Early Easter Lamb

This photo is an the easter lamb we were given before the crisis.  It has been sitting in our freezer for 2 months now.  K was very happy to be given this 12 kilo lamb for a job he did for a friend and was planning the easter feast around it.  

How times have changed.  The lamb will remain in the freezer till better times.

Today is Good Friday for most of you.  For the Greek Orthodox this coming week is Holy Week and Easter Sunday is  a week later than yours, on April 19th. 

The government had already warned that there would be strict travel regulations brought into force to stop anyone returning to their village or island for the easter holiday, and spreading infection.  All main roads, side roads and highways and byways have been closed off with police inspection of every car on the road.

If you have papers to prove you are a permanent resident you can travel but will not be allowed to return till the crisis is over.  Residents on many islands have pleaded with city dwellers not to return.  Incoming travellers are not welcome

Each car must have no more than 2 people, the driver and a passenger, all carrying the correct papers.  Anyone caught  will be fined 300 euros, the car will have number plates removed and they will be sent back to where they came from.  Road blocks are on a 24 hour basis so you can't escape at 2am or 4am or whenever you think the cops have gone for lunch or dinner.

Similar checks are being made at airports, harbours, bus and train stations.

Yesterday I stepped, 5 steps, outside our front gate to fill the wild cat bowl with fish bones and I had neither my permit paper to go for a walk or my ID card.  Theoretically I could have been fined 150euros for the lack of papers and 75 for no ID. 

A lot of people here still consider it a joke to outwit the police but the police can appear out of nowhere and they do make checks.  We have no cases anywhere near us, not on the island or on the mainland opposite and I would like to keep it that way.  The islands at least, closed communities, should be virus free but some of them aren't, just a handful, because people returning have unwittingly carried the infection and haven't stuck to the 14 day home isolation. 

Next week we will be baking easter cookies and dyeing red eggs, listening to the church services on TV and my traditional person will light a candle and probably waft a bit of incense around.  I'll be sitting here at my desk writing about it.

Today I should have been making hotcross buns along with my NZ family but I didn't get around to it.  The photos they've posted on Instagram and Whatsap are scrummy.  If I want the house to smell like I remember easter should then I had better get moving