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So far lockdown has been quite well respected - fines for non-respect are quite high (with imprisonment for repeat offenders), which probably helps. There's inevitably a certain amount of concern about the economy, but the government seems to be trying to convey that the bottom line is you need a healthy working population.

I obviously can't speak for the country as a whole, but among my friends and family here the general attitude is acceptance/resignation. The wind orchestra I belong to has a group e-mail circulating with bad jokes and plans for a booze-up refined celebration when gatherings of up to 50 people are authorised again, but everyone seems to accept that for now it's not possible.

Pretty much our usual routine for most of the day - tea and toast for brekkie, then housework while OH worked. Knitting and a bit of tv this afternoon, while one of the cats decided to participate in OH's video call...

It's our wedding anniversary (no jokes about the date please!), so I dug the last of the Christmas turkey out of the freezer and made our favourite curried rice recipe to go with it, plus ice cream for desert.

No choir practice this evening for obvious reasons, but that meant I could watch the whole of Top Chef (French equivalent of Masterchef) while chatting about it on Messenger with my daughters who are locked down in Strasbourg 2 hours away. At the same time, we broke out the last bottle of bubbly left over from our oldest son's wedding last summer to mark our 31st anniversary.

We'll celebrate properly when lockdown is over. 

 

Some of my extended family are buried at Rostherne, and I found the details fascinating, but also sometimes unexpectedly useful - when I checked out the other names mentioned, I found that some (although not all) had a family connection. Having said that, "buried on his sister" was a bit gruesome for my taste!

Rambler

Our lockdown in France has now been extended to at least 15 April - we're on day 10 nationally, and this area (Haut-Rhin) was on partial lockdown for a week prior to that as it's one of the worst affected. We're allowed to exercise for no more than an hour once per day and must remain within 1 km of our home. I'm lucky enough to live on the edge of a forest - I feel sorry for those in the cities.

I was fortunate enough to have half a bottle of hand sanitizer at home (dating from when the dog had a very upset tummy!), so I transferred some of it to one of those little travel toiletries bottles to take on shopping expeditions. Otherwise I'd definitely be using lydiaan's method, as sanitiser and wipes are impossible to find here.

As luck would have it, a local hypermarket had one of its periodic "buy in bulk" promotions not long before everything kicked off, so I was well supplied with household products (inc. loo roll!) and non-perishables - not so much foresight as convenience/trying to save money to be honest. My aim now is to shop for fresh food no more than once a week at most. (I suspect that might be the next stage of lockdown in any case, but it makes sense.)

We have click and collect here (rural France), but no home delivery: unless OH or I fall ill, I intend to shop in person so those who really need it can have the c&c slots. I also buy from a frozen food van which comes round every 3 weeks or so.

The local supermarket is well-stocked - we've had very little panic buying. No hand sanitizer, but otherwise pretty much everything is available. They're limiting how many are in the store at the same time, and have marked "safe" distances on the floor at the counters and checkouts. They've also supplied their staff with masks, thin plastic gloves (like you'd see on the meat counter) and their limited reserves of hand sanitizer. (And I think they're quite right to protect the staff rather than sell it to us.)

Rambler