Another late rising today, but I did manage to read 1 short story before I got out of bed which was an achievement. I took Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks with me to Costa Rica in December 2018 and read and loved most of it, but inspired by the Flash Fiction earlier this week I've been inspired to read it again.
We had a ridiculously childlike breakfast of potato waffles and sausages and some Reggae Reggae Sauce and I had a couple of coffees to wake me up properly. I watched another Hay Festival online talk from A C Grayling about democracy which wasn't hugely positive about the democratic future for us post Covid, but did make some helpful suggestions about how it could be changed to be basically more democratic. The one quote I especially enjoyed was "There is no such thing as a majority, only a temporary coalition of minorities across different elements of society" (i'm likely misquoting, but this was the gist)
I refilled the coffee machine with the emergency coffee that I got from Amazon whilst we waited for our deliver to arrive from Modern Standard last week (of course they came on the same day10 and Qubit wanted to smell it - he wasn't keen.
I watched a talk from Hay Festival last year by Michael Rosen, I loved his poems as a kid and I love some of his newer work. It was lovely to see how much the kids in the audience loved his work as well. Really inspiring. I've just googled him to find out how old he was out of curiousity and he is 74, I also spotted that he was really poorly with suspected Covid-19 and I hope that he's doing ok.
Alan prepared the ingredients for a stew and put it in the slow cooker, and I tidied some of the potatoes up out of the kitchen that had started to sprout and planted them in planters in the garden after I had cleared off the weeds.
For lunch I made us another salad and the avocado was just about perfectly ripe thankfully! We ate outside on our very lovely garden chair with a blanket over the top to cover from the ridiculous sunshine.
I watched the Daily Briefing and it was heartening to see that many homeless people have been helped during this crisis, around 15000 people, but I'm sad that there were that many people who were homeless and needed support. I'm incredibly confused and concerned that they have all of a sudden decided that even though the death rate is the same as when we went into lockdown, they have deemed it ok for those who have been shielding to go outside again. The photos of crowded parks and beaches also massively worry me, I am incredibly fortunate to be able to work from home and not have to go into busier situations in the coming weeks unless I choose to, so I'm going to choose to remain not too different from my current situation to hopefully mitigate the easing of lockdown which (in my opinion) is just too early to be safe.
I decided to go for my run and needed to find the last photo for my photo challenge for the theme "chasing rainbows" and I ran into the village and said hello to some of our friends including our 6 year old dance teacher from yesterday.
I found a couple of rainbows in the village and then ran up to Lumby and found a couple more. I ran back through Lumby and debated whether to go left and a longer route or right for a shorter one. I was pleased that I went for the longer route back and enjoyed some beautiful evening light. I had a nice chat with our neighbours at number 2 on the way back in.
Alan's stew was nearly ready so I had a shower and then ate some tasty dumplings and enjoyed the last of the meat (stewing steak)) from our very delicious order from The Ethical Butcher. He put on Space Force, but I've been a bit distracted so I'm not sure what I make of it.
Lauren had finished work at 8 so we had a wrap up video chat on our creative week and we have a few really good ideas for collaboration of work for flash fiction. She also shared a great drabble with me in relation to our idea for our collaboration. I've started mine... let's see how it all turns out.
We woke up a bit later again today, we really must try and get back to normal tomorrow evening as we are back at work on Monday.
Alan got up and made french toast with berry compote and coffee and we watched Friends on TV - it's up to the point where Phoebe meetings Mike which are some of my favourite episodes. I read about the Michael Gove Tweet and cynically seems like an attempted distraction more than anything else.
We kept the cats locked in as we were worried about Qubit, but his paw did seem much better and so I sneaked out Maya earlier on and then in the afternoon we let them both out.
Alan then got into his running kit and after I'd hung out the washing I got into mine and we went out for a gentle jog up to the nature reserve at Ledsham. I managed to get some photos on the way for a photo challenge with both my friends and also with the running club. We sat in the reserve in the warm sunshine and saw one person in the distance, we're very fortunate to be living where we do. We chatted about a few things, notably racism and misogyny and why my beliefs are so different to my parents. I concluded that school was a major common factor as well as Blue Peter and good kids tv.
We covered about 7 K in just over an hour and I got a photo of my reflection in a random discarded new roll of tin foil as one of the categories was "Your Reflection". My knee is feeling better and so hopefully I can do a bit more running again tomorrow to keep on track with my distance targets.
I made a salad for lunch and disappointingly the avocado was way past it's best and I had to cut out all the black squidy bits. I also was craving a baked potato and had a topping of butter and marmite - delicious and a lockdown tip I'd heard from the High Low.
I watched the Daily Briefing which was interesting as they focussed on re-opening sports including football and horse racing from next week rather than the fact the R number is still high and the death rate is what it was as we decided to lock down. They also had Professor Van-Tam on who was very clear about how it wasn't the time to "rip the pants out" of the government guidance or indeed the fact that “In my opinion the rules are clear and they have always been clear,” he said. “In my opinion they are for the benefit of all. In my opinion they apply to all.” As I have the freedom of choice to be able to continue to work from home and the impact on my day to day life hasn't been as severe as others I feel that my approach will be to remain in "lockdown" in terms of what we've been doing for the past 10 weeks with a small exception that we might have a few outdoor garden conversations. Not barbecues or anything where we'd have to access or have our house accessed ideally. I am aware not everyone can work from home, so if those who can do continue to be socially distant, maybe we can mitigate what is likely to be a second peak.
We then had a 5pm appointment with a friend's 6 year old daughter who has opened an online dance school on zoom and she performed a number of songs that me and Alan had to dance to with some of her friends and family also signed up. If we liked it and go to the next one it's £1 per class that will go to charity.
Alan and I then both had baths and I watched another Hay Festival talk - David Mitchell being interviewed by John Mitchinson and a bit later on Paul Krugman talking about the economics post Covid-19 Lauren and I had also swapped our Dribbles earlier and talked about a few other ideas for writing.
I got an email from Easyjet to say that it was 30% off flights to Barcelona, I went with Alan back in 2016 and saw someone on Facebook's memories there pop up and it made me really think it would be nice to get back there. I looked into costs for flights in March and for £83 for the 2 of us seemed like a decent calculated risk. Hopefully we'll have a bit more normality by that point.
I watched the Nasa SpaceX launch with Alan outside in the garden and we tried to see it, but didn't have any luck and then forgot to look at it outside for the ISS later. It was really interesting watching how smooth everything went and how the Falcon? landed back on the boat.
Alan made a pasta bake for tea with Hello Fresh and I had a couple of Jim Beams and Ginger Beers and we put Friends on TV again.
We woke up late again this morning, mostly because we were so warm even with the fan on full blast, but mostly because I made the mistake of engaging with my Mum's friend on one of her posts on Facebook. My error here is that she's retired, a staunch brexiteer and hits the return button so often that there are more comments pinging all over the place. I wish there was a feature on Facebook to block certain people's comments appearing from a certain time in the evening... it has my heart palpitating and my mind racing!
We got up and I had some cornflakes and coffee for breakfast after I'd dealt with a couple of work matters.
I got drawn back into the ongoing Facebook debate, I'd posted a video last night prompted by the (to me) inexplicable loyalty to some of the government actions during the discussion. I remain convinced that you can still be loyal to a Government or political party or a country and yet disagree with a policy or action of an MP or special advisor. Critique and opinion forms better ideas and policy, and in this situation as my Mum asks me "How would you do better?" I think my awareness that I know very little about virology would mean that I would collate as many scientists as possible to help me. I'd look at the world and steal all the ideas that had worked well and I'd make sure messaging was clear - "Stay Alert" is not a clear message when it comes to a microscopic and invisble virus, if it was a war maybe, but it's not. The wartime rhetoric that has been invoke is problematic for many reasons, not least that as a globe we are stronger to collaborate globally to contain the virus and develop a vaccine. Anyway, this was the video - Jordan Klepper vs. Trump Supporters This particular person was clearly provoked by this (although I provided no commentary on it, just the link and some thinking emojis) and she went into an overloaded rant and a few comments later was talking about Brexit and calling it the "Chinese" virus. I shared a quote that I'd found on a Psychology Today article
"Our survival will not be enhanced by racism or denial of racism. On an individual level, our immune systems are enhanced by compassion and community, and damaged by contempt." and also the link from the WHO as to why it's not helpful to name diseases based on country of origin.
After we'd wasted far too much time on this I'd changed into my run kit to test my knee out on a gentle run with Alan. Qubit brought in a baby bird that he'd caught and killed which still makes me sad even though he does it far more frequently than any other cat I've lived with.
We ran a different route today through the fields and over the railway and I was trying to find some street art for my photo challenge. It was really warm and so there was lots of walking, I tried to top the run up to over an hour for a full 8 Vitality Points, but it only gave me 5. Fortunately my step count took me up to over 12500 so I did end up with the full points. My knee is still sore, but it seemed ok to do just over 7K so hopefully it's just a niggle that will go away easily.
We'd not had lunch and had not much time before our 6pm online DJ session so we had the remainder of a treacle tart and cream for lunch before showering, changing and getting a few more songs ready for our DJ set. Alan had done some visuals and we'd created a playlist themed around the political events of the week - not too serious, just themed around Dominic Cumming's jaunt to the north and inspired by some dancing rumours.
In the midst of getting ready Qubit came running into the house with a baby rabbit. We thought it was dead, but Alan prised it out of his mouth and he hopped off. We had no spare boxes to hand and the rabbit managed to get upstairs and we had to empty the washing basket and catch it. I took him out to the paddock in front of the house and slowly tipped him out and he hopped off into the field. He was really cute and it still upsets me that Qubit is such a big hunter, at least he was ok.
We Djed for 2 hours, I made a few mistakes, the feed went a bit sketchy and I'm not sure I'm getting any better, but Alan enjoyed playing with his app that he's just finished coding.
Alan then made chicken stir fry for tea and we watched Have I got News for You and more Friends. We noticed Qubit was limping a bit, although would let us look at his paw and ther wasn't an obvious injury so we are keeping an eye on him and hope that he'll be ok tomorrow. He was also happy to eat his dinner and some treats, so hopefully will be fine.
And so to bed, late again...I need to get better at going at a proper time.
Once again the cat alarm woke us up earlier than I was hoping, I was so tired that I fed the cats, but managed to throw dry cat food everywhere.
I snoozed a bit longer and then got up around 9.30am and tidied and cleaned the kitchen from dinner yesterday evening and had some cornflakes and an Americano for breakfast made from our lovely coffee machine (our over indulgence to commiserate our abrupt end to our honeymoon and make lockdown more bearable when our cheaper machine broke down - I do recommend highly!) I also recommend the lovely Modern Standard coffee that we use and is far to easy to plough through a bag of!
I noticed my right knee was really quite sore this morning, I'd not done anything yesterday to be concerned about my knee, although I'd had some perifirmis issues. When I rubbed around the knee cap it was really crunchy compared to the left knee.
I was excited this morning as I'd signed up for a 2 hour Flash Fiction course that my friend Lauren had told me about with Arvon. At the start of the the year I'd thought about doing a residential there as they have a site in Hebden Bridge, but obviously Corona got in the way of these plans, so it was a great way to still do something in keeping with my 20 things 20 times in 2020 which included 20 hours learning something new and 20 creative writting sessions or blog entries.
The course started at 11am via Zoom and was hosted and facilitated by Dr Tania Hershman I had a quick chat with Lauren first about the writing challenges we'd been doing together this week. We signed on and after Tania was introduced she said that she was going to "work us hard" and she really did!
We had a first exercise of word cricket where she gave us a starting phrase and we had to build a short story by just writing continously for 15 minutes and at certain points she threw in some extra words to include. We then read a short story together called "The Yacht Man" and moved onto our next exercise which was taking 6 random excerpts from books grabbed off the shelf including a coffee machine manual and weaving as many as possible into a story - this was a really good fun one and I managed to write on that featured many current events. We again read together a few more pieces of flash fiction and in very different and interesting styles and our next excerise was to take very serious trigger words and write as many descriptive words that related to that word. Tania then announced that these were "banned" words and we had to write for 7 minutes about that word - it was both harder and easier than you would think. Our final exercise was on Drabbles and Dribbles and this one I found much harder as I didn't have an obvious inspiration starting point.
2 hours totally flew by and I would highly recommend this as great value for money (£35) and great content, but most importantly a great faciliator who was encouraging, energetic and fun!
I made some lunch for me and Alan - creamy garlic mushroom pasta and then Lauren and I read what we'd written back to each other which was fascinating as even with a very similar start and end to one of the pieces we were very different in content. We decided to try and find a flash fiction competition to enter and talked about a few films and books that we recommended including Arrival which Alan and I decided to watch this evening.
I got bogged down watching the Daily Briefing again today and I'm yet to be convinced that we are ready to ease the lockdown based on the number of infections and where the R number is at. What concerned me more was how Whitty and Vallance weren't allowed to respond to some of the journalist questions as Johnson stepped in. I totally understand that they don't want to be "dragged into politics" but it was palpable to see what their opinions have beens towards some of the comments by politians that they visibly disagree with. I was especially impressed with Sam Coates at Sky News for asking them if they had been gagged and forbidden to answer questions and how they felt about it.
Alan went out for a run and I decided not to today as my knee was sore, but when he'd got back I decided to go for a walk as it was such lovely weather and I strolled through the nearby fields and took the time to take some pictures and videos including one for my daily photo challenge with my friends Hayley and Sam which was "All the Small Things" today. I walked for 45 minutes and about 3K.
I listened to the High Low Podcast as I was walking and then when I'd got home as I made tea. Another Hello Fresh recipe of Cod with a cheesy crumb and mashed potato with spring greens - delicious! We then had treacle tart and clotted cream for dessert and watched Arrival. Arrival really reminded me of Interstellar and it had a really interesting plot and it is definitely one of those that I really want to rewatch and am slightly sad I didn't see in a cinema as I bet it's great on the big screen.
Since then I've been messing around on my phone and trying to film Qubit having a conversation about Dominic Cummings, but he's been noisy and then camera shy. Some of the comments about this from members of my family have made me so angry that my heart has been racing. I'm most worried that it's all part of his plan and a deliberate plot to distract us from our awful death rate. I also feel frustrated that I can't do more to tangibly help.
I managed to totally forget the 8pm clap, I hadn't planned on clapping as I feel uncomfortable being press ganged by the neighbourhood whatsapp group (allthough I could be completely misinterpreting things) and the fact that I'm not sure we all have the same interpretation of social distancing, so this evening I made another donation to Selby District Foodbank. I liked the initial idea of the clap, but no one near me is a carer and so it felt a bit like keeping up appearances for the neighbours so instead I've tried to do more tangible things each week like donations or helping to make hampers of hand santisers, hand cream and treats for the local GP surgery.
I never thought keeping an isolation lockdown blog would actually give me so much to write about each day as nothing really happens and the concept of time has changed - this from the High Low today made me smile in describing how time works now.
Night night!
After another late evening writing before bed so we were woken up with a start at 8am by Amazon delivering a parcel for Alan. I got back into bed and fell back to sleep for a bit and it was probably around 10am before we got up.
We had cornflakes for breakfast (which apparently provides you with 50% of your daily Vitamin D needs which I'd never focussed on as much until I knew it can help your body be more resilient to Covid, well apart from when I binged on it after I broke my shoulder in 2018)
I listened to another Hay Festival Lecture on vaccinations (well half before I had to cook lunch) and again I'll finish listening again. We had gnocchi fried with chorizo, courgette and spring onion and Alan picked and prepped some of the artichoke that we've been growing in the garden. He used garlic oil and roasted them in the oven. We've been really enjoying the Artichokes as have the ants and the aphids, it's hard to clean them all off! We ate outside and it was really hot!
I wrote 2 cards/letters one to my Dad's cousin Polly who I know is living by herself and I'm guessing might be finding lockdown more challenging and also one to my friend Gloria who is turning 40 - I found a weird inspo card from the 90s that I've had in my possession since it was being thrown out by the worst company I think I've ever worked for. The card said "Desire breeds Power" and I think she'll enjoy the oddness of it.
As a CIRF part sponsored by my running club Hyde Park Harriers I had set out a plan to deliver marathon coaching this year, but with all the marathons postponed and not being able to run in groups I've been preparing some session plans for people to do whilst they are running by themselves. So far I've done a session on intervals, a progression session and today was a hill reps session.
I also listened to a parkrun podcast that has been continuing in lockdown - With Me Now as I tidied out the awkward cupboard in the kitchen to put in the new pans that arrived from Amazon at 8am this morning. Alan also watered the garden with the hose and accidentially knocked off the water to the dishwasher and then subsequently fixed the dishwasher.
We decided to go for a run to post my 2 letters and took it steady as it was warm and Alan is regaining his fitness after some time out from running. I also twinged my Piriformis and so was taking it a bit slower. It took us a little longer than planned so I ended up dialling into a weekly call that I have with my friends Hayley and Sam via zoom at 5pm whilst we were still walking home across a field.
I had a good chat and catch up with Hayley and Sam and then I debated whether to do the Wednesday evening online Zumba class with my friend Gui and I did and took it easy. Qubit arrived in the middle and meowed loudly.
We then had Hello Fresh for tea - spicy meatball curry and rice and then rhubarb crumble and vinetta for dessert and caught up with Have I got News for You
I'm now currently enraged by my Mum sharing a post defending Dominic Cummings, which I really don't understand when she is far more negatively affected by government policy than I am, I could say a lot more on this, but I'm currently engaged in a row with my mum on messenger.
I really should have started an isolation journal back in March, but I'm guessing that I'm not the only person feeling like this. At the time when everything started to change, it changed fast and even though I had more "time" my mental energies were a bit frazzled.
For me as I've mentioned in my previous post it all felt (feels) a bit like a dream, we flew out to a tropical island and by the time we flew back my reality was very different, but rather than try and distill the past 10 weeks into a journal entry, I'm going to just think about today as part of the weekly challenge from Curtis Brown Creative.
Last night I went to bed fairly late as I have this week off as holiday, I'd decided to participate in a creative writing week with my friend Lauren and so I didn't end up getting into bed until around 1am as I'd been up doing a freewriting challenge. Annoying my laptop decided to freeze and omitted half of what I'd written!
It meant that I woke up after around 7.5 hours of sleep and finally dragged myself out of bed after 9am knowing that I needed to get myself ready for a cycle ride. I'd arranged to meet my cousin for a socially distanced catch up at Towton Battlefield and swap cakes. My cousin is gluten free so I decided to make some chocolate cornflake cakes and used my favourite life hack ever of melting chocolate with a hairdrier. I ate a banana for breakfast and had a black coffee from our lovely new coffee machine.
Alan came with me which was helpful as I'm still a bit nervous about cycling and despite googlemaps claiming it was 4.5 miles it ended up being 6 miles. We met just after 11am and had a nice long chat whilst some farmers were laying out some cabling across the field. We had the new awkward scenario of how to exchange cakes whilst keeping a social distance, it almost looks like a very small hostage exchange. I felt bad on the way back as Alan pointed out that we'd not actually gone for a stroll around the Battlefield especially after reading my favourite 1 star review.
boring field
I like to come to the old battle fields. This battle field is the most boring one out of them all there is nothing to see but boring old fields. I payed a tone of money to get there and when i got there all it is, is fields after fields and the best moment was the trip there and back!!!!!!
I made some pasta for lunch with some roasted courgette and yellow pepper and chorizo and made some marmite sauce for mine after my friend Lauren had told me about it - basically cook the pasta and save some pasta water and mix it with butter and marmite. It was very salty, but delicious.
Whilst I was cooking I listened to half of a talk from the The Hay Fesitval online by Devi Sridhar above the Covid-19 pandemic and I need to finish watching it because she was giving some really balanced critique of the UK handling including the observation that countries with less strong health systems were more rapid and robust with their responses and consequently experienced less deaths than those who on paper were better set up with strong health systems and so perhaps delayed their decisions to respond longer.
We ate lunch and I watched another event from The Hay Festival live by Daniel Davis on immunity and Covid-19, Lauren was also watching and we both found that it was very science based in explanations and for me I need to re-watch it!
Lauren and I then had a video call to talk through the writing that we had done and to compare some notes about how we'd found the writing exercise. It was really nice to actually do some writing and have someone else give some feedback. I had written a piece of freewriting and thought about the concept of freedom in lockdown and Lauren had written a piece inspired by the writing prompt He knew she’d never come back. Lauren had written with pen and paper and it made me think that I might like to try doing some writing that way as I think typing and writing use slightly different parts of your brain. We're going to do some more writing and discussion over the week and have both booked onto a "flash fiction" course with Arvon on Thursday.
After I'd finished the call I watched the Daily Briefing from Downing Street which had two of the questions from the public that I would be asking if I'd been given the chance - Will people fined in similar situations in lockdown looking to access childcare now be able to appeal their fines in light of Dominic Cumming's behaviour being described as "legal" and also a question about if we can go shopping for non essentials why and when can we see our families? Matt Hancock gave a more consistent briefing than we have seen over the past couple of days, but was extremely dismissive of the media and didn't allow follow-ups on their questions. I'm worried about why we have the highest death rate and yet we still don't have a robust test, track and trace system set up and what is happening with the app? It amazes me that people are still willing to defend our government without question as we are so far behind the world in being able to get back to some sense of normal life.
After the briefing I decided to go for a run, I'm aiming to run around 1000 miles in 2020 which sounds like a lot, but is actually only 4.4K per day when you break it down. I also wanted to take some pictures for the photo competition that one of the ladies from my running club has set. I took pictures for the "bugs eye view" and "red, blue or yellow" categories. I was going to go for a run up and down the hill on the road next to the house to keep an eye out for an amazon pantry delivery, but it had been left by the door when I went to set out for my run so I unpacked it and set off. I ran 5K in 27 minutes.
Alan made dinner and we had a Hello Fresh recipe of Lamb Kofta and he even made a rhubarb crumble which we had with a bit of vinetta that was delivered with the Amazon Pantry order. The biggest issue I have with lockdown is just how much sugar and puddings I'm eating, generally I've been healthier in terms of sleep and excercicse - I'm running, cycling, zumba and walking as well as Pilates classes, but I definitely need to try and cut down on the sweet things!
Whilst eating dinner, we watched a very odd film that promised more in the description than it delivered. The Voices - A likable guy pursues his office crush with the help of his evil talking pets, but things turn sinister when she stands him up for a date. It gets 6.4 / 10 on IMDB, but I would probably give it 3 - 4 as it really didn't have a very coherent plot and was just a bit gross, but not in a funny or contributing to the plot way.
We then put Friends on again in the background whilst I started to write my isolation journal...
In the week commencing the 9th March this year I was pretty anxious. I'm usually bubbling up and down with a bit of anxiety about most things, it's how my brain is hardwired and fortunately age and experience helps me manage it so that it doesn't overwhelm me as much these days.
This week was a bit different though because I had my usual travel anxiety of going away on honeymoon to Barbados (we got married in September 2019, but had decided to do a proper break in March 2020), anxiety of leaving a busy recruitment desk for a week, still some anxiety around politics and Brexit, but then this new anxiety about Coronavirus. I knew that I wouldn't be alone in this anxiety, so I shared my thoughts in a blog post at work and on LinkedIn as I know from my role as a mental health champion within work and within my running club that the biggest issues people tend to face when they've contacted me for a chat is that they feel like they are the only ones with odd and unsettling feelings going through their head. Just helping people understand that they are not alone and should not feel ashamed about talking about how they are feeling is important.
As Friday 13th loomed when we were heading down to Gatwick to stay over the night before our flight, I wasn't sure whether we'd get to the airport to be turned around and go back home. We had a few bottles of hand sanitiser and I was stocked up on vitamins and soap in my luggage. The Virgin Atlantic staff advised us that Barbados were increasing their quarantine restriction levels and there was a chance we could be quarantined upon arrival for 14 days "but we're only travelling there for 10 days?" the lady shrugged and whispered "I'd still fly if I was you".
The flight was calm and pleasant, we washed our hands more frequently and used hand sanitiser before eating and when we landed they heat scanned us as we got off the plane and interviewed us for our movements and symptoms before we were allowed through immigration. The hotel had a fair amount of hand sanitiser everywhere and from the first evening to the next the buffets went from being unstaffed to only being allowed to have your food put on your plate by a member of staff. It was a surreal experience of being in a tropical paradise, getting grief from my Mum to fly back immediately from a coronavirus free country and constantly checking the Foreign & Commonwealth page for updates. We moved onto another hotel for the second of our 3 days and on the morning we were due to check out we had a missed call from a Gatwick number and Virgin Holidays cancelled our "holiday" (basically the next 3 night hotel booking) as they'd not realised we were already in Barbados. Alan also had a nervous couple of hours when we thought the call was from the airport parking as the app for his car showed it as unlocked (we did manage to lock it through the app remotely). We then tried to call Virgin Atlantic to see what the advice on our flight was on the evening of the 22nd March, couldn't get hold of anyone after 1 hour on hold. Alan checked with the insurance company who said they'd cover us for a return flight as the FCO guidance had changed to no non-essential travel. We logged onto BA and the first flight we tried to book as we clicked "pay" bounced back as fully booked. Fortunately we managed to get onto a second flight that day at a cost of £1400 each. We took a taxi to the airport and emailed the rep to say we'd not be needing the second 3 night hotel booking and wouldn't be attending the catamaran cruise we'd booked. Whilst this is in the scheme of things a very small inconvenience, as I type this out it makes me feel really sad as it really hits home that it was the end of an extended "normality" we had come to expect and enjoy.
In the plane poor Alan at 6"4 was crammed into an economy seat for the 9 hour flight back with his legs twisted to fit in. We sat next to an elderly lady who had been staying in Barbados with friends for an extended break of several months and was due to fly back on the same day we were, but her daughter had booked her onto an earlier flight out of concern and I shared my hand sanitiser with her as we ate our meals. The way my anxious brain works is that I still think about this very transient acquaintance and hope that she's still ok.
We landed in Gatwick had no checks other than a self service passport scan and collected our luggage. We found our way to the carpark and set off home picking up Alan's brother's dog on the way as he was staying with a friend whilst his family were on holiday. Their holiday was also cut short and they had a more complex return. The roads were busy and the service stations didn't seem to have clicked that people should be socially distancing.
Since then it's been almost like we've been in a film. I went on annual leave and haven't been back into the office ever since. My smart shoes are under my desk at work, my rice cake snacks are in the drawers going stale and I've not seen any of my colleagues in person for over 2 months. I've not even driven into Leeds at all, in fact in over 2 months I've driven a total of 25 miles and I sometimes go and look at my car to remind myself that it's still there.
At the moment we hear the phrase "we're all in this together" trotted out, but I reflect on this and think of the other analogy used that "we're all in the same storm, but not in the same boat" and feel that is a more true view of the Covid world.
When Alan and I decided to move in together and we found a house in a more remote rural location of our lovely village in South Milford I don't think we ever imagined that we'd spend all of our time here and quite so much time with each other. Fresh back from honeymoon we are fortunate that we both love and like each other and so our lockdown together has been relatively conflict free. We don't have children and so we are able to focus on our own needs without the challenge of balancing household chores, working from home and home schooling. Many people I've spoken to have described the guilt to me of deciding whether to focus on work or home schooling and until recently whether to go out for their own exercise to clear their head or take a walk with their family - thankfully this situation has been eased a bit with the updated restrictions.
We have been fortunate that we can get all the groceries that we've needed via the amazing drive through farm shop near by at Bert’s Barrow, click and collect from Tesco as well as our usual evening meals through Hello Fresh. We are also in a remote location so at anytime of day I can go for a walk or run and social distancing isn't a problem. I'm incredibly grateful that whilst my work and income has suffered as a result of Covid - 19, I still have a job to occupy my time and an income that covers my outgoings. For me this is a massive comfort as I don't do well with too much time on my hands or without sufficient distractions. Most of all I'm incredibly lucky that I've been mostly symptom free and in good health and so far most of my family, friends and acquaintances have been too. However, sadly I know a few people that I know who have both had Covid and have recovered, but also those who have not been as fortunate. I think about these people often and have no idea of what I can say to offer comfort in these impossibly physically distant times.
This week is mental health awareness week with a theme of kindness (a major prompt for me to get some sort of blog out at last) and it's also the week I enter a new decade turning 40 on Tuesday. During my 40 years I've experienced depression, anxiety, OCD and self esteem issues, 8 weeks into lockdown and a global pandemic I'm doing ok. Back at the beginning of April I read this article and certainly some of what was written really echoed with me - having a long track record of dealing with mental health challenges I have managed to develop a tool kit of skills and methods to help me keep as even a mood as possible. In brief these are:
- Regular exercise that has me break a sweat
- Getting some fresh air, daylight and looking at views/nature
- Eating as well as I can - fresh fruit and veg and not too much sugar
- Avoiding too much caffeine and alcohol
- Getting a decent amount of sleep
- Regular social activity with friends
- Craft / creative outlets (time away from screen)
- Limiting social media / news
- Volunteering - spending time focussing on others
As soon as we arrived back home I knew that I needed to be quite strict about these and so I've generally been sticking close to this plan each week. I've not necessarily done all of them perfectly, but doing as many as I can as often as I can as I know that if I don't look after myself it's easy to fall into bad habits and then a subsequent bad mood.
One of the universal struggles that I think everyone has is that the old "rule book" has been suspended. For those of us with self esteem niggles (indeed even those who have never had any self esteem issues may find the current world more difficult) we might have validated ourselves by competing in races or running with friends and knowing that we can keep up with a certain person or in a particular running group. At work in my recruitment sales job you'd compete with an external competitor and beat them to a candidate or a job and chalk up a fee on the board, or you'd be used to billing the most in an office, a region or a discipline you could be "better" than others or the "best". In both of these areas we are the *same* people we were before, we are as skilled or fit as we were before and can put in the same amount of effort, but we are likely to not be experiencing the same outcomes. Does this mean we are no longer worthy? Does that mean we are all now bad at our jobs or running? Have we no longer got what it takes to be successful?
Someone once coined the phrase "form is temporary, class is permanent" and I think that is certainly true now. Individually we can't control what happens with the global response to this virus, we can't control whether the lockdown remains or is lifted and whether this is the *right* thing to do. We can look out of the window and get angry with those people we see not socially distancing (for this I found this article a very useful read). We can get in rows with people on social media. We can get into a spiral of thinking that makes it impossible to step out of the door for a run or pick up the phone and make a call. Worst of all we can get stuck in a funk without our friends and colleagues noticing and asking how we are or just being around in a better mood to lift our spirits by osmosis. This is one of the hardest things we are likely to face and we must draw on all the resources we have available to help ourselves get thorough it together. Whilst we are physically distanced it's important to be socially connected.
I've never before spent quite so much time staring at my own face (or indeed quite so little time wearing no make- up!) on video calls and it is not the same as personal interaction. I know from my own personal circadian rhythms that my energy levels in the mornings are lower than the afternoons and evenings, but that meetings in person energise me - unfortunately I don't get the same energy boost from a video call and in fact find these can be more energy draining. However, it's not about beating myself up for feeling this way as we aren't comparing the same things here, it's about working out how to operate more effectively in this strange world. It's about trying something different and working out what is best for you. Here are a few ideas about what has helped me with work.
- As tempting as it is to stumble from bed, into your clothes and in front of the laptop, try and go outside, even if for a few seconds so that you punctuate the start of your day with some natural light and fresh air.
- Every hour get up and walk away from the screen - usually you'd make a coffee, chat to a colleague, meet a candidate or client or at least stare into the distance - avoid eye strain and general stress. As a plus you can put the dishwasher on, or stroke your pet!
- Try to plan your day so you aren't bouncing from video call to video call - it's exhausting, try and plan some activities in that boost your energy levels.
- Have a decent lunch - again eating outside, getting active or at least getting daylight will help keep your energy levels up.
- Don't let work bleed too much into your evening - if you have something good happening, don't feel guilty about doing a bit of extra work on it, but if your day hasn't been going as well as you'd hoped don't drag it out feeling more and more frustrated. Finish your day, plan some easier calls for first thing and get a good night of sleep.
- If you have something more admin focussed and are finding it hard to concentrate, listen to some music, I find that it "switches on" different parts of my brain.
- Importantly talk to people. Usually after that rude or grumpy client call you'd turn to a colleague have a moan and crack on, but instead we can only grumble to the cat who quite frankly probably isn't that bothered! Don't bottle it up, try and talk regularly to colleagues and your manager about the good and the bad and help support colleagues if you think they are having a tough time.
- And finally - how do you measure success? This is a tough one as ultimately my job is still to place candidates, even if I have far fewer jobs to work on, I still need to create revenue. I've been doing my job long enough to know what a good day of work looks like and how it feels so I'm trying not to be too arbitrary around numbers and just putting in a good day of work and reflecting on what the positives have been - a positive call with a new contact, a hint of a new job that might come live - breaking down all of the component parts and doing them as well as I can. By controlling what I can, when things do improve, I'll be ready to make the most of the situation.
I don't have all the answers, but I do know that whilst we are physically separated, it's more important than ever to share what we are finding hard, what we have found helps and showing each other we are not all alone.
It's Mental health awareness weak and the theme is kindness so try your best to remember to be kind to yourself and others.
