'Help', says I, on the local village Facebook group. 'I'm new here, having just arrived from Australia. Don't worry - I'm not contagious - but where can I find bread flour?'. Because I've got it in my head I need to make sourdough. It's funny how chaos can drive a need to control.
I've been relying on my sister in law to get food. We were meant to be here for two weeks, and as it is, we arrived early because we saw risk of staying in India. Two weeks in quarantine and we're pretty sure we are okay. Now, we're here for the long haul.
There are no flights home. I turn my mind away from Australia and my family, but it keeps returning there. I never thought I'd be so far away when the world as we knew it ended. It's the reason I moved home after living in the UK in the first place.
Home. I think of the 50 kilos of nice biodynamic flour in my pantry. The tomatoes ripening on the vine. Fresh limes and lemons. I do help my mother in law dig over her vegetable garden and I planted seeds in her greenhouse just in case we are stuck here for six months, but harvest is a long time coming. There's no way I can explain the need to her to plant lots of fresh vegetables, just in case. I'd love to dig over her entire back garden, but it's not my place to make such changes. I had a brief moment of solace when I found a local vegetable farm shop here in Somerset, but that shut due to one of theirs getting the virus. I need to do things - to make kombucha, sourdough, chapatis. I found a bottle of unpasteurized kombucha and squirrel around for a big jar, but bread flour is elusive.
Within an hour, I have a reply on the group. 'The Redan Hotel has bread flour'. My sister and I decide to brave it. The less contact with outside the better, but we need essentials too - bread, milk, and aubergines. We love aubergines. The end of the world would be alot better with them.
When we arrive, we are thrilled to bits. The hotel has a huge gazebo set up and is only letting in one customer at a time. They've put tape down at 2 metre lengths to keep everyone socially distant, and there's hand sanitiser at the gate. It actually makes everything more pleasant - no bumping shoulders as we reach for food. The food is fresh - there's fennel, and purple sprouting broccoli, and some lovely Somerset cheeses. Somerset does better cheese than anywhere I've been, bar France. We also pick up some wine - it's Saturday, after all.
I pay for the whole lot. Faith is still able to drive to work, as she mows people's gardens for a living, but she will get a government benefit or a loan when it becomes available. We are lucky that we have a wage coming in and a secure job to go back to next year. We feel uncomfortable and anxious because we're worried about everyone else. The news doesn't help, nor do the trolls on Facebook. Nor do reports from home and the madness there. I worry about my Dad. His operation for his hip has been cancelled for the foreseeable future. He's in pain and my heart breaks for him. My aunty is stressed because she works as a radiographer - there's no hand sanitiser and her hands are rubbed raw. My mother in law is anxious and tells us stories over and over about people in terrible situations. I have to walk away. It makes me anxious myself. I worry about people's mental health.
But caremongering is beginning to trump fearmongering in my little world.
The local pubs have transformed their businesses, delivering to local residents. It's possible to ring up, place an order, and pay over the phone. On the streetpoles in the village they have signs explaining how neighbours can look after each other. Hand drawn rainbows adorn windows for children to spot. A woman puts a puzzle on a gate for them to solve and put the answer in a box each day. Families walk in the woods with butterfly nets.
At the pub, I get two bags of bread flour - a few kilos. The man serving us is French, and tells us his 96 year old grandmother can't understand why he can't visit her. I tell him I'm Australian, and I can't get home either. He tells us that usually he works a forty hour shift, but this week, he's worked 56 hours so far, helping set up this alternative shop because the pub is not allowed to open. He said people are so grateful that it's here. No one wants to go to Tesco - we've heard the horror stories of people coughing on food or fighting over toilet roll. Here, it's so thoughtful and civilised. He tells us that last night he delivered a box of vegetables to a woman who's been stuck inside for weeks with an autoimmune disease. She's all on her own. The smile she gave, he said, made it all worth it. His eyes swim with tears, as do ours. People can be so bloody kind when it counts.
And that's what we all need to do - be kind. Faith and I stop past the neighbours on the way home to get some misdelivered post. The old lady shuffles to the door - she's looking very poorly. We will go out this afternoon to get a few things for her. They're bringing in the homeless from the streets in London. I wonder why it took them so long.
We all live so far away from each other all the time, even when we live next door. I'm a million miles from home yet we video chat nearly every day. This virus is doing strange things to our concepts of distance. As the world is shutting down, it is is also opening up. How happy it was last night in an online party on Discord where one boy in Venuzuela could play us guitar and we could drink and laugh togther. I'd like to think the distances between us are much less than they were, anyway. I believe in the best of us, not the worse.
If I don't, I won't cope with all of this. I need people now more than ever. And so I feed my sourdough starter, and think of making bread for the village. They'll get to know this Australian girl quite well, I imagine.