Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Quarantine News

Well, we’re a week into our quarantine. As the mayor has explained, we should expect to start seeing the number of fresh cases reducing quite a bit given the incubation period of 5-8 days. Keeping fingers crossed!

There has been one confirmed case of coronavirus in Todi as of yesterday. The person is in quarantine (as are we all!) and doing fine so far. They have sanitized the streets; I’m not sure what basis that has in science, but they were doing it in China, as well...so I guess the local departments are trying to be as conservative as possible!

As I mentioned, the mayor has been posting daily videos to give us the local updates. As of Sunday, he encouraged people to go out only in case of “necessity,” but hadn’t yet stipulated concretely how often that would be considered reasonable. As a result, I messaged City Hall Sunday night at about 9 p.m. and asked whether once a week was about right, or if twice a week was fine, etc.

Within 5 minutes, he’d responded. They would prefer we limit shopping excursions to once a week. He also included it in his next video so that everyone would have the explicit information.

When it comes to us, we’re doing fine. Jeremy’s school has been having fairly regular skype lessons, and James’s is just getting started. I have some major projects I’m working on...so the undisturbed time isn’t hard on me particularly. I do, though, absolutely look forward to getting out and seeing people again! That part is sad, but we have to focus on the goal here, which is to hang tight and keep our fellow townies safe.

Shopping is no problem, other than the quantity we have to schlep home. Michael’s the one who has been taking care of this, since I have had lung issues and am the one who can least afford to contract the virus. Plus, he is really scrupulous with his handwashing, so there’s that.

Today, he brought in 5 large bags of items. It was a real challenge thinking about a week’s worth of food! We’re trying to mix sort of special stuff to treat the boys and normal stuff to maintain the budget and a sense of normalcy. The problem is, if we miss something, we just have to do without until the next shop.

Last week’s drama was capers. Sounds trivial, but I use them a lot. This was a sad lack for us when it came to our salmon pasta. I’ll keep you posted on what we forgot this week, but I can already say we forgot peanuts (which I was going to use in homemade samosas...snap!).

Another thing that’s happening that’s lovely is that the local greengrocer is actively advertising his delivery service. He’s always taken things to some of the elderly on his little blue scooter, but in view of the fact that people are trying not to go out, it makes sense that he brings stuff to us! He sells not only fruit and veg but also pasta, grains, wine, some paper goods/cleaning supplies, eggs, and flour. They do not have fresh milk, cheese, meats, sugar, and other sundries.

The cheese shop located in the valley is now also offering delivery service. I might easily take them up on it towards the end of the week. Right now, our fridge is FULL! I’m actually anxious that we’ll have something go bad, so I’m trying to be really careful with everything and plan every meal.

I’ve let Antonella know that we’ll be coming for our fresh milk on Tuesday, so that she can plan her deliveries accordingly. Since she generally only gets 5 litres a day in any case, our demand of 6 litres more than cleans her out for that particular day...and we don’t want to be “those” people.

I guess that’s it! Our fishmonger was in town today, and supplied us with some of the best mussels I’ve ever had. They were truly spectacular. I’ve also put some perch in the freezer for Friday.

Love,

Alexandra

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