OK so it's almost a global lockdown, but in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, here in South Africa we only entered the official lockdown period three days' ago, for at least the next 21 days. BBC says that over 2.6 BILLION people are on lockdown worldwide, quite unfathomable to imagine, one third of the world's population are presently confined to their respective homes. The different mitigating measures which have been placed upon nations vary hugely, some being able to go out for walks freely, cycle, go food shopping, whilst others are literally under house arrest. I'm trying not to get sucked into the social media frenzy and limit myself to no more than twice a day as there is so much nonsense out there and so many lies etc, let alone the verified news stories which in themselves are truly sobering and depressing.
On one of the Francophone Facebook groups I'm a member of there was a Belgian lady who posted last Wednesday morning desperate to sell her belongings in order to return to Brussels before all flights were grounded in two days' time. I am now the proud owner of a CROSLEY Deluxe record player! Now all I need now are some records... After picking my new device up, I headed to the charity shop where I had previously seen lots of LPs, but alas someone had beaten me to it, I only managed to get a condensed version of Shakespeare's Hamlet (which I studied as one of my O level books), Dr Zhivago and the Unfinished Symphony. Then I remembered the framed first edition of The Beatles' Abbey Road album which graces one of our kitchen walls. I couldn't remember whether the LP was inside so opened up the frame and hey presto... The album was released on 26 September 1969 - a day after my first Birthday. So guess which one has been played the most...
Years ago NYC friends of ours bought a turntable and when scouring New York's estate sales I would often pick up vintage LPs for them, now I'm wishing I had perhaps purchased a turntable earlier. Ah well, we are enjoying it and I'm already looking forward to trawling the charity shops and eBay for vintage vinyl finds once normal times return.
Talking of things global, every time I walk through our hallway I admire my curated collection of vintage globes - presently I only have English language ones, but I aspire to collect ones in different languages - travelling is such an enormous part of my life and daydreaming into a globe makes one realise how immense this beautiful world is and how much there is still to see - my DH and I have a competition comparing the number of countries visited - at the moment I think John is perhaps a couple in the lead, I've visited 79 out of 197 - but hopefully in the foreseeable future will be able to exceed 80 by visiting South Africa's surrounding countries - Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana and Namibia. There is a great app - Voyage X which is brilliant fun calculating countries visited, not visited and territories counted and NO.... it doesn't count if you just transmitted an airport in a country - you need to have spent the night in the country - out of the airport for it to count.
In these challenging times it is important to try and remain calm, focused and kind. There are various WhatsApp groups I'm a member of and people can be quite vicious and selfish and judgmental. It is healthy to distance oneself from people like that and normally sitting down to do a puzzle might seem anti social and a little indulgent, but these aren't normal times, so guess which puzzle we completed this weekend - yep a puzzle of the World, it is our favourite puzzle of all time, and we each have our preferred routine for completing it - the flags of the World, certain continents, but once assembled, it gives us such a huge sense of accomplishment and we always recount places which are on our bucket list - the Galapagos and Cuba are two places which always appear on mine, together with revisiting East Timor - Timor Leste - undoubtedly my best UN mission of my long UN career.
Sending love to everyone, and remember #stayhome #staysafe xo
On one of the Francophone Facebook groups I'm a member of there was a Belgian lady who posted last Wednesday morning desperate to sell her belongings in order to return to Brussels before all flights were grounded in two days' time. I am now the proud owner of a CROSLEY Deluxe record player! Now all I need now are some records... After picking my new device up, I headed to the charity shop where I had previously seen lots of LPs, but alas someone had beaten me to it, I only managed to get a condensed version of Shakespeare's Hamlet (which I studied as one of my O level books), Dr Zhivago and the Unfinished Symphony. Then I remembered the framed first edition of The Beatles' Abbey Road album which graces one of our kitchen walls. I couldn't remember whether the LP was inside so opened up the frame and hey presto... The album was released on 26 September 1969 - a day after my first Birthday. So guess which one has been played the most...
Years ago NYC friends of ours bought a turntable and when scouring New York's estate sales I would often pick up vintage LPs for them, now I'm wishing I had perhaps purchased a turntable earlier. Ah well, we are enjoying it and I'm already looking forward to trawling the charity shops and eBay for vintage vinyl finds once normal times return.
Talking of things global, every time I walk through our hallway I admire my curated collection of vintage globes - presently I only have English language ones, but I aspire to collect ones in different languages - travelling is such an enormous part of my life and daydreaming into a globe makes one realise how immense this beautiful world is and how much there is still to see - my DH and I have a competition comparing the number of countries visited - at the moment I think John is perhaps a couple in the lead, I've visited 79 out of 197 - but hopefully in the foreseeable future will be able to exceed 80 by visiting South Africa's surrounding countries - Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana and Namibia. There is a great app - Voyage X which is brilliant fun calculating countries visited, not visited and territories counted and NO.... it doesn't count if you just transmitted an airport in a country - you need to have spent the night in the country - out of the airport for it to count.
In these challenging times it is important to try and remain calm, focused and kind. There are various WhatsApp groups I'm a member of and people can be quite vicious and selfish and judgmental. It is healthy to distance oneself from people like that and normally sitting down to do a puzzle might seem anti social and a little indulgent, but these aren't normal times, so guess which puzzle we completed this weekend - yep a puzzle of the World, it is our favourite puzzle of all time, and we each have our preferred routine for completing it - the flags of the World, certain continents, but once assembled, it gives us such a huge sense of accomplishment and we always recount places which are on our bucket list - the Galapagos and Cuba are two places which always appear on mine, together with revisiting East Timor - Timor Leste - undoubtedly my best UN mission of my long UN career.
Sending love to everyone, and remember #stayhome #staysafe xo
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