Report 14: Day 13

Alcohol units: 128 (went easy last night)

Showers: 5

Facial hair: Rugged (John Hamm, last series, Mad Men)

Jogs: 0

Cat: 1

Dog: 1

Wife: 1

Kids alive: 3 (+2, will explain later)

Potatoes: 5kg (new)

Father-in-laws: 1

Easter Eggs: 22

Dear Diary, ‘tis the eve before Easter; normally one would look at this long-weekend as a nice little break with the family; this year however many may need a nice little break from the family! Still, chocolate.

It’s going to be a long haul and made even longer by the President’s speech.

We all gathered on the couch, along with the rest of the nation to listen to his speech. It started off well; that we had cut the infection rate right down, that there were fewer cases being diagnosed daily…all the rewarding and positive bits for staying inside and testing the bounds of familial relations to the limit, even though you knew it was coming…the big “BUT”.

It reminded me of the last recession when the boss stood up and told everyone what a great job had been done, how much individual effort had been put in by each team member and that he was proud to be associated with such loyal and hardworking humans…BUT…there would not be a Christmas bonus this year.

Cyril’s “no ‘Xmas’ bonus” came in the form of an extra two weeks of lockdown; almost like he was saying, “you guys are so good at this, let’s see how much further we can go! Go team!” To be fair the ‘oke has very little choice, if we all go out now, post-Easter, we will probably re-infect everything and the last two weeks would have been for nothing…still…I was hoping for a jog or at least a walk down the street without the questioning eyes of Mrs. B boring through my skin!

The “vodka still” is ready and waiting, the mash is now removed, but as you will remember I borrowed the “Ibiza” towel to sieve the liquid.

The towel, dear Diary, has become a problem.

We bought it from one of those cheap and cheerful tourist shops as a last-minute souvenir…it’s louder than a Prime Circle concert and is less effective at drying out than Keith Richards.

It’s really is bloody useless; water just runs off the acrylic-nylon blend faster than Angelina Jolie collects kids. No absorption power whatsoever! I have had nightmares about that thing getting near an open flame. I’d give it 5 seconds before it was in flames and melting!

But back to the dilemma.

I am now the proud owner of a neon pink (and dark blue Ibiza lizard decal) acrylic-nylon-blend, waterproof towel that contains just under 5kg of dried out potato mash and Jungle oats at its center and no real way of disposing of it.

I had thought about leaving the congealed mess out in the garden for the birds to eat; Pinelands has a wonderful flock of some twenty thousand Egyptian Geese that regularly hangout with the local Hadeda’s; the bird song in the morning as you can imagine is less than ideal.

I felt sure that the birds would dissipate the mash. The only problem with the plan is the large pink towel that the goop is rock solidly stuck to – it won’t seperate for love or money; its chemically bonded. If I layout the towel on the lawn the wife would see it quite quickly…in fact NASA would see it from the Space Station, it’s that bright.

I could cut it up into pieces but that may require a stiff saw and a lot of elbow grease; wasn’t keen.

Ultimately, I have decided to make a positive out of a negative. I retrieved my long winter coat from Poppie (he put up somewhat of a fight), found two good broom handles (they were attached to brooms but I converted them) and built myself a scarecrow.

The “head” of the new family member being made up of a rather bright pink solid ball of potato-oats mash with a pair of old skiing goggles (also taken from Poppie) for eyes.

The end result was a brightly sunburnt-looking Worzel Gummidge, who looked like he was off to ski in Chamonix for the weekend.

The yet unnamed new member of our abode is now standing guard over Josephs’ (the gardener, whom we are now paying two extra weeks I guess?) and mines growing marijuana plantation behind the shed. The plants are coming along nicely but it’s worth adding some extra security; feel like a cast member of “Narcos”!

With that all accomplished I set aside the liquid ready for the proper distillation process. I added the red food colouring but it needs to be filtered through charcoal apparently…all I have is briquettes but even I am not that desperate. I need to pop to Checkers and buy some; Pick ‘n Pay won’t let you buy braai stuff as it’s “non-essential” which is ridiculous; never has a Braai been more essential I would posit; not sure Raymond Ackerman is so against them?

Update 3am (GMT + 2):

Been up since 1am dear Diary but will write more later…suffice to say it involves the Police and a few more family members being added to the Compound. Going back to sleep now. Sigh!

RH