Day 34 - SkyLines from the French Lock-down: Web-lock

Salut et Bienvenue les amis! (Hi and Welcome friends!) It's a moment in history that most of us would have rather never seen. The pandemic has made some people strong, others weak, most of us are a little scared and some have gotten angry. Sometimes I wish I was more like the cat - unaware of the news. And when the internet drops, she never notices. How lucky she is!

The end of a rainy day - that's better!

Day 35 - it's raining. There is a chill in the air. It rained all day with no indication that it will stop! Normally, in the life that my French partner, Y, and I are building this would count as a mini-tragedy. We'd be consulting weather apps and waiting for it

Seems like a dream now.

to stop so we could go to the beach. I'd put on the new extra thick wet-suit and laugh at the cold water. Y would tease me for being such a wimp that I needed one. 

Instead of making our sub-standard exercise videos to amuse the friends we can't visit, we'd be recording our attempts on the lagoon or at the beach and sharing those.  (Perhaps these videos are good practice for the days to come, when we can film our windsurfing antics!) Maybe I'd only fall off a few times. Maybe he'd perfect his Jibe, (or Gybe to our English friends) I've watched and watched but I'm nowhere near being able to do it. It's a way of turning the board away from the wind using only your feet and hands... so cool.) To turn around, I have to dismount (read fall off), hold on to the board as I swim in a semi-circle next to it, then get back on and start all over again. 

 But with this quarantine, there's no going farther than 1,000 yards from the front door. The beach will be closed for at least three more weeks! We will just have to watch videos and read tutorials and dream. Even the weather hardly makes for conversation these days.  Did I mention it's raining. Hardly matters,

Today's video with cat (click here)

does it?  We finished filming the exercise challenge in spite of the cat who thought she should take a walk outside in the rain. She was at the door and in my face until it was over. But I understood her cabin fever as I looked out at the wet terrace and tiled rooftops. Yesterday I wrote that I dreamed of the gulls at the beach. One landed on the roof outside my window and walked around in the rain. I guess it knew I'd been thinking of it.

In spite of the rain, the day has been a nice one. We got up late. We ate, chatted and then had fun making the video.  Lunch was good and then we sat combing through

A reminder that the sea is near

our streaming services to add to our list of possible series to watch at night. Today the internet is only slow instead of dead. Yesterday it took over nine hours to upload a 9 minute video. Today it was done in four.  We're feeling lucky! We watched a couple of episodes of the French detective series Candice Renoir. The stream wasn't too bad, but there were times when we sat there and waited a minute or more for the frozen characters to resume talking. I guess everyone in the whole world that has access, is on the internet!

As we waited, I thought of what would happen if we lost this connection. I mean as a planet. It's a horrifying thought! I'm pretty sure it would bring out more protesters world-wide than any other event in history.  People on Facebook and other social platforms often lecture us that we all need to "Disconnect" "Turn off the Noise" and other pretty phrases like that. And I have to grin, since they are online telling us this. I do agree that we need time away from our screens, of course.

Cornbread muffins! Yum!

And I'm a big believer in getting out in the sunshine, reading, writing, thinking, and keeping fit. But I also believe that the world wide web is an amazing social phenomenon that lets us stay close in thought when we can't be together in reality. I see and speak with my father every day, grace of this wondrous technology. The internet may be a bit slow at the moment, but it's still here.  And we're still here.  We're connected to you and that is the best. 

And so, I looked out while my partner got the dinner ready and was cheered immensely - there was a clearing and a bit of light in the sky as the sun began to set. We're making chili for dinner and that with cornbread muffins will warm us up again.

There is the new list of series for us to try out and it will be nice to just veg-out and watch a few episodes from beneath the polar fleece blanket. I think it's better that it's not summer yet. While the weather is gloomy and a little bit chilly, it's easier to stay at home. 

Another day has ended. We're 34 days into our quarantine. The rain was a reminder that we are lucky to have a good place to shelter. Finding things to photograph is a bit of a challenge, but hey, meeting challenges is a part of being human. Together, we can get through this time.

We still find beauty, if we look for it.

 We'll keep on looking up and work to not to let the little first world problems like a slow internet connection get us stressed. We hope you are staying safe, dear friends. And as long as you are there, then we can all call ourselves lucky today.

A demain! (Until tomorrow!)
Link to Day 35