Lu and I had a facial the other day at SV Dorothy Rose. Kim kindly offered to give us their bespoke spa treatment. It was a little strange to be asked to be honest – at first. The pandemic suited me in the no touching rule. So, for Dorothy Rose to ask us to come, I was a bit reticent about going. But I went – and was it nice. Not a question. Not really.

Kim got me to lie down – and washed my face. With a bowl, hot water, a flannel and some charcoal soap. Then she used this skin vaccine cleaner tool which was interesting. Sucky and with a slight bite. Then she put some skin cream and spf on. She did the same for Lu. Did Delph come too? That is definitely not a question.

Back to last night. We borrowed the rust bucket from Dorothy Rose and Jack went to meet his friends, I dropped him off – and drove to the supermarket in the dark. Only two wrong turns and a number of infamous Bonairean potholes later – phew.

Indeed, there had been a delivery of part-baked bread. Hooray! The supermarket was only open for another hour, so I grabbed a trolley. I started to fill the trolley with the packs of part-baked. Only my stomach began to sink. I felt the physicality of what I was doing. I was taking a significant amount of the newly-arrived, part-baked bread. Not very cool. I mean, yes, we were going on a long crossing and bagels for breakfast and pitta breads to dip into pea soup would be nice.

But still. I was taking most of the bagels, all the loaves of Turkish bread and making a big dent into the wholemeal pittas. Bonaire’s part-baked supplies. Like not touching, it’s another leftover from the pandemic – the ethics of rationing. What was I going to do next – buy up all the toilet paper?

The supermarket was pretty empty. Even so, I was starting to get some looks. The Dutch aren’t shy about being judgy. Apparently, they were the last country in Europe to develop an official police force because of their willingness to police themselves. I left four packs of bagels on the shelf. Looked at my full trolley and thought, let’s go!

The check-out was quiet. The staff are usually nice here too. With this, I started to move the bread onto the belt. The lady looked at me as the conveyor moved. I couldn’t see her whole expression with her mask on.

‘You’ve bought all the bread.’

I stopped like I’d just banged into a wall. ‘Yes.’ I paused. ‘I’m sorry.’

Her eyebrows raised in surprise. Mine did too. Ohh. She wasn’t judging me. She was just saying it. Like a statement.

I told her everything. The journey, the family, the amount of time it’ll take, the bagels with cream cheese on the high seas. The pea soup. I told her everything.

‘That’ll be $92.56,’ she said.

Huh, I thought. That’s not too bad.