Idling around

It's Saturday morning, in the time of the deadly virus outbreak. My wife and daughter have found a good excuse to go out and walk till the nearest post office. They have sewn some cotton protective masks to ship to Italy, to my parents in law. My son, instead, is locked in his bedroom, talking on-line in german with his girlfriend, after lazily attempting some homework. I am finally idling alone. After sitting at the sofa with a copy of the last number of The New Yorker and gazing, instead of reading, at the desert playground beyond our balcony, I remembered that I haven't done a backup for a while and dragged myself to the family laptop.
There won't be the shopping ritual celebration, today. After the plague has begun to spread here around as well, our shopping habits have changed. We prefer going out, "putting at risk our lives" in the most unusual times of the day, when the crowd should be hopefully at minimum. As such, this day is for free. Maybe later, after lunch, I'll put the nose out of the door and walk up to the top of the hill standing behind our building. My son wants to practice with the reflex camera. It's time I teach him something and pass the token on.
I'm rediscovering the joy of having half a day of time to do whatever I want: reading, giving water to the plants on the balcony, paying the TV tax on line or simply take care of long-deferred housekeeping duties, without waiting for late hours in the evening. My wife has made me notice that she bought me a mending kit, two days ago. She's been asking me to stop a couple of holes in our bedroom for so long that she nearly thought of fixing them herself. Now I have no excuses. I'll think about photography this afternoon.