We aren’t teatime sort of people. We gladly pass the hours between lunch and dinner doing work on weekdays and reading books on weekends. There is always something to do.
Being stranded in Auckland during the Level 4 lockdown changed all that. There is, apparently, only so much you can do. The weather is fine, summery but not too warm. We go out once a day, before dinner, for a walk in the nearby park. Some exercise maybe. Or I use the kettlebell left behind by the occupant of the sleepout before us. Kettlebell swings and Turkish get-ups. It’s only 10kg but we make do with what we have; we are fortunate to have anything at all.
Exercise, reading (mostly the news, if I’m to be honest, and it seems that’s what everyone is doing now while under quarantine), some writing, and looking out into the backyard can only take up that much time.
So we’ve make a new habit of breaking the hours with a new ritual: afternoon tea. I take some slices of sourdough bread that our Canadian housemate Marianne (who has safely returned to Toronto now, with her boyfriend Cam, after being stranded a week here) baked and left in the freezer for us. Stress baking she called it. The point isn’t to eat the bread but to make it. Baking bread takes up time and time is what we all have now.
I pop the slices into the toaster. I boil some hot water and make coffee with Nescafé Gold (something that would horrify my barista friends, I’m sure, but coffee is coffee even when it isn’t) and some whole non-homogenised organic milk (which sounds poncy but tastes awesome). Real milk and less real coffee. Life is what we make of it.
We spread our toast with differently – you with Pic’s Peanut Butter (Crunchy), me with Nut Brothers Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate. Differently yet much the same. We bite, we crunch, we sip, we pass our time in lockdown as best we can. It’s all anyone can do right now, really.