Isolation Journal 110

We woke up late and had a lazy morning in bed before getting up and watching the Film "Big Daddy" whilst eating takeaway from last night - I had pizza and the curly fries and I make Alan's leftover kebab meat into a wrap.  I made sure to feed Fudge and Smudge and Maya and Qubit first. 

Alan watched some Formula 1 stuff upstairs and then did some study, I mostly played Clash of Clans on my phone and then tidied up the kitchen, did 2 loads of washing and put the dry washing away, changed the sheets on the bed and then went and harvested the potatoes in the garden before taking the recycling out.  I ordered 3 pairs of tights from Snag Tights as they do look like they'll be more comfortable and at some point I'll need to wear tights again.  My boss had a negative covid test which is good news.

I then went for a run and didn't majorly push myself, but my VO2 Max is now up to 53 so it wasn't so bad, I'm now only 2.4 miles behind my yearly 1000 mile target.  

Over the course of the day I listened to the High Low and With Me Now podcast as well as a bit of The Wind Up Bird Chronicles.  Maya came running in proud of herself meowing like Qubit does.

I fed Fudge and Smudge again and then had a shower and Alan cooked hallomi and bulgar wheat Hello Fresh for tea, he's feeling quite down at the moment and I'm not sure how to help him out.   We watched "Coming to America" and then I read lots of my Kombucha book and decanted some to add strawberries to (we also had strawberries for dessert) and also some turmeric.  I added more sweet tea to the batch - I think this is right, the book is very complicated.  

Isolation Journal 109

I woke up fairly well at 8am and then got up and went to feed Fudge and Smudge, and Maya and Qubit and then I grabbed some cornflakes and coffee and logged on for work.  The milkman came a bit after 9am and Qubit managed to bring both a nearly dead mouse that he killed quickly and then a poor dead rabbit that Alan checked was definitely dead.  

I had a very busy day and got through a reasonable amount of work in the morning, I've got jobs to match, admin to do and clients to keep in up to date.  I'm still behind on emails and general organisation, but  I'm hoping I might be able to catch up over the weekend.

For lunch I had the dinner to lunch from Hello Fresh the night before and had a muller corner yoghurt in front of the computer. Maya lay next to the keyboard for most of the day.

The Delifresh order arrived about 30 mins than they'd said at 2.20pm and they'd delivered plain flour when I'm sure I'd ordered self raising flour.

I finally signed off at 7pm at work and discussed with Alan what he wanted to do for dinner and he wanted takeaway so I went out for a run for 30 mins and did just over 6K slower than the past couple of days as my left big toe joint is still hurting.

We ordered from Tokies and I had a Zeus Pizza with some curly fries and milkshake called "Hi honey I'm home" I had a very long bath and read some Facebook drama as the place where we got married had had a family staying and had complained at the end of their stay that there was a problem with the mattress and were aggressive to the manager and were getting all their friends to leave false negative reviews.  It's so sad as tackling things like that is not good for anyone.

We watched some Dave TV after Alan had finished watching Middlesborough lose to Watford one nil.

I went to finally book my Arvon course for the week off that I'd booked, but it's sold out...I'd just read 3 of the stories in the Lucy Hallett Hughes Fabulous booked and loved them and was keen to book, but now I am on the waiting list and I'm sad as I don't know whether to try and book something else, cancel my week off or just take the week and try and crack on with my own writing.  So frustrating.

Isolation Journal 107 & 108

 So busy at work I've not had a chance to really write so a summary - 

- yesterday got up and fed all the cats, cleaned up a lot of cat sick, breakfast of cornflakes and coffee and lunch was late and reheated chick pea patties, did rachels' handover after a late lunch reading Fabulous by Lucy Hallett-Hughes in the sunshine which was mythical and interesting.  Finished work at nearly 7pm and went for run - Alan did too before me and I managed to do 23.24 which is the fastest 5K i've done in years.  Watered our plants and the neighbours.  Had prawn and rice stir fry for dinner, did more work, can't find candidates for a charity finance role, feel rubbish.

- today similar less cat sick and lunch was made from a salad and a jacket potato, cheese and marmite and I felt terrible and like I can't do my job, my head hurts.  Arena flowers arrived and I arranged them and put them next to my computer and in the dining room.  Finished work at 7.30pm and went for a run, slower that yesterday and then I fed all the cats and cooked tea a dinner for lunch hello fresh recipe with chicken and bacon and talked to my parents who had received my parcel from the Works.  Watched Frankie Boyle and then did some more work.  

Hopefully tomorrow will feel less hopeless...

Isolation Journal 106

I got up at 8am and fed all the cats including a quite quiet Fudge and Smudge and then had some cornflakes and coffee and had a few bits and pieces to sort out and send CVs for a job (that I later found didn't arrive and I had to resend).

I ran a brief training session for Luke and Katie S on candidate exclusivity and then I worked on finding more candidates for a few jobs.

The Kombucha book that I'd ordered arrived and then for lunch we had some more rice and chickpea patties.

The day in general was reasonable productive as I confirmed the details of my placement and did some admin as well as joined in on a BD afternoon on the temp side and had a meeting with PP to discuss shared clients. Alan went to the dentist for more fillings at 2.20pm and came back a bit groggy.

I finished work around 6.30pm and Alan needed to drive his car for a bit of a run out and he googled some interesting places and we went to Skipwith Common and aimed to be back at 8pm for the Amazon delivery...only we realised when we were walking that I'd not completed the order, so it will be now arriving tomorrow morning instead!

We got home and Alan fed Fudge and Smudge and I made tea - Caprese Pasta by Hello Fresh.  We then ate in front of the TV and watched Dave with Katherine Ryan featured on a number of different programmes.

They announced this evening that they are going to be banning gatherings of more than 6 as of Monday, it's a good thing that I visited my parents when I did and that we planned guide meetings online only.  We were due to be going to a celebration before we had our wedding anniversary at North Shire, but I'm not sure that it will be able to go ahead.

I swapped a few messages with my brother, both my neighbours, my Mum and Gem from guides!

Me and my brother are worried in particular about my Dad as he seems to be very bored at the moment, we're not sure what to do, but hopefully we'll help him find a few more ideas.  

Isolation Journal 104

We woke up quite late around 10.30am and then debated what to do and considered going to Spurn Point, but as the weather looked a bit dodgy and my toe was still sore and Alan's back was bad.  My Covid test result arrived and was negative and I was feeling less poorly today and didn't have a sore throat.  

Alan made delicious apple pancakes and we watched Friends and then I went and fed Fudge and Smudge and did the recyling and took the rubbish out and then hoovered the house and did a couple of loads of laundry and put away the washing.  I tidied and cleaned the kitchen.  I listened to more of the Wind Up Bird Chronicles and I'm now less than 8 hours away from the end - it's really felt like a marathon to get through this book!  Today was a 2 coffee day and Alan also made a pistachio tea from the Coffee at the Crescent order.  

Alan watched the Formula 1 and then I tidied out a drawer and cupboard in the Welsh Dresser and we now have a covid drawer with facemasks, wipes and hand sanitiser as well as binning a load of old diet coke with black lumps in that was 3 - 4 years out of date.

I ideally wanted to go for a run, but my feet were too sore and I could tell Alan would benefit from some fresh air so we decided to go for a walk around Pontefract racecourse and we've not been there since March when we did our last parkrun.  Both of us had high anxiety today.

There were lots of new wooden carvings "Peter and the Perrigrine" and we noticed lots of things we haven't before as we're usually running.  There were some beautiful sky scenes, we walked across a model aeroplane flying area and also saw a rainbow and then a double rainbow.  My feet got really wet.

We got home and Alan cooked a butternut Squash curry for Hello Fresh and I fed Fudge and Smudge and then mopped the floors.

We ate dinner and then Alan really wanted pudding so I finally had a go at making Sticky Lemon Pudding that I'd seen Jack Monroe tweet and it didn't take long to prep, but takes 30 mins in the oven and then 20 mins to let the lemon sauce all sink in.  

In the meantime I made chickpea, carrot and coriander patties and some rice.

Not so Isolation Journal 103

I'd not got to bed at a very good time and so I was quite tired when I woke up at 9am and needed to be out the house for around 9.30am to get to my writing class at 10.30am.  I didn't end up eating breakfast, but I made a couple of coffees and drank one before I left and took one for the journey.  I packed the last rice and beans and a couple of slices of pizza from the night before.

The traffic was good and so it only took me around 35 minutes to get there and I tried to park behind The Bowery, but it was a bit tricky and tight in the car park, so I drove down to where the art deco houses are and walked around 5 minutes to get to the class, I was just on time fortunately.

I wore my mask to enter the class and then the whole way through other than to drink my water bottle and then to eat lunch outside.  The course I was doing was How to Write that Novel and it was the first writing workshop that I'd booked this year for my 20 things in 2020 and was due to be the weekend after I'd got back from honeymoon in March, but it got delayed to June and then September so it feels like I've been waiting a while and have done a lot of online zoom in the meantime.  It was definitely worth the wait.  

The Bowery made me feel comfortable as there were only 10 of us in the room and we all wore masks apart from the tutor Mark Connors who work a visor so that we could hear and see him speaking properly.  There were masks available, but I'd brought my own and they had lovely lavendar hand santiser available around the tutor room.  

I really enjoyed the course, we started off by reading aloud the first page and the blurb of a selection of books including one by the tutor because he'd run out of books Tom Tit and the Maniacs.  We noticed various things about both especially the hook and intrigue and then we all had a go at writing our own as well as coming up with titles.  I've now got a lot more books on my "I want to read list".  We read aloud our blurbs and also our first pages and there were some really interesting outlines for novels and starting points within the class, some were fantasy, one was a romance, one about a lady's grandmothers journey from India to Africa to England and one about an aging rockstar getting together with someone who looked like his younger self, one about a Dunkirk Solider and one about dragons and another about a fantasy dream world.  I later felt sad for the fantasy dreamworld guy as he didn't get a chance to read out one of the exercises.  We also discussed how to always try and avoid cliches.

We had a break for lunch and I sat outside in the little garden area.  

After lunch we did work around scene setting and wrote and read aloud some descriptive scenes and then talked about character before having a question and answer session with Mark.  Finishing at 4.30pm I bought a copy of Tom Tit and the Maniacs and then some of the hand santiser spray, but they only had a peppermint flavour, but I bought a couple for £5.50 each.

After I'd walked back to the car I texted my friend Jenny as I've not seen her for months and she's been being very cautious.  I popped into the house briefly and she signed off a guide planning zoom call with my old guide group and I waved to Fran and some of the other leaders which was lovely.  She then showed me her homemade kombucha which was delicious!  I had some of the plain kombucha as well as some strawberry flavoured stuff with actual strawberries.  And told me about how to make it and asked me if I wanted some of her scoby to make my own and I said yes please! 

We then took Luna the King Charles Spaniel for a walk around the Meanwood woods and she was very excited and running around and it was really good to have a good chat.  When we got back to her house she boxed up the scoby and gave me some instructions and then I headed back to find Alan in the bath after a run and so I went out for a quick run too to get my (not) parkrun fix in.  I'd noticed a pain in my left big toe joint yesterday and I could run, but I could definitely still notice it today.  I listended to With Me Now podcast as I ran and they read out my Facebook comment about doing Temple Newsam parkrun with Alex last weekend.

I fed Fudge and Smudge and Fudge ran out as soon as I opened the door and they had been sick 3 times and I had to clean the litter trays, but they were more friendly than usual which was cute.

The coffee beans, chai tea and pistachio tea I'd ordered from Coffee on the Crescent had arrived as well as the Vitality free and discounted coffee from Cafe Nerro.  My mum had also texted me to tell me that the big tub of marmite I'd ordered months ago had finally arrived.

I had a soak in the bath for far too long when I got back and Alan wasn't sure what we should do for tea and eventually I made some wraps with the left over kebab meat from last night and reheated the curly fries and cut up some lettuce.  

We watched a variety of random comedy from Dave and I started to make Kombucha and ran a load of washing through.  

To make kombucha you make 2 litres of tea with 6 - 8 teabags and 160 - 200g of sugar, let it cool to a warm tepid temperature.  You then pour into a plastic jar and add the scoby to it and the scoby juices and cover with cotton and leave for 7 - 30 days - fingers crossed that it works well!

Not so Isolation Journal 102

It was a struggle to get up this morning, but I dragged myself out of bed around 7.15am and let the cats out and had cornflakes and milk and a coffee and made one to drink in the car.  I was so groggy I spilt milk everywhere.

Work was quiet as it was only Luke in in my team.  I had a busy morning meeting 2 candidates to practice MS Teams and prep them for interviews, I also chatted to a few people as well who were interested in my very short 4 week temp role, but I did manage to fill it in the afternoon thankfully.

I also learned some more functions of the system that made me pleased like it reminds you to brief and de brief candidates on interviews, you can copy and paste the job reference number rather than trying to remember an 8 digit number and you can search for which jobs are missing adverts.

I'd got to 2pm and suddenly realised that I'd eaten my rice at my desk, but I'd not been out at all so I went for a walk around the block and then I caught up with the PP team to chat about various things.  

I decided to book a Covid Test as I'd had a note through the app because I'd reported sore throat symptoms and so I booked for 6pm and made sure I'd finished up at 5.30pm and walked out with Susan and had a catch up chat.  

I'd worn my mask a bit today and I'm literally the only person in the office who does, I especially wear in the toilets and walking to and from my car and I'm nervous as Leeds is hovering around a local lockdown at the moment.  

I rang my mum on the way back as I'd figured she'd like a chat and could listen as I went through the drive through test.  I got there a bit early, so hovered around for about 5 mins and then drove in.  You drive around the park and ride car park and then stop at various points for instructions and to have your AR code scanned and they then drop a test kit in your passenger car window and you park up and do the test.  You blow your nose and sanitise your hands and then you have to swab your tonsils for 10 - 15 secs and the back of your nose for the same time and you then break the top of the plastic off the swab and put it in a vial of liquid and seal it in a bag with a pad and then you put it in the main bag and they check it before you drive to the drop off point.  They scan your code again and I was done in 9 minutes.

I got home and then went out for a run and ran in the lovely pre sunset light, I was more sluggish today and did 4.5 miles listening to a grime mix on Apple music as I've had the M to the B song stuck in my head off TikTok and I'm still "unproductive" training and I got a photo of a sign urging you to wash your car to protect against covid.  I spotted Qubit in the field and Alan went to call him in.

We then watched some Friends and ordered takeaway, the place we got from on Saturday wasn't delivering so we got from Tokies and I ordered a kebab, pizza and curly frieds but I knew I wouldn't eat it all.  I did some tidying and unpacked the veg box and got in the bath, but the takeaway arrived only 10 mins later.  Alan watched Happy Gilmore whilst i was in the bath and tidying and then we watched 8 out of 10 cats does countdown.

The food was good, but a bit cold.  After we'd eaten Alan suggested that I make hot apple brandy as he'd bought some apple butter.