#Lockdown

I’ve been working out with George Khosi at the Hillbrow Boxing Club for many years. Up until the lockdown started I’d been going to Hillbrow about three times a week, every week, since 2012.

It’s Day 98 of the South African lockdown, which I literally cannot believe. Earlier today I suddenly thought back to my Day 9 post, when I said it felt like Day 900 and questioned my decision to blog every day of lockdown because I suspected it might last longer than 21 days. Ha! Hahahaha!

But today is Day 97 of the lockdown, which means it’s been 100 days since I started this Lockdown Journal. (I started the journal three days before the lockdown started.) I just counted up all my posts and I’ve blogged on 88 out of the past 100 days. (I took weekends off after Day 50.)

Today, after a week or so of procrastination, I returned to the Aranda blanket factory in Randfontein. After my previous Basotho blanket post, a reader in America sent me a donation to buy blankets for the blanket drive my friend Kennedy is organizing. So I had to pick up a few more.

The Melville Cat normally speaks for himself on this blog. But today, for some reason, I feel like speaking for the two of us.

I didn’t choose Smokey as a pet – he chose me. He had a perfectly good home already, with a wonderful lady who has become a dear friend. But for some reason Smokey decided his place was with me, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

This morning I got up early and went to take photos at the Melville food parcel program, as I always do on Thursday mornings. I arrived at the church around 6:30. Due to another commitment, I had to leave at 7:30. At 7:25, I met Josaya.