What will the world be like when this whole thing ends?
Ilive beside a school’s field. I can see the posts of the middle rugby field, the main one, from my stoep. The hadedas sit on the crossbar most days, cawing away for no other good reason than to invite scorn and ire.
All the houses in our part of the street have gates that allow us to access the fields directly. It’s like having the biggest backyard in the world, one that you don’t have to mow or water or weed.
We use the field as often as possible. My wife tried to do her 5,000 steps as part of her new fitness regime there on Thursday, before cutting it short when she remembered she had an 11am call with a client in her office.
We take the dogs there often to walk them. Laddie, a handsome terrier mix of some sorts, gets his kicks from riling up the neighbours’ dogs.
He barks at the Yorkies next door, has baiting, mock charges with the three mutts on the other side of our house and makes sure he gives the Great Dane a few houses up a piece of his mind, albeit in a little more respectful, guarded way.
Laddie runs back and forth inside the fence when other dogs get their turn on the field. It has become a game these laps of his, playful and strutting.
I’m no Barbara Woodhouse, but I think he is saying hello in the same way Bakkies Botha told Mike Phillips he liked his “sexy blue eyes”.
It’s a doggy sledge, a standoff that is more of a put off.
Queenie is our fat sausage dog mix. She likes a good nosh. She also loves the field. She’s not too keen on the running bit, but she trundles around, looking for places to mark and things to roll in. We are trying to get her to lose weight.
Like the Super Rugby title for the Lions, it may be a step too far. I have run on the field since lockdown began that strange Friday.
Well, when I say run, trundled. I’m not quite the Queenie of running, but it takes me an age to warm up.
The first kilometre is awful, the next three are a battle and I get into my stride just in time for the last kilometre.
Laps around the field are a rare joy in this time of compressed exercise.
It only gets light around 6.30-ish in Joburg and exercising in the cold is no fun at all, so I clean the house, do some writing and when the sun is as balmy as it can get, head off on a trundle.
I think a lot while running. I think a lot about how and when this may end, and what sort of world will be out there when it feels safe to do so.
We are wary of the outside world in our house. I have left it just three times since lockdown started to do some shopping and for a quick spin around the neighbourhood on my bike, sprinting home before 9am.
I stopped past Giles, my local pub, on the way back from that ride. I wondered when it would open and I would be able to sit in my seat (first one in front of the taps as you walk in the door) with my mates Rob, Greg and whoever else is there.
I wondered if we would be able to watch sport there some time again soon. I wondered if it would ever actually be possible.
Each day I read about the Premier League in England stumbling towards Project Restart, with clubs sending out more mixed messages than the president and the national coronavirus command council.
This week athletes were given the go-ahead to train in England, their golf courses and tennis courts were opened.
In SA there is little movement on any front save for the Bulls going on a buying spree the likes of which has not been seen since the great toilet paper scare of 2020.
Safa and the PSL are meeting to discuss restarting the football season. The Comrades was cancelled. It all feels like it can’t be fixed.
I went on to the field for a run on Thursday. There are usually kids all over it during the week. They would come out at 10am and noon for their breaks. They would play football, some rugby. They would scream and shout and make the world alive.
Now there are just hadedas sitting on a crossbar cawing at a man and his dogs.