Isolation Journal 51

Alan had a day off today to study and I was also off, but I did have a call at 11am, so we woke up quite late at 9.30am and snoozed for a bit and had around 7 hours of sleep.  I started reading a book at last that my neighbour Kirsty leant me about 4 months ago Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

I got up and let the cats out as I'd messed up the app and then got dressed and Alan brought me a coffee.  After the call I ended up getting into some work and then finishing off a few bits and came down and remembered I wanted to chase my estate agents for my flat, I left a message and by the end of the day I still hadn't heard back.  I think I might have to bite the bullet and actually change agents.  Qubit brought in a tiny shrew that escaped and managed to get under the skirting board in the kitchen and I tried to get it out, first I used a cheese cutter, but it squeaked so I used some straws and I hope it survived when I'd let it go outside.

I made some lunch after another coffee when I realised I'd not had anything for breakfast and I made some noodles cooked in miso soup, some salad with gem lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and some dry fried courgette as well as some prosciuttio ham to finish it up before it went bad.  I listended to PMQs as I was cooking and heard some ridiculous comments from BoJo comparing Keir Starmer having "more briefs than Calvin Klein".

I then drove over to Hayley's as she'd found some pallet collars that needed a new home and we figured we could use them in the garden to make some raised beds.  She had said she had a window only 2 - 3pm and I arrived about ten past 2pm after driving into Leeds properly for the first time since the 13th March and chatting to my Mum on the way.  

We ended up chatting for about 4 hours remaining distanced at all time and I had a lapsang souchon tea and I had debated going on a recce of the St Aidan's 10K, but I was feeling tired and I'd taken paracetamol for a headache earlier (I think a tiredness headache) and so then I drove home again about 6.30pm and Alan was cooking tea.  He made the Hello Fresh Lamb pilauf which was really nice and then we watched Spooks.  Alan also made a Knob Creek and Ginger.

I ordered a load of food including a 5 litre container of olive oil from Deli Fresh and after much debating, ordered a Garmin 945 as the heart rate monitor strap for mine had broken and would cost around £100 to replace and I'd already replaced it once as well as the strap several times, I will maybe sell or auction and donate to charity for my old one.  

Isolation Journal 50

So 50 days in lockdown and journaling about it.  It's been interesting blogging again after not doing a daily blog since early 2000s.  I managed to read the last bit of Where the Crawdads Sing and it was great, I'm not always satisfied by the endings, but It was really interesting and thought provoking.

I was quite slow starting this morning, I find Tuesdays way harder than Mondays at the moment and am quite often lacking in concentration.  I had greek yoghurt, raspberries from the garden and some granola and 2 coffees for breakfast.  I have had a TikTok song stuck in my head for days - I really shouldn't look at these things at night, I found the "original" song which is crude and rude and to the soundtrack of Doop...you can listen here, but it's rude and crude and I warned you...and it's still stuck in my head!

I managed to upload some CVs and had a few teams calls and ended up being really late for eating any lunch until 2pm and so I had a lettuce and cucumber salad and a jacket potato with butter and marmite.  

I then had a call from my friend Hannah who needed some help, she had to go to a visit to a school with her youngest son, but her husband was away sorting funeral arrangements for his mum and wasn't allowed to take her oldest into the school, so I met them at 4pm and went for a walk whilst they had the meeting.  I took a couple of hours back from work, but I logged on when I got home and managed to get 4 candidates uploaded for a job.  I also had a quick chat to my Mum driving over to my friend and then felt bad as I didn't speak to my Dad on the way back that I'd said I would.

Alan had a migraine all day and so felt poorly and spent a lot of time napping on the sofa and in the bed with Maya who did a better job of looking after him than I did.  I cooked dinner at 6.30pm and made a pork ragu Hello Fresh, but Alan wasn't hungry.  I then ate dinner and signed on for my Zoom #runandtalk and caught up with Paul and Ben for an hour and then I logged off and check in on Alan and made him a cup of tea and went out for a run.  I ran about 5.6K and wasn't fast and encountered the reason that one of the nearby roads is closed.  I had a rocket lolly when I got in and ran and had a bath with a bathbomb from my birthday.  I then had another orange juice lolly and ran a bath for Alan and he watched some aircrash investigation.  I then shopped for some fabric for my neighbour to make some masks for Hannah's children with Harry Potter Fabric, but I accidentally ordered it for delivery to my office, I messaged them and hopefully they'll send it here instead!

I also ordered some interesting cat fabric and watched some more catfish.  My Boots order arrived today and also the coffee I'd ordered from Bottega Millanese.

Isolation Journal 45

Today was a day off that I'd taken for holiday, using up one of the two days when we came back early from honeymoon.

I had set an alarm for 9.30am, but of course Qubit woke me up again killing a bird, this time it was definitely dead, but I did put it in a box to be sure, although he also managed to get in the box and get it out!

I got up just before 10am and made some cornflakes and some coffee and logged on to return the call of a client who wanted to catch up with me yesterday and she wants me to help with a senior role, so it was a useful call to return.  I helped Rachel with a spreadsheet query and then I made a quick coffee and dialled into my Arvon Masterclass with Jay Griffiths it was more of a lecture than a participation class like the last one and I am not as familiar with Jay Griffiths, but she's very into nature and is a firm supporter of Extinction Rebellion.  

Her principals of writing were to write and make notes on a small notebook that she takes everywhere, read for feeding the mind, research for a topic you either know lots or nothing about, a blank page to play on and a bin for editing.

We did a couple of exercises that were useful like writing the blurb for a book we are writing to think about what we are aiming for and also writing about something from nature and not mentioning who you are, but how you perceive the world.  Jay also explained about scene and narrative.  I wrote a story about a bumblebee that Alan actually enjoyed - I think it's the first thing I've written that he liked.  I also wrote out a few ideas for a book of flash fiction I'm writing with Lauren and reminded myself of some flash fictions that I want to get written.

I then made orzotto with some vegetable that was on the turn - aubergine, courgette, mushrooms and spring onion with chorizo, garlic and mossarella.  I was going to take Gem's little one for another walk, but it was really wet and she'd not been down for her usual nap.

I then did a bit of work and then went for a run at around 4pm, I'd hoped to do around 10K, but I was feeling really lethargic so I ended up doing 9K and it was muddy and wet so I came in and had a quick shower (even though Alan was going to get me to help him with the aerial).  I listened to the High Low podcast earlier and for my run I listened How to Stop Time I also prepped for the guide meeting and made Hello Fresh for tea - pork with potato and cavola nero mash and apple sauce glaze.  

I brought the laptop into the kitchen for guides and we made mug cakes which was quite quick and successful and delicious even if mine did slightly explode, we played a few games and voted on what Skills Builder they want to do next term.  It was really lovely and the parents posted lots of positive feedback on our online meetings so it's good to know that we are still doing things right for them.  We're doing the escape room next week as their end of term "trip" and hopefully will do a virtual camp as well.

I then watched a load of Spooks with Alan and chatted on whatsapp to my friend Alison who I've not seen since I visited my parents in February.  I really miss the idea that I can see people and not feel nervous - hopefully I'll start to feel more comfortable soon.  I also ordered some flowers for my friend Kate as it's her birthday next week.

Isolation Journal 44

Today was my day off...in theory...I knew I had a call and I had a few other things to do, I'm so busy at the moment and it's feeling hard to switch off.  I got woken up by Qubit making his "I've caught a creature" noise and so I went down and found him with a dead bird.  I put the bird in a plastic bag and by the front door and went back to bed.  I then heard him rustling around the milk bottles by the front door, so went down again and moved Alan's bike so that I could shut the door to the hall.  Maya then came upstairs and was sick twice next to the bed onto the beige carpet that we definitely wouldn't have chosen if we had carpeted it!

I stayed in bed mooching around for a bit watching videos and read a bit of Where the Crawdads Sing (I'm way behind in my reading schedule for my Uni of Leeds Alumni bookclub) and Alan brought me a coffe and then I got dressed and went down to make breakfast at around 11am and I made scrambled eggs on toast for brunch and listened to The Archers and the High Low podcast.  I did some work and prepped for a call that I had at 2pm with a client.  We heard a noise and Alan thought there was some post, he said "Lucy did you just leave that bird out?" and the little sparrow I thought that Qubit had killed was still alive, I'd put it in a bag and it had pooed into the bag, but fortunately managed to peck it's way out and Alan opened the front door and it flew away.  I weirdly felt more sad that I nearly killed it by accident and it survived than potentially if it was just dead.  At least he got to fly away.

We watched PMQs and it was mostly Bojo chanting 3 word slogans "build build, build" and "jobs, jobs, jobs" it's frustrating.  I wish they would be kinder and more strategic with their solutions.  It was later announced that if you go and eat out you'll get 50% up to £10 off a meal Monday to Wednesday.  I love eating out and I feel really conflicted as I want to do everything I can to support good restaurants, pubs and even good chain restaurants, but I am worried that this is too soon to be piling back into public spaces.  

I had my client call at 2pm and it went well, and I managed to do some work on the role that I'd picked up which was positive.  I then ate some left over orzotto from Saturday for a late lunch at walked to my friend Gemma's house to take her 1 year old out for a walk in the buggy.  Gem is finding balancing her return from mat leave in lockdown really hard as her husband's role is really busy and her little one is lively.  I've been meaning to help out for ages, but this was probably the first time it felt safe and within the guidelines to do so.  I took little one in the buggy for a walk and santised my hands and Gem put her in so I didn't have to touch her and she was in front of me all the time other than when I'd stop and check in from a safe distance.  We walked a good 5K together and I realised that my watch wasn't registering my steps on the buggy!  She seemed happy with me, no tears, she pulled her socks off and kicked her legs and fortunately the weather held and I've said that I'd take her out again tomorrow.

I got in and faffed around a bit more doing some work as I had interviews to arrange and I messaged a lot of people about the job.  

It was my friend Han's birthday today and she got the art equipment that I'd sent her from The Works and she did 2 drawings - I said it was a DIY birthday card.  I hope that she's had a good day.

Alan kindly cooked tea which was delicious a Hello Fresh recipe of pulled chicken burgers wtih salad and chips (he added liquid smoke which made it delicious) and I didn't run and I felt bad about not going for a run, but I'm very tired - so tomorrow I'll go twice as far.  We watched some Spooks which is really great!  I also booked my online course for tomorrow at Arvon. Alan then went up to bed so I watched some more Catfish.

Isolation Journal 43

A disjointed waking up today, I took ages to fall asleep and woke Alan up making odd noises that I think was met trying to speak in a dream and consequently I took ages to wake up again.  Qubit brought in a bird and woke me up at 7am, I managed to take it off him and move it so he couldn't put feathers everywhere, sadly it was already dead.

I dialled into my call and caught up with Katie and Rachel and then had a busy morning and finally got breakfast around 10am (I had yoghurt, raspberries and granola) and had 2 coffees.  I had a quick temp meeting and helped Rachel to write a proposal for a confidential client brief.

At lunch I was feeling a bit like I had cabin fever from being in all day yesterday so I suggested that we went out for a walk and so Alan and I walked along the muddy country lane near us and it spitted a bit with rain.  I took a few pictures with my Inaturalist app and  we probably walked for around 25 mins and then I made a ploughmans lunch when I got back which had granny smith, raddicchio, wensleydale, ham from Friday night, Serrano ham, a slice of homemade bread and butter, English mustard, 3 cherry tomatoes, chutney and I had some beetroot.  Sadly the iceberg lettuce was actual ice as it had been pushed to the back of the fridge so I couldn't use it.

I then went upstairs and had a very busy afternoon as I had a new role come in and picked up a role for Katie.  Frustratingly the briefing call for the new role is tomorrow at 2pm...on my day off so I need to login.  I do feel that the past 2 days have been really productive for me and I am on top of my emails much better now which clears my head.  We also had a training call on our new system which I'm really excited about and Maya kept coming on camera during the training call.

It should have been #runandtalk tonight, but I hadn't remember and no one else seemed to either so I scheduled it for next week.  

Again I felt that a run would be a good idea for me and Alan so I managed to convince him it was a good idea and we left the house at 7pm and did a 5K - he was aiming for sub 30 mins and we managed it which was pleasing.  Whilst he was in the bath I managed to fix the Garmin scales so they upload your weight details directly to the garmin app - Alan was pleased with me for not pestering him about it.  I also finished cooking tea whilst he was in the bath and managed to smash a jar of biscoff when it fell out of the cupboard, it wasn't as full as I'd expected at least.  We had Hello Fresh beef stirfry for tea and Alan had done the prep.

I managed to persuade him to use Easyfundraising to make a purchase this evening so I'm hoping we'll get some more cashback for guides that way as we aren't charging any subs at the moment.

We watched some Spaced and then he went to call his Mum and I did some emails for work and watched Catfish.  I also had a shower and got "stuck" in the bath, even without it filled up to be a bath - it happens, I can spend over an hour messing around on my phone if I'm not careful.  I also put a load of washing on and cleaned the kitchen whilst listening tot the Archers on the BBC Sounds app.

Tomorrow is my day off and for the first time I have no call with friends scheduled for 5pm and no Zumba at 7pm, so I have one work call at 2pm, but for the rest of the time I can read or do creative writing or run!

Isolation Journal 31

Alan really didn't sleep well last night, I could tell by the way that he was holding his breath as he was sleeping, I'm not sure why he does this, but I know if he's doing it, he's not had a good night of sleep.  I got the milk and orange juice in.

I had another tasty breakfast of yoghurt, granola, apple and homegrown raspberries and blackcurrants and today was a 3 coffee day with 2 in the morning and one at 3.30pm.

We had a briefing call from our MD today and he had some slides on it and it occurred to me that all the way through the daily briefing they kept saying "next slide please" but never actually had the ability to click a button, seems quite inefficient.

I put a load of washing on, hung it out and then put the dry washing away.

We had another Delifresh order arrive at 12.09pm, the order was emailed to say it would be 12.07pm, I'm amazed they can get it so close!  I unpacked everything - love how it's plastic free with just the odd thing in a paper bag.  Everything was a bit covered in condensation as it was so muggy today.

Alan made a tasty lunch from some of the order - a gnocchi, tomato and pepper pasta bake with two types of cheese - it was delicious.  I then had a busy afternoon at work with a candidate interview on Zoom and a client meeting on teams where I picked up a lot of new jobs and had 2 interview requests to arrange for Monday.  I then had a further 4 interview requests for Thursday and Friday!  i also was on a mission to sort out my emails and got them down from nearly 400 to less than 200, If I get on top of them I feel more focussed and I make more placements.  

I had an amusing scenario where I was talking to a client discussing the weather as usual chitchat and mentioned how hot it was, she mentioned that it was thundering where she was (around 8 miles away) and then 2 minutes later I heard it, the rain she had then followed 2 minutes after!  I remembered as I was on the phone to one of the candidates and had to climb the ladder in the bedroom to shut the skylight and got a facefull of rain.

I tuned in to my friend Lauren's friend Lorraine who does an Instagram live of cocktails and comedy and sorted my emails until 8.15pm.  I had though Alan was asleep, but he'd had a bit of a snooze and was watching TV, I offered to sort dinner and went down to the local pub The Queen of t'owd Thatch or the Thack for short as they had reopened yesterday after being closed for a bit to work out what they wanted to do with all the challenges of being a pub at the moment.  They had arranged a fish and chips Friday takeaway, usually it's all preordering, but they had suggested in Facebook that there was enough left to just turn up so I went and got two portions of fish and chips with garden peas, curry sauce and a bottle of prosecco.  I also reminded Annie one of the owners that I owed her £2 for some mashed potato I'd got back in April to go with Alan's birthday meal.  I wore my facemask as I got there inside as I wanted to make sure that they were all safe.  They are finding it hard to work out how to reopen as they have so many pinch points in the pub layout as a cosy little building, they were quieter yesterdy than they'd hoped which makes me sad as I'm really keen to keep this good quality, friendly and local business going through this very difficult period.

We ate our tea outside on the picnic chairs as our usual bench was soaking wet and we watched 2 of the neighbours (Kirsty and Chris) looking at where to put a fountain they'd bought and chatted to one of the other neighbours (Becci)  about Donald Trump and Greek mythology and we drank the prosecco and chatted until it was getting dark and there was lighting in the distance, we finally wen tinside at 10.30pm and I had an ice lolly and cleaned the kitchen whilst listing to "What Alice Forgot".

Last night I started reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens for the Uni of Leeds Alumni bookclub that I've joined.  I might try and read some more tonight if I'm not too tired, I'm so pleased to be actually reading books again.

Isolation Journal 29

Another "not" day off for me today.  Alan got up as normal and logged on for work at 9am, I faffed around on social media before getting out of bed around 10.15am and made myself yoghurt, granny smith, granola and home grown raspberries.  Only one coffee today.

I got straight into my run kit as I wanted to get a run over and done with and I put on a load of washing and took out the recycling and chatted to the gardener who mows our lawn for us.

I had planned to run for about an hour, but it was about 28 degrees so after a fairly fast 5km I decided to head back as it was just too warm and did just over 4 miles!  I listened to more of What Alice Forgot which is such a good audio book! I had an ice lolly when I got back and felt a bit light headed so sat down for a bit.  I was due to take little Alex (not so little anymore) out for a walk, but he had heatrash so wasn't heading out, so I had a long bath and then headed downstairs and made a salad with sriarcha mayo dressing and a couple of small potatoes with cheese, butter and marmite. I had another ice lolly.  Some herb plants that I'd ordered arrived and I planted out some mint, coriander, parsley, chives and nearly pulled up some seedlings that I then realised had grown from a tomato I planted 3 months back, so I replanted them!

I did a bit of work email stuff and Alan suggested we head out on the bikes and so I got my bike out and didn't get into biking gear, just the shorts and t-shirt that I already had on.  We cycled to post a parcel and then went to Fairburn Ings via Lumby and locked up our bikes and went for a walk and did some more mapping using the inaturist app.  We then cycled back via Ledsham just under 10 miles in total, I was surprised to get some cycling strava segments not clipped in or in proper cycling gear.

I've also been trying to sort out re-letting the studio flat that I own in the centre of Leeds, I'm not sure the agent I've been with since I bought it in 2017 are being very proactive so I'm considering whether I change agents.  It feels wrong to have it vacant, I wouldn't mind reducing the price especially if it could help a key worker.

We chatted with our nextdoor neighbour and I cleared up some feathers from a bird that the cats had clearly brought in.  Alan then made some chicken Laksa for tea and we ate outside and watched Chris from number 5 on his sit on mower cut the grass and Alan watered the plants and the lawn for us and Denise at number 4.  I had a Gentleman Jack and Ginger and we had ice cream and cream for dessert.  I then had a rose wine with some ice and came inside to watch some Catfish and plan my guide meeting for tomorrow as well as write a session plan for run club.

Isolation Journal 26

Alan woke me up at around 9am today as he'd booked a Tesco delivery (amazingly we booked a slot for early this morning yesterday, we were surprised, we didn't even need to do click and collect)

I felt better getting up at a reasonable time, yesterday I felt like I really wasted the day.  We had peacan plaits and coffee for breakfast and watched a bit of Scrubs and Best of Big Brother.  I'd planned to take my friend's son Alex for a walk, but she'd not put two and two together that it was father's day and so they headed off to the coast, which I totally understood because as a chef her husband is usually working.  I'll hopefully head over on Wednesday instead.

I mopped the house and hoovered upstairs to tick off another post it note I'd put together.  

Alan made bread and burgers and cooked them on the barbecue outside along with some artichokes from the garden cooked with garlic and rosemary and also I dug out some corn on the cobs that we'd had for ages.  As he cooked I sorted out some compost from the compost heap as I'd put in some wool lining from the bags we get in Hello Fresh as they say compostable, but it does take a lot longer than everything else!  I also planted out two of the lavendar plants at the back next to the wall and one at the front.  I hope they grow well.  Alan also picked me some raspberries for me and I'll have them for breakfast tomorrow.

After lunch I spent some time sorting some emails and working out how I was tracking on my 20 things in 2020 goals.  I then ordered some more facemasks as I had an idea that I wanted some with bees on them and I found one supplier on Etsy who use fabric with puffins and bumblebees on and donates £2 per mask to a children's centre in West Yorkshire - perfect!  I also listened to a panel discussion on Hay Player from 2018 with Candice Brathwaite and a few others about motherhood.  I had one of the cookies that Alan got from Tescos.

I gave my Dad a call for fathers day and had a good chat, it's hard not knowing when I might see my parents again, I don't tend to visit and they don't tend to come up all that regularly, but not knowing and feeling restricted does make it seem a lot harder.

I then made some dinner an Aubergine Curry a Hello Fresh recipe - it was delicious! And we watched the IT Crowd and I did a bit of work for an urgent role that I need to shortlist for and my anxiety about not finding the right candidate/missing candidate was calmed a little bit as I went through 215 candidates and found very few that I had perhaps not already covered.  I wish I'd been able to do this all on Friday or even yesterday as it would have made my weekend less anxiety ridden.

I then went out for a run at about 9.30pm - I am sad that from now the nights will start drawing in earlier as I love having the scope to run in the light until past 10pm at this time in the year.  I was feeling a bit nervous as it was a bit dark and also a woman was attacked about 3 miles away in Fairburn earlier this week so I did hill reps and listened to What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty that I'd started listening to yesterday and also listened to during cooking - it's great!  I ran just over 4 miles in about 36 minutes and added it to my (not) parkrun times weirdly the same best time this week of 26.39 so I have something to work towards next week.

I had a shower in the bath and then came back to finish off my blogging updates and also cleaned the kitchen and enjoyed some Haagen Daas Praline and Cream and debated with Alan how to say Praline.  I also watched a bit more Big Brother and Alan went to bed after a bath with a bit of a cough and I made him a honey and lemon and he's going to sleep in the other room.  I hope he feels better by tomorrow morning.

Isolation Journal 25

It was fairly late by the time I got into bed last night, probably around 2am, but I didn't expect my first open eyed "this is a new day" realisation to be at 11.50am!  I'd missed the chance of logging into the parkrun zoom call and it was lunchtime.

I made some black pudding sausages and scrambled eggs with sriracha for brunch (or lunch!) and we watched some Scrubs.

I'd planned a few things I wanted to do over the weekend on my post it notes and I did a few of them like tidying the lounge, dining room and kitchen and I managed to hoover a bit later, but still need to mop the floors down.  Alan cleaned the bathroom and after nearly 14 weeks of black marks post lush bathbomb we have a white bath again!

At 4pm I realised that it was nearly time for my 5th dance class with Eliza, so I watched Catfish and ate leftover curry from last night (not the best way to prepare for a dance class) before the class at 5pm.  I was awarded star of the week and we learned that our dance teacher had interviewed and recruited her sister to do all the admin for her (her mum hoped writing invoices and posters would encourage her in her writing) with a payment of not playing loud music at least 2 times a week.  I do enjoy the sense of entrepeneurship she has demonstrated.

My friend Gem came around to get me to sign a form for the guides for gift aid and it was nice to see for a catch up with her daughter and husband Chris, I also saw both the neighbours from number 2 and number 5 as well.  

Alan went for a run and then after he'd returned told me that he thought that I should cut his hair for him.   Last time was quite stressful, but I'd watched a video from Brad Mondo which seemed to have a better method and so I shared it with Alan and we watched it and used it to cut his hair, again he put it live on Facebook, but I'm more pleased with the end results even if it took 40 mins!

I then took my opportunity to go for a run and did 6.5K in 35 mins and watched the sunset.  Felt a bit sluggish, but was very pleased to be out.  Dinner was ready when I got through the door and so I had a pork stir fry with rice from Hello Fresh and we opened a bottle of Cava and watched Hidden Figures as my friend Mark mentioned it earlier.  It was a really good film, although my attention span for films is very challenging at the moment  

I'm now running a bath and I've very naughtily opened a bag of Cadburys treatsize chocs that I ended up getting for free as they were incorrected sold as weighing more than the catalog, but 8 weeks later they've not asked me to return them, but I have to say after very little chocolate in the past 3 months, I'm eating it, but with less joy than I thought I'd experience.

Isolation Journal 23

We had a bit of a rubbish night of sleep as the next door neighbour's had an alarm go off around 1am so we had about 20 mins of trying to check they were ok, we wondered if it was a CO alarm and tried to wake them to make sure they were ok.  They were, but we texted, and then called and then we finally got a text back after wandering around outside for a bit.  The main thing is that they were ok!

This moring I was a bit groggy, but had coffee and banana bread and my first MS teams meeting and then moved onto another MS Teams meeting where I was sharing some knowledge around how to use a particular spreadsheet.  I had a busy day for the rest of the day, but it went by in a bit of a blur, but I did manage to get through all of my job applications that are hugely up compared to previous months.  We also recorded another update video and I did some research into things that have happened in light of Covid that we might see as positive and want to keep such as the fact that working from home as a more common scenario would mean that people with mobility issues are better placed to access some roles that previously might be solely office based and that if offices are refurbished they may install automatic doors to limit touch points and that would also improve accessiblity for people.

I had a pilates class at 12pm which was challenging, but good and as the class started the guys who were coming to look at our roof as we'd had a leak last week arrived about 10 minutes in, so Alan had a chat with them and they started work on the roof and seem to have fixed it for us.  I roasted the leftover chicken thighs from earlier in the week and made a sriracha mayo dressing with some grated carrot, iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes and cucumber and mixed it together, I was really pleased with how tasty it was.  Today was a 3 coffee day.

I snacked on a bit of banana bread and some hot cross buns a bit later and had a delivery which was some of the plants I'd ordered from Gardening Direct 3 lovely lavender plants that smell lovely.  I need to work out where to plant them.

I finished work and faffed around on the internet for a bit and realised it was time for guides.  Gem had run the meeting and we had a bit of a scavenger hunt and then another activity for our UMAs and presented some badges.

Alan was doing a lecture online and then cooked tea which was ready as guides finished.  We watched some more Dirk Gentley and I had a glass of malbec and had a pasta bologanase for dinner.

I suggested a walk with Alan to get us out of the house and actually despite all the rain it was a lovely fresh evening with loads of amazing woodland smells.  We walked up to the bench that we can see from our house and that looks down to where we live and chatted about lots of things.  We wondered how in such a short space of time we went from "hug and hoody" to where we are now politically.  We walked back home and it was quiet and there was birdsong.

Isolation Journal 18

I woke up initially with Maya nudging me and trying to get me to wake up and feed her, somehow I managed to get back to sleep and ended up waking up at 10.45am.  I did some morning pages for 5 minutes Alan asked "What are you doing?" and I tried to explain I was trying to write for 5 minutes without distractions...

He got up and went down to make breakfast and had to deal with another rabbit casulty that Qubit had caught, eaten and then been sick.  Luckily not on the carpet this time.  

Alan made me a coffee and crumpets with scrambled eggs and black pudding (I added some marmite to the crumpets and some sriracha to the eggs).

We watched some Scrubs and I messed around on the laptop for a bit.  I then put a couple of episodes of Catfish on.  Last night I was organised enough to order some birthday presents for my niece and some plants for the garden (lavendar, herbs and some verbena).

I made some crumpets (mine with marmite) and cheese, ham and a granny smith in chunks for a late lunch and then tidied up a bit ready for the dance class which was fun!  After 5 I apparently get a badge!

I then tidied up the kitchen, cleaned the litter tray, took out the compost and all the recycling and had a chat with my neighbour Kirsty.  She'd been to the garden centre and bought lots of plants and moved the stones out of the old overgrown rockery - it made me think that I really should do more with the garden.

I went back inside and mopped and cleaned the kitchen floor as well as attempting to make the floor near the litter tray in the dining room not smell of cat wee, it seems to be an impossible battle.

Reflecting on the news is interesting, the BLM march called off and lots of "protestors" protecting statues by fighting with the police and making nazi salutes.  It's really clear how wrong they are, I hope that these people themselves can have a realisation of this and that we can continue to build a better and more just world for everyone.

The Virgin rep from Barbados called me to process the refund for the catamaran trip that we didn't get a chance to go on because we had to cut our honeymoon short.  She was lovely and helpful and said that she hoped we could return.  I hope we can too as we really enjoyed our break, but being overly aware of everything unfolding pre lock down did make it stressful.

Alan and I then went out for a walk at around 8pm and the sun was slowly starting to set.  I managed to grab a last bunch of wild garlic and we wandered around the puddly and muddy Whin Lane before walking a bit of Westfield Lane getting beeped at by an overly aggressive car (we'd moved out of the way and off the road!) and we saw some root vegetable crops and tried to work out what they were.  

We bumped into the neighbours Chris and Kirsty who had just got a Chinese and so we decided to order our own - I got hot and sour soup (which I eat with chips poured in), prawn toast, dumplings, crispy chicken in peking sauce, singapore noodles and mixed vegetables and a bit of Alan's King Prawn and ginger sauce.  I also had a glass of malbec.

We watched more Scrubs and I resolved that tomorrow will hopefully be a bit more productive...Although I did order 600g giant tubs of Marmite for both my Mum and Me as there is a pending Marmite shortage...

Isolation Journal 13

I realised this evening when out for a run that it's only 2 weeks since the whole Dominic Cummings story broke and it feels like a lot of "news" has happened since that time which is strange as we're still all fairly locked down.  Today I felt fairly low energy, quite low and just wasn't sure what to do with myself really as I didn't feel very productive.  

Again it was a bit of a late rise for us both as I went to bed before Alan did and read some of my book - Uncommon Types by Tom Hanks - it's an attempt to get my brain back into reading and it's working slowly.  My concentration span is terrible these days.  We probably didn't get to sleep until around 3.30am again and so we didn't really get up until about 11am.

I made the same breakfast again and we had home baked bread toast (mine with marmite) and then avocado, scrambled egg and sriacha sauce and we watched some TV the IT Crowd and some more Catfish.  

I dug out my old creative writing from when I was about 20 and doing a module at Uni on my BA English Language and Literature.  It was run by the brother of Nigel Williams, but I can't remember his name!  Nigel Williams lived in Wimbledon and was a reasonably successful novelist and I went to several house parties that his son Jack had when I was about 16 - they were great parties.  I even read one of his books and told his Dad when he came into the kitchen during one of the parties to get a drink.  It's irritating me that I can't remember what his name was maybe John Williams?  As I read through it, particularly the bits from when I was mid 20s I realised just how odd the antidepressants I was on made me behave (especially cipralex and prozac).  I'd written down the highlights of some of my dreams and I know everyone's dreams are odd, but wow these were so strange.  Maybe they'll feed into some writing now that I have the distance and experience from that time in my life to process it all.  It's weird to consider that this is the month that I stopped taking antidepressants 7 years ago, but that I was on them for 12 years of my life.

I did a load of washing and hung it out and put away the dry washing that was on the rack.

I investigated some online writing retreats and listened to the intro of one.  I then went and read upstairs as Alan was playing around with the internet and it kept cutting out.  I set off some dough in the breadmaker.

I came downstairs and watched some more Catfish after Alan had showed me how to use the Apple TV that arrived this afternoon.

The dough finished in the breadmaker and so I made 3 pizzas with tomato puree topped with spring onion and red pepper that Alan prepped for me and then some mozzarella and serrano ham and I also used up some of the roasted veg left over from Friday night.

I let the pizza go down and both Alan and me gave each other neck rubs as we have both had consistent headaches for the last few days.  Maya came running in having caught another bird - again I feel awful about this.

I then got myself out for a run and did 6.1K in just over half an hour and it was cold and I wore the wrong shorts that are too small and short for me.

I had a bath and then we watched Hypothetical and I ate leftover rhubarb and apple crumble with cream.  

"Reader, I asked him" - how parkrun lead me to change my mind about wanting to get married again

On Saturday I got engaged to my partner Alan.  It was a really special occasion and I wanted to write about how it came to pass, how it went and how we both felt afterwards.

I have been married before. I was with my ex for nearly 12 years and married for around 4 years.  If I had been wiser and braver I might have made some different choices about that relationship, but it eventually ended when both of us were extremely unhappy and with very poor mental health.  

Having been in a relationship since I was 20, I found myself in 2013 as a newly single woman in her early 30s feeling   clueless about "dating".  I decided to do some research and I read some books about dating including "The Rules" by  Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider and "He's just not that into you" by Greg Behrendt.  They made me feel even less equipped to enter the world of "dating" not least the complicated world of "online dating".  In the most basic distillation of the advice I took from these books it was basically "as a woman never make the first move (don't even look at a man first!)" and that if someone isn't bothered, they're not bothered and don't waste your energy chasing it (which I guess does make some sense.)

In the following couple of years I went on quite a few dates that would probably serve as a humorous book if I were to write them all down from the guy who lied about his name, age (by 10 years) and having a job and then asked to borrow money from me through to the guy who started too go cold on me (He just clearly wasn't that into me!) and so when he explained why and told me it was because "he would have killed for a garden like mine and would never have let it turn into an overgrown nature reserve" I came to the realisation that online dating in particular is just a bit badly thought out and wasn't really going to find me the sort of person I wanted to be spending my life with.  

Compare online dating to online shopping - you have a list of criteria you are looking for say to book a holiday and you can search for all those elements and see what other people thought of a particular hotel and provider, there are reviews of the service to validate what you are buying.  You can make a considered purchase and worst case scenario - most of the time you can take it back for a refund or buy another one if the reality doesn't match up to expectations.   Not so with dating, the nearest you can get to a "review" is on the "My Single Friend" site which has friends recommend their "single friend" which is obviously slightly biased  You have to take a leap of faith and meet someone who you likely wouldn't bump into in real life.  This situation also affords them the opportunity to behave terribly with no consequences from the community around them.  

Then we come to the perception of infinite choice - if you think meeting a perfect match online is simply finding someone who ticks all of your "wish list" then you'll most likely be looking forever because for every "must like dogs" and "must look like Brad Pitt" you can tick off, you'll never have thought about the unique things that make us all human like "must have those cute tiny creases around their eyes when they smile so it looks like their eyes are twinkly" and those "must have big hands that annoyingly spill stuff everywhere when they cook"...but you don't mind because you love all of them (yes I'm talking about Alan!).  

In August 2015 I deleted all my dating apps because it wasn't good for my mental health to be continually comparing people on superficial qualities and it wasn't good for me to be constantly compared either.  I also read another dating book "Get the Guy" by Matthew Hussey and it gave me a slightly different perspective on things which was "don't obsess over trying to meet *the one* instead just enjoy meeting different new people.  People who can introduce you to other people and will allow you the chance to develop feelings more naturally over time rather than in a pressurised face to face over a coffee.  I also went to see a palm reader on a trip to India and whilst I didn't (and don't!) believe in the truth in what they say, he did something interesting and told me I would meet my next partner between 19/08/16 and 19/09/17 and so it made me think "why am I trying to force this, is it so bad if actually I stop putting pressure on myself and know I might not meet someone immediately?"

When I got back home after my trip, I went running with my friend from Hyde Park Harriers - Sam Scarlett who mentioned to me that she thought I would get on well with her friend Alan who she'd met at parkrun and I'm guessing had a similar conversation with him as shortly afterwards I had a Facebook friend request from him.  I accepted and when I was putting a shout out to try and find someone to keep me company on a 20 mile training run he offered instead to meet me after parkrun for around 15 miles as he was travelling to New York on the Sunday and wanted to get in his marathon training miles before the Yorkshire marathon.  We agreed to meet up and go for a run together after parkrun.

(I must confess at this point that I had actually seen Alan's profile on one of the online dating sites, but despite thinking he looked lovely, I had moved past it as I was so weary with online dating and also I think I was too old for his age criteria at that point!).

I am so glad that I got a second chance to meet Alan!  So thankful for parkrun!
We first met after a fast 5K parkrun at Woodhouse Moor parkrun.  parkrun has been life changing for me in many ways, I first started running back in 2004 when I entered a "Race for Life" event to raise money for Cancer Research and it was amazingly beneficial to both my mental and physical health.  I moved up to a 10K in 2007, a half marathon in 2008 and then a marathon in 2010, but I only discovered parkrun in 2014 after my friend Gemma invited me to her birthday parkrun.  About 6 months before I'd been mugged and my marathon training had ended up being solely on treadmills as I had no confidence to run outside by myself anymore.  I realised that this friendly place called parkrun (which was also free!) meant that at least I could run outside once a week and not feel scared.

Alan walked over to me at the finish after I'd had my barcode scanned and we will have both been sweaty on a very warm September morning.  We set off in my car to Eccup Reservoir and did a couple of laps chatting all the way around.  At one point I had to stop for a pit stop in a bush which is probably not a conventional thing to do on a first date and certainly against "The Rules"!  We called it a day after 12 miles as it was so warm and drove back to Alan's car and went our separate ways (despite me dropping many hints about going out for lunch!) After getting a shower I was really pleased to have a message from Alan inviting me to the cinema that evening and we watched "Legend" at the Everyman and ate pizza.  Alan even picked me up from my house and dropped me home afterwards which was lovely and we had our first kiss in my dining room in front of snuffly Marla cat.

Alan flew to New York the next day and we messaged and face timed a lot in the week he was away and had our second date at Kendall's on the day he arrived back to the UK.  Over the first few weeks we barely spent any time apart and visited Antwerp and the Yorkshire Dales together.  I knew that Alan must like me a bit when a day after his Yorkshire Marathon where he smashed 35 minutes off his PB he signed up to run the White Rose Ultramarathon with me (and Sam Scarlett) 2 weeks later.   On our first glamping trip to Swinton Bivouac the topic of marriage came up and I said that for me I didn't want to do it again as it wasn't that it felt like something that I needed to do and was very expensive.  Alan seemed disappointed and said that for that reason he'd not ask me as I'd made it clear I didn't want to be married again.  

3 1/2 years on and we are very happy living together in a house we bought together in December 2016 with two lovely cats and for all purposes live as if we are married.  So you might think - what changed? 

In March this year I saw one of my friends from my teenage years, Will, marry Sara. Sara had also been married before and I got the impression may have felt like me about doing it all over again, but seeing her and Will look so happy on their wedding day that was all about them, their relationship and how they wanted the day to be that it started me thinking "Am I just being stubborn?"  Sara even made a speech and made the point that it would encourage more women to be more equal in the marriage process and that got me thinking a bit more.  

As I was driving back home with Alan sat next to me, I realised I had changed my mind, whilst I didn't think getting married would make our relationship any different, being with Alan makes me feel safe and happy and I thought it would be lovely to celebrate this with our friends and family and also to give us both the chance to have a wedding and a marriage together.  It wasn't something I felt I "should" do, but it felt like I might regret not doing it if we didn't.   He had said he'd never ask me though and I thought to myself "what's holding me back from asking him?" and I realised that the only thing holding me back was that women don't generally ask men.  As a guide leader and ex-Women's Institute president, I'm also very keen at ensuring that as a woman we continue to move towards equality and that one area we are terribly unequal is in relationships and in particular proposing marriage, but with anything unless people are willing to stand up and be one of the first to do it, people won't feel confident to try too.  

I knew that if there was only one place that would be right to ask him, it had to be parkrun.  I was still driving back from the wedding and got so emotional thinking about it that tears were running down my face and Alan was trying to ask me "what's wrong?" and I couldn't really explain.

Alan is extremely good at guessing anything I'm up to try and surprise him, but it occurred to me that this year his birthday fell on parkrunday (known to others as Saturday).  By using his birthday as a decoy I could invite family and friends to come to parkrun with the excuse of "It's your birthday!" and then ask him if he wanted to get married.  I told him I was going to organise a special birthday parkrun "but it's only my 37th birthday, it's not a special birthday!?!" he said, but didn't seem to get too suspicious.

To make sure I wasn't going completely crazy, I sense checked my plans with my friend Hannah who thought if I wanted to do it and was happy and loved him then I should ask him and offered to come and help me on the day in any way needed.

I then looked at the volunteer rota and saw that it was Anne Akers the event director (who we know well) who was down to be the run director on the day of Woodhouse Moor parkrun where I first met Alan.  I contacted her directly as I wanted to keep it as secret as possible to avoid any chance of it slipping out before the day!  She was delighted with my idea and I promised to make sure that my plans wouldn't interfere with the normal business of parkrun.

I had a few ideas of how I could ask Alan.  I have seen stories where some people have proposed at the run briefing before the runners set off, but I know Alan is not always keen on being a big centre of attention and also would probably not want to actually run after such a life event!  Anne's husband Noel suggested I could reveal a message per lap of the 3 lap course, which I think would be great, but knowing how curious Alan is there would be another risk he'd not complete parkrun (and I couldn't be responsible for that!!)  In the end the idea that I settled on was to volunteer on "unscannables" which means I'd manually write down any unscannable barcodes at the end of the run.  I would task the scanners to mysteriously not scan Alan's barcode and then I'd have to write down his barcode and could ask the question.  Anne liked the idea and I was happy as it wouldn't have too big an audience, wouldn't interfere with normal parkrun business and would also be metres away from where I first met Alan.

I wanted to make the occasion as special as possible and also knowing how emotional and tearful the idea was making me, I came up with an idea to help me out on the day if nerves kicked in.  I planned to make a video with some of our memories of our time together like the strava track of our first parkrun and run together, a screenshot of the first messages we exchanged and some holiday and running photos.  At the end it would have some words written down about how I'd changed my mind about wanting to get married.  I first used the 1 Second Everyday app, but it was just too quick!  I didn't want the last few slides to not be readable (Hannah confirmed my fears!)  I then ran the 1 Second Everyday photo and video montage through another video editing app to slow it down, but it made the bits with speech sound weird.  I then remembered that I'd gone to the Apple store with my Guides last year and they'd made videos with music about what they enjoyed about being a Guide using the Clips app on the Iphone.  This was perfect as it allowed me to make text slides, add music and add speech bubbles to what the cats were thinking!

The video took me ages... my Iphone screentime report was huge for 3 weeks!  I also in-between ran Manchester Marathon and had a pretty terrible time running.  I had to walk the last 12K including running past somewhere playing "One day like this" by Elbow which made me burst into tears and felt like the perfect song to put the video to.  Finally I had a roughly 4 minute video that right at the end finished with slides telling him that I'd changed my mind about not wanting to get married again and ending with the word "so" leaving me the small matter to turn to Alan and ask him to marry me.

I was still really nervous about all my preparations - I'd asked Alan's brother Dom to come to his birthday parkrun and ideally wanted to tell him in person about my plans, but we'd not managed to meet up beforehand.  I messaged him to let him know and he said he'd be there with Alan's niece and nephew and he even brought Winston the dog with him on the day!  I said I was scared he wouldn't say yes, but he said he didn't think I needed to worry and thatwe were as "thick as thieves".  I also met Sam Scarlett who had introduced us in the first place and showed her the video and asked if she would be around on the day to run with Alan if needed - she was delighted and her reaction to the video was what I'd hoped for and gave me some confidence that it would land well with Alan - even though it ended up being about 4 minutes!

I'd also got my cousin Jenny to come on the day as well as Alan's colleague Danielle (who I didn't tell in advance as that would be a potentially tough secret to keep at work!)

I kept saying to Alan how excited I was for his birthday parkrun - I could hardly contain myself!  I think he was a bit baffled by it all, but didn't suspect anything other than perhaps a surprise picnic!  I'd ordered him a new parkrun wristband for his birthday as well as a leather bracelet with a silver engraved section with our two parkrun numbers and the date we met on it (although stupidly in my excitement I managed to put my birthday of the year we met by mistake - doh!!!)
The night before I'd bought some birthday tiffin for him and put the bottle of champagne I won a few years back in a bag and then struggled hard to fall asleep.  I woke up early to give him his main birthday present and make some hot cross buns, orange juice and coffee for breakfast and we made our way to parkrun.  The night before he said "I don't understand why you're volunteering" and I said it was because Hannah was coming and might need some help keeping an eye on energetic James!  Alan also kindly ran with Alex who is only 9 and so needed to be in arms reach of a responsible adult!

We arrived at parkrun and I carried over my bags of provisions and my cousins Christmas presents from my parents (yes I know we've just not managed to catch up for ages!).  "why are there cups in your bag?" asked Alan "My cousin is having a BBQ later and needs to borrow them" and he didn't ask anything further thankfully!

I grabbed my hi-vis vest and a clipboard and pen, said hello to lots of people who were wishing Alan a happy birthday.  Anne Akers cheered him up by pointing out that 37 is a prime number.  Hannah met us with a very excitable James and Alex and then we all walked over to the start.

It was such a beautiful morning, sunny with a completely blue sky and the runners set off on their run after Anne had given Alan a birthday shout out, I'd told the scanners I had some special instructions for them and when the run had started I told them what I'd got planned and showed them a photo of Alan so they knew not to scan his barcode when he got to the finish.
As we walked back to the finishing funnel I realised that Alan's brother Dom had arrived with Ada on his shoulders, Wren in the buggy and Winston on the lead and I spotted my cousin Jenny had arrived too.  After cheering the runners past 2 laps I took up my position at the end of the finish funnel with Hannah and James ready to take the clipboard from me when Alan arrived, writing down at least a page and half of unscannables in the process.

With the help of Danielle, Alan managed to pace Alex around to shave 10 minutes his parkrun pb finishing in just under 35 minutes and headed straight over to me bypassing the scanners because he could tell that Alex had an issue with his barcode.  I handed the clipboard to Hannah and said that I had a special video to play Alan "I'll watch it later, I need to get my barcode scanned first" he said, but I insisted and played him the video putting my arm around him as he lent over me and dripped sweat onto my head.  

The video played and James was keen to look too until his attention span flicked onto something else and Anne took up a position ready to snap a photo and a small audience gathered behind us as the video played.  It was hard to not comment on anything or hurry it along and as we watched it play on my phone my legs had started to shake with nerves.  The last few slides played and then I turned to Alan and quietly said "will you marry me" and he took my face in his hands with a tear in his eye (it wasn't just sweat!) and said "of course I'll marry you" and we had a kiss and a hug and turned around to an audience who said "Well?!?!" to which Alan declared "I said yes!" and everyone cheered and congratulated us.

We walked back over to the start to pick up our stuff and I opened up the bottle of champagne and shared it with people and Danielle shared her amazing baked goods of Easter Rocky Road, cheese straws and sausage rolls and we all had a great time chatting and smiled an awful lot.  I'd given Alan the bracelet and he had put it straight on and then after a few second glances, he realised I'd managed to mess up the date.  

After some time had passed and we'd drank some champagne, we walked over towards the parkrun cafe - Opposite and realised we should probably tell our parents about our news before it got out over Facebook!  I rang my Mum and Dad and told them and Alan Skyped his mum and they were all very pleased.  We walked across to get coffee and were glad we'd made the call then as we spotted the lovely photo that Anne had taken off us shared on the Woodhouse Moor parkrun facebook page and quickly got a lot of likes (It's a great photo - thanks Anne!)

We were slightly overwhelmed by all the well wishers and I've not yet managed to respond to all the lovely messages yet, but I will!  We'd arranged to go to our local pub, The Queen o' t' owd Thatch, for dinner anyway and were delighted that when we arrived my friend Lauren had bought us a bottle of fizz to go with our meal and also they decorated our plate with congratulations for our dessert.  

Both the  Yorkshire Evening Post and the BBC got in touch as a result of the response to the photo Anne had shared to Facebook and it seems that a lot of people enjoyed reading about our story and a few people commented on the posts "I wish this could happen to me!" or "I wish I could meet someone at parkrun!"  Both myself and Alan would definitely say - you can, but I think embracing the whole of parkrun will make it more likely.  Run, walk or jog parkrun and chat to people (or even just smile at people if you are shy) as you go around, volunteer and get to know the core team and importantly (one of the best bits!) go to the coffee shop and get to be a part of the wider parkrun community.  In the dating book that I liked..."Get the Guy", it said that if you want to meet *the one* don't just focus on meeting that *one* person, but instead focus on broadening your network and meeting lots of people, ideally doing something that you love (it doesn't have to be running!).  parkrun provided a great opportunity to not only improve my health and meet lots of lovely new friends, it ultimately introduced me to my future husband. parkrun has genuinely changed my life for the better in so many ways.  And now we are planning our wedding for September!


I love parkrun and parkrun helped me to find love. 

#loveparkrun