black and white

Back in the city, cold and grey skied, the change of soundtrack waves being replaced by traffic and the sounds of construction hammering from the early morning, alarm clocks redundant against the pounding beats of the early shift. Outside it's as if winter has returned, a day for a fleece and a hat, the promise of rain carried upon the dull clouds blanketing the skyline.

Cycling through the morning streets there's a feeling of change, as if in the four days we were away there's been a shift in perception, that we've missed something. Arriving back we'd been tested at the entrance to the building, today at the supermarket temperature taken before being allowed access, public information films on tv containing updates and reinforcing guidelines, advisory but only superficially. You can both feel and see the effects of the pandemic now, interviews on the news shining a light into cracks forming, the odd hint of “the other” from the faces on screen. There's a sense that, even without a formal lockdown, the virus is infecting the daily routines, infiltrating the public arena and realigning accepted contexts, or maybe that's just my imagination, maybe it's nothing more than quiet day after the long weekend and the oppression of the surrounding concrete.

And, regardless of contemplations, life goes on, the rain arriving on the cycle back to the flat, making the decision for me to build a pot of goulash, the reassuring scents of paprika and caraway filling the room. Later there'll be the evening temperature test but for this moment I'm elsewhere, carried off towards Orth an der Donau, Zoltan's shed the day before his wedding, the air thick with the odours of his cooking pot as he hands me a bottle of beer, grinning as he informs me, “nothing for vegetarians, but beer is good”...