DAY 8: Lockdown in France

Tuesday 24th March 2020
Out to the village shop at 9h before the queues!   I am second.  We are outside. I wait a metre plus distance. The next lady is a little nearer than I wish.  It's enough, but I wrap my scarf around my face.  A dog wanders. I later know where it has come from - let out 'tout seule' to do its business. This is not right!  Shame on that establishment. They have a courtyard!
The masked proprietor serves veg and fruit from a cordoned zone.  I progress into the shop, forget to choose eggs, find yoghurts but no tonic water.  There are taped lines on the floor. No sub-postal service.  A plastic screen divides the masked proprietaire  / la cassiére who weighs and calculates the amount.  I buy half a 'baguette en graines'.  The bar is closed.  I exit the other door and proceed to the village bakery to collect an order of two loaves of rye bread -  looks good and is warm, larger than envisaged, but each is cut in half, bagged and frozen.  Treating myself, I buy a 'pain aux raisins'.

I prepped a washbowl and towel before I departed so could wash hands before I opened the kitchen door.  I've been near no one.

Cold with clear, blue sky and a keen wind, I decide to rest my shoulders, a little sore, keep the housework under control, inform myself of news and type this.   Kindling and logs are gathered in but must not light the woodburner until the evening.
Leaning on the gate, verifying there has been no postal delivery, a neighbour comes to chat... he on the other side of the road. Children are following online mathematics for morning schoolwork. His wife is online teaching her pupils. He is doing photo work at his next village workshop in the morning and gardening in the afternoon. He hopes gendarmes will not confine him to this village. We talk about the importance of mental health.  He has ordered seeds to sow.
Next, a villager passes, home from essential laboratory employment. I didn't know he did that! Likewise stops to chat...thinks this will continue to the end of April. "On verra" - we shall see...
I return to a cold indoors.  It was warm in the sunshine at my gate.  I like to wait and look though no one is about!
After lunch I fork-dig and weed the hardest part of the strip and is a bit strong on the legs! I move one of the roses which had been struggling, it was too crowded by a spiky plant.
I move yellow raspberry canes to a row near the one gooseberry plant where I can string their support. SO... I could now do the difficult trask of organising the roses on the stone wall as they lurch and snag me.
I know little about pruning but have been pruning dead stems and thinning out crossed ones and ones too croeded.  Various other small tasks done.

It's time to mow again, time to see what OLD SEEDS might grow.
Time to mow the other plot.
Time to get myself better organised admin wise indoors.

Phwew... so glad i did not have to go to UK for 5 weeks ... have been saved in the garden at least, though disappointed not to have family fun.  All will MUST be well.