'Social drinker' in me starting to regret not stockpiling the wine

I am not an alcoholic. Right? So, like the minimalist that I am, I selected a few bottles of my favourite wine. One glass with a great meal on some nights - that was the plan.

I was looking forward to stomach crunches, gardening and loads of writing time during the 21 days of lockdown. Refreshing!

I was so absorbed in my ability to limit my beverage intake that I actually felt sorry for people who rushed to liquor stores to stockpile on booze. What, were they planning on pretending their homes are Kwa-Mam' Rubby, fill up the tables and count the empties, every day?

It took three days for my lockdown wine rations to be down to two bottles. The bottle meant for next weekend's oxtail pot also found itself down my throat.

The lockdown is like 21 Sundays with forced labour but no foreman staring at you. A day suddenly feels 36 hours long. I planted some potatoes on day four. I take a sip after each sentence when I write and then go and lie on my yoga mat and try to make sense of the hiking number of people dying of Covid-19.

I should have bought more wine. And maybe six more bottles, in case the "more wine" did not last throughout.

In fact, I should stop thinking I am a light drinker and appreciate that I never had enough time to test just how much alcohol I can take in a day.

And now I know I need about a bottle more than the occasional glass at dinner.

I have also been toying with the idea of maybe adding to the remaining wine with dashes of Coke to make it go further. or tonic?

In the meantime, the regulations around the SA lockdown have become a recipe for disaster to most. Literally!

I've sourced over 20 recipes for cooking potent juice and I am really starting to look at brown bread loaves and pineapple in a different way.

Maybe this period will birth a few craft brewers. I bet some from the generation that voted in 1994 learnt a few tricks from their grandmothers growing up in households where illegal sorghum beer was the only income that sustained the family.

The conflict of all the trauma from brutal police of the olden days who kicked their grandmas and threw out their drums and the modern day freedom of brewing your own crafty concoction for enjoyment at home.

I guess by the time this lockdown is over, we will all have made peace with a few things we had been in denial of. Maybe the only reason we have been calling ourselves "social drinkers" is because we did not spend all day, every day, with our own demons.

And with me, the whole community inside my head is saying "go get packets of yeast and apples and let us see how far 20 litres of our great grandfathers' poison will take us!"