections in Germany seem to be coming down with 1k new infections reported over the past 24 hours. The USA is not doing to well; reporting 189k new infections in the same time period to bring the total to 19.83 million cases.