Restricted

We are confined to quarters for the foreseeable future. I'm sure there will be big celebrations in France when this confinement généralisé ends. The weather is beautiful right now, but we're supposed to stay inside as much as possible. Walks in the vineyard are allowed, as long as it doesn't involve contact with other people There are workers out there,  and we shout greetings and even exchange a few sentences, but we don't get close to anybody.

An American friend who lives on the other side of Saint-Aignan, a few miles from us, told me yesterday that one of her neighbors went to our local SuperU to pick up some supplies. She found the store pretty much empty of customers, and also found the shelves mostly empty of merchandise too. Apparently, the SuperU over in Selles-sur-Cher, 10 miles upriver, is better stocked, so our friend said she was going to try to do her shopping over there.

We are starting to think about things we might need from the supermarket next week, and making a list. I also tried to do some shopping on-line yesterday on the SuperU Drive site. We can order things and then drive over there to pick them up, without getting close to anybody. I started putting together an on-line list by choosing items from the store's web page. It crashed. Suddenly, I got an error message when I tried to add an item to my list. That's not promising.

The friend I talked to said that gendarmes are stopping cars at major intersections (they're mostly roundabouts — traffic circles — here) and asking drivers to show the official document we're supposed to carry with us if we go out in public. It's a sworn statement you are required to sign to declare the purpose of your trip. Grocery shopping, doctor or  pharmacy visits, or going to work are the only reasons why you should be out driving or walking around.

We are luckier than people who live in apartments, that's for sure. We have a big back yard and we've started cleaning it up after a long, wet, windy winter. It's still too early to start preparing the vegetable garden plot, mostly because the ground is too wet. Walt did some mowing yesterday, and I started working on potted plants that need TLC. At some point, we are going to need to buy seeds or seedlings. Potting soil. New pots. But so far trips to garden centers are not allowed, as far as I know.

The pictures here are some I took day before yesterday.