Quarantine day 1

Saturday March 14th; The first full day of quarantine. The country is slowly grinding to a halt. It isn’t as bad yet as in Italy, where people are not allowed to leave their houses.

It was strange this Saturday morning not to hear the excited voices of the teams of young footballers, who normally can hardly wait till kick off. No shouting coach or encouraging parents. Yesterday there were no cars parked in front of my house. On a normal working day, the teachers of the adjoining high school tend to park their cars here in our narrow street, so that they can enter the school via a back door. It can be a source of frustration, as they tend to block my drive and I have the greatest difficulty getting my car out of it. There is a large parking area on the other side of the school, but that means they have to take ten more steps or so. It is just laziness, and very annoying for us, but we can’t do anything about is as the road is public. Apparently the school closed yesterday. They don’t have to – yet – it is up to the school management to decide what is best under the circumstances.

Last night an ex-colleague phoned me unexpectedly asking me if I had anything special to do today. We had a date in two weeks’ time to see a film in Haarlem, a town midway between her and my town. But due to this virus cinemas and museums are closed at least till the end of the month. As she was alone – her husband away for a few days, - it seemed a good opportunity to get together today. I drove to her town, Petten, by most people here only known because of its nuclear plant as well as the fact there are no dunes there to protect the land from the sea, but a man-made dike, the Hondsbossche  Zeewering we learned as primary school pupils, a name so unusual and exotic that we never forgot it.  A few years ago, they transformed this bare stone dike into new dunes, by covering the dike with sand and adding sand dunes on the side of the sea, planting them with helm grass, a strong, silver grey beach grass. What once was a very uninviting massive stone dike, is now an interesting double strip of dunes, connecting the dunes south and north of this dike.

After coffee, we went for a long walk on the beach. For once the weather was sunny, although the wind was still cold, and we had to wrap up well. But it was so nice being in the outside and on the beach in the invigorating sea air. We had lunch in the only beach café there, which to our surprise and relief was open. Most beach cafes are built up in spring and taken down again in October. This one is apparently permanent. The many recent storms we had damaged its boardwalk and washed the wooden stairs leading up from the beach away. We were not the only ones there. People with kids had also decided to go for a walk, as the normal pastime on Saturday for the kids would be playing football, have swimming lessons or play any sport one can think of.  But all team sports and matches are forbidden. Concerts have been cancelled for a full month, including the many passion concerts, taking place during this time leading up to Easter. Concerts, theatres, opera’s, ballet, everything is cancelled. And more and more countries close their borders.  Many flights are cancelled, holidays are cancelled. It seems very unreal. People are hoarding and stripping the supermarket shelves. It is all very overdone, for we have more than enough supplies, as we are told again and again. I haven’t done any real shopping yet and can survive till Monday. But then I’ll have to hit the shops as well.

The beach is always so invigorating. The light on the water fascinating, dividing an often grey sheet of water into a multicoloured carpet, with different shades of blue, grey, foaming white, green, and golden stripes. From the beach café which was built on piles, we had a glorious view of the coastline, the sea and the dunes which become higher and more interesting towards the south. The clouds throw ever changing patterns of light and shade on the water, and also the wind plays a part. We felt very happy and satisfied when we came back after 4 hours in the open air. It would take another hour’s drive before I could lie down on the couch, preferably with a book. And that is what I did when I got home.