Isolation Journal 73

I had booked today off and I definitely needed to be able to switch off.  I didn't wake up as late as I'd hoped as it was quite late by the time I'd fallen asleep, it wasn't too late when I got into bed after writing another 1500 words on the novel, but Alan was struggling to sleep and eventually we managed to fall asleep and I think he went to the other room.

I had set an alarm for 9.30am and got up around the same time, but was messing around on my phone in bed for a bit.  Alan interrupted me as he'd been on the phone to the GP and had me take a picture of a lump behind his ear.  I went straight out for a run just grabbing some orange juice for some energy first. I ran 7K in total and mostly did steady to medium effort, but pushed myself up a segment and got a PB and 4th woman, I need to have another go and see what I can do on a day when it does stink of burning plastic, fuel and manure - it was next to what the people of the village call the pig farm.

I noticed that the artichokes that we have been growing out the back and we'd not picked had properly turned into deep purple flowers that the bees seemed to enjoy.

I got back and quickly showered and grabbed some cornflakes and coffee and signed onto Zoom for my Arvon at Home which was "How to write anything" by David Quantick and was very different, less structured exercises and much more basically how to commercialise your career as a writer and importantly reassurances that to be a writer you just have to write.  Writing is like exercise and the more you do it the easier it gets and that you should do it every day.  There was a Q&A that we got to ask questions at the end and he answered them swiftly and slightly flippantly, but basically the big takeaway was to just crack on and write.  There was an exercise that I wasn't overly sure I did very well and I found hard and this was it:

1.       Invent a character using two adjectives only - eg “Jon is cowardly and romantic.”

2.       What do they think they want? Eg “Jon wants to find a knight in shining armour.”

3.       What do they actually need? Eg “Jon needs to find his fight and win it.”

4.       Now put them in a story. Describe that story in two lines. “Jon is in love with his boss but his boss is a bully who sets him a morally wrong task. Will Jon do the right thing?”

5.       Now make that story a novel. Describe that novel in one line. “The story of a man who has to learn that love is never unconditional.”

6.       Now make that story a sitcom. Describe that sitcom in one line. “Jon loves his boss who makes him do terrible things and needs to grow some bravery.”

7.       Now make that story a movie. Describe that movie in one line. “When Jon falls in love with his new boss, he has to decide – spend his life dreaming of what will never be or stand up to an evil bully.”

Lauren was also in the class and seemed to enjoy it too and mentioned she'd listened to him speaking before.

Alan made lunch a pasta bake with some smoked mossarella cheese that he had bought and brought it up for me with the padron peppers as well.  I ate some upstairs whilst the class was finishing and then went downstairs and faffed around for a bit packing up my Garmin to deliver to Curtis who lived over in North Leeds and drove over to see Hayley for a chat first.

I had to fill up my car with petrol for the first time since the 29th March, it's a hybrid and I've not really done many longer journeys in it so most of the mileage since March has been on the electric charge.  As Alan suggested I chose to go to a pay at pump place at Asda on York road so that I didn't have to worry about social distancing.  I called and chatted to both my mum and dad on the way over and they seem to be doing ok.

I then headed over to Hayley and we sat in the garden chatting and watching goldfinches, sparrows and angry pigeons and she gave me a karma cola to drink.  We had a really good chat and then she was getting ready to have tea and teach a class.  I've been taking advantage of her proximity as she will soon be living more like an hour and a half away on the coast.

I drove over to deliver my Garmin to Curtis who had purchased it in an auction and I'd donated the money to Selby food bank.  He has recently taken up the hobby of beekeeping and so I kept my mask on and went to take a look at the hive with the bees, it was very exciting!

I drove home (really needing a wee at this point as I don't like trying to use other people's toilets at the moment if I can avoid it) and when I got back Alan had more or less finished making Carribean lamb and rice for dinner and so I quickly watered the plants and we sat in the garden and ate tea and I had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from Naked Wines and Alan had a ginger beer as the diagnosis from the doc was that he needed some strong antihistamines so he'd been to pick them up from the pharmacy in the village and so was avoiding alcohol.

I tided the kitchen listening to some more of "I heart Las Vegas" hung the washing out and then sat with Alan to watch some Peep Show and eat some ice cream.  I also had another ice lolly.  

Isolation Journal 72

After my writing spree last night my brain was super active and alert and it took me ages to go to sleep, but Alan's alarm went off at 7.30am as he went to the dentists for 9am to get some fillings.

I got up and had the same breakfast as yesterday - yoghurt, granola, apple and lemon curd and got logged on for my team call and caught up with everyone.  Today definitely felt more productive, we have interviews arranged for roles that I've referred to people, I used the LinkedIn Recruiter licence to message some people.  

Alan got back form the Dentist around 10am and seemed ok, the novocaine had worn off and he didn't seem to be faring too badly despite 3 fillings.  He said that the dentist was in hardcore, full on PPE. 

At 12pm we decided to go for a walk and were out for about 45 mins and covered the same distance as I usually do in 20 minutes on a run, a circuit of both a lane near us, along a road and back through a field of wheat around the back of our house.  As we walked we talked about stocks and shares and the trading platform and I sold the shares I had in Pets at home and bought some in Howden Joinery - I don't know what I'm doing and I have lost money on Coca Cola, Mothercare, Hays, Tilray so far....so I'm waiting for them to improve.

I had a slice of bread, butter, ham and lettuce for lunch and today was again a 3 coffee day.

I started using a LinkedIn search for a colleague and it was all fine, she checked the search, I sent her mail and assumed she would not choose in inmail people that weren't right and I should have checked as I received a rather disgruntled reply from someone who was probably on 4 times as much as this role was paying and worked for a rather major Football Club - I apologised profusely and explained it was my first experience of the recruiter licence.

I ended up finishing work around 7pm as I started to look at the 1800 words I'd written on my novel idea last night and had sent them through to Lauren to look over.  I'd also googled the average length of a novel and they start around 40000 words upwards so on this maths I could be done and dusted in 22 days...as easy as that!

I made tea as Alan wasn't really very well and he wasn't all that hungry, it was a chicken and pasta bake and I listened to some more "I heart Vegas" we ate watching Peep Show and then I watched Catfish whilst Alan had a bath.

We also had a couple of lollies and I cleaned the kitchen.

I watched a few videos of the awful scenes in Beirut, I'm almost numb because genuinely so much shit has happened this year it is starting to seem completely unreal.

Isolation Journal 71

Alan went to bed much earlier last night and I decided to go to bed before midnight for a change and read a good bit of "Little Fires Everywhere" before falling asleep and I woke up extremely early before my alarm at around 6.30am and so messed around on my phone, read some more and got up not actually feeling that groggy for a change, but feeling full of anxiety.  I made breakfast (yoghurt, lemon curd, granola, granny smith) and coffee.

I was anxious about the pressure to go back into the office as well as a slight mistake I'd made with a candidate - our company requires a level of PI insurance for contractors, they didn't have the amount we'd required and they were unhappy yesterday, but they emailed at 10am to say that they'd been able to increase the level at no extra charge so that went away.  The second one I spoke to my boss about and explained I was concerned about my asthma so was going to wait until September.  She seemed "ok" about it, but I've still had to ask my team to go in a bit in August, although I don't think it's necessarily needed at this point.

At lunch me and Alan went for a quick walk into the village to stretch our legs and then I had a slice of bread, ham and lettuce for lunch with some orange juice.  Today was a 3 coffee day.

I didn't have a hugely productive day, in this way being in the office I love as if I'm a bit anxiety ridden the presence of others brings me away from the relentless cycle of thoughts.  I love being around people, I even went in a week after breaking my shoulder when I couldn't even wear a coat in April and had to walk 20 minutes each way to the train station wearing a bumbag as I couldn't carry my handbag on my shoulder.  I don't have time off sick and I'm really dedicated, so why do I feel so bloody guilty?!

I signed off at around 6.40pm having done a few more calls and get some things sorted.

I cooked dinner and listened to so more "I heart Vegas" and I made pork and feta naan bread pizzas with little gem lettuce salad and we watched a couple of episodes of Peep Show and then had some Haagen Daaz pralines and cream with cream and then after it had gone down...a bit I went for some hill running up and down the drive way after dropping off some fabric to a neighbour who is making masks.

I ran around 4 miles and did one rep up and down hard and one (or more) easier.  My garmin is now telling me that I'm no longer "productive" but I'm "overreaching".  

I forgot mention that I booked onto another Arvon course which looks good on Thursday A SHORT GUIDE TO WRITING EVERYTHING

Isolation Journal 70

10 whole weeks of writing in a journal every day today, that's a long time for me!  I used to write pretty much every day in a teeny tiny section of a 5 year diary.  At first I would try and write in a different coloured pen each year, but I soon gave up on that.  Nearly every day was noted from 1994 through until the end of 1999 - an interesting period of going from child/teenager to pretty much adult.

Today was a frustrating day at work.  I woke up extremely tired and with an anxiety dream about selling the house which I think I'd "caught" off my friend Hayley who is in the process of selling her house in Leeds and moving to the seaside.

The initial meeting went well with people back from holiday and I handed back over to Rachel and forecasted for the month which is looking ok, especially considering it's August.  I ate cornflakes and semi skimmed milk.

I had a frustrating morning and indeed day of trying to sort out issues and I didn't really resolve a great deal.  Much less productive than a usual Monday.  We had a meeting with a client that we're having to change a method of supply to which was slightly awkward.  I don't feel that the changes will necessarily give the client better value for money or indeed quality of service and will infact make both of these worse.  During the meeting some of my colleagues were in the office and I could see in the background that at least a few people weren't socially distancing.

At 12pm I did pilates online which was a welcome relief and after I'd finished I had a toasted bread roll that I thought was spare from Hello Fresh and some iceberg and prosciuttio ham and leftover salad from yesterday.  I emptied the dishwasher and re-loaded it.

Today was a 3 coffee day and I had a final coffee for lunch.  

I had a difficult call with my boss as I'd been planning on going back into the office that re-opened last week in September, but there is pressure for me to go back in and encourage the rest of the team to go back in.  It states on the HR policy that if you have mild to moderate asthma you are considered vulnerable and then goes on to say that vulnerable people shouldn't go back into the office at this point.  I feel like I'm being judged by trying to protect my health and for the first time that i've been there I feel that I might have to speak to HR to get some support.  The call was broken off before we had a chance to speak fully, so I'm sure I'll have that conversation tomorrow and so tonight I just felt tense about it.

I finished work by writing an advert and signed off at 6.45pm.  

I went out for a run to try and shift my tension headache and it worked, I tried a few intervals of running hard uphill and got a few new "records" including a PB on a strava segment, for the first time since I bought my watch it told me that my training was now "productive" and my VO2 Max went up to 51 from 50.  I range just over 4 miles in about 34 minutes.

I then had a quick shower with a very leaky showerhead and got dressed and had the tea that Alan had cooked, we established that the recipe card was wrong, but the ingredients were right, but we'd eaten the burger buns.  He did stock rotation of the chicken and we had chorizo chicken rice and I made some Gentleman Jack and Ginger and then later we had leftover apple crumble and cream for dessert.

We watched Peep Show and then Alan went up for a bath and I went to look for the cats unsuccessfully.  I watered the plants, came back in and cleaned the kitchen and then the bathroom as I noticed it was a bit smelly.  I listened to more of "I heart Vegas" by Lindsey Kelk as I cleaned. Maya came in eventually shortly followed by Qubit and I fed them both and Alan noticed that Maya had a load of blood on her white neck, but we established it was unlikely to be hers.

Isolation Journal 69

I woke up fairly early at the sound of one of the cat toy flapping fish on the landing, but I managed to fall back to sleep again and then woke up about 9.30am and messed around on my phone until Alan woke up.

I got up and the house was a mess!  It was on the to do list to tidy and so I started tidying whilst Alan made strawberry compot and eggy bread.  I made some coffee and we sat outside to eat.  I planted some of the strawberries that were too far gone to hopefully grow some more strawberry plants.  The kids from number 10 kept leaning over the wall to say hello and their parents kept telling them off, but I didn't mind.

I then worked out how to tie up some of the raspberries that are falling over using some twine and attached it to both a pipe and one of the artichoke stalks.  I did some weeding and pulled up some nettles.  I took all the recycling out and rearranged the bins so that the full ones were at the back next to the wall and the empty ones were easier to access.

I'd been a bit anxious about how to deliver my garmin to Curtis who won it in the auction and I decided to take off Thursday as annual leave and also visit Hayley, I hope that he doesn't mind too much waiting.  He topped up the bid to £50 and I put an extra £25 in to the food bank.

I then set about tidying up the lean to bit next to the porch where the coat rack had fallen down months ago.  I sorted the coats and then found a few things for Alan's work and moved his golf clubs into the garage.  I also found the box of gin bottles with lights that we'd never got around to using at the wedding.  I'd got them ready for the evening, but didn't have time to put them out onto the tables and I still feel a bit sad and guilty about it as one of my friends had gone to the trouble of finding them.  I recycled some of the gin bottles and put the rest in the garage and hopefully I'll be able to use them for a belated 40th party next year at some point.  I downloaded I Heart Vegas by Lindsey Kelk on audible to listen to as I tidied.  I've read 3 of her books previously when my friend Philippa mentioned them too me as Lindsey had stayed with her around 10 years ago in Hollywood as she was friends with our school friend Catherine.  It's easy to digest and fun so far, Lauren has been reading her latest book and tweeted her last week so it reminded me to look up some of her other books.

I made some lunch of salad and cheese and jamon and chutney and again we sat in the garden to eat it and I came back in to carry on tidying up.  Alan fixed the coat rack in the porch.  I got distracted eating the end of my lunch inside watching Catfish and some weird urban explorer stories such as in the Bondi Beach Club in Leeds.

My new keyboard and laptop stand arrived and it's noisy and clacky and shiny and the stand is great too.  I set up my laptop upstairs and worked a bit more on a short story I'd started last night.

I finished off hoovering and mopping the lounge and the kitchen and then at 6.30pm we decided to go out for a cycle with Alan and we went up to Bishopswood which was 9.75K away and then we walked around in the forest for about 40 minutes and then back home.  It was a warm evening and the traffic was nice and quiet.  The wood was  not too busy, we met a few dogs being walked and saw some interesting mushrooms and some lords and ladies. 

When we got back I finished tidying up whilst Alan cooked a Hello Fresh meal - Lamb, cinnamon and feta penne and prepped an apple crumble.   I helped by grating the butter into the flour and making the crumble bit.

I poured us a couple of beers and we watched 2 episodes of Spooks and I finished mopping the floors and I assembled the crumble and put it in the oven and made us a couple of drinks of port.

We finished off watching Peep Show.  It's nearly 10 weeks that I've been journalling, my mental health seems to be positively impacted, but I'm not sure Alan is doing as well and I'm not sure how I can help him.

Isolation Journal 68

Alan really didn't sleep well last night, I finally must have fallen asleep after messing around on my phone and trying to read a bit of "Little Fires Everywhere" and was woken up by him comign to bed at around 5am, it was starting to get light.  He tossed and turned for a bit and then went into the spare room and he woke up about 8.30am and got up even though he'd had no sleep.  I messed around on my phone some more and got up at about 10am and made some breakfast - yoghurt, granola, apple and some of my friend's homemade lemon curd.  I tidied the kitchen and had a coffee.

I looked at my phone as late last night I'd emailed my friend Lauren's writing group leader Ardella who leads a creative writing company Chalk the Sun to see if it was possible for me to join in the class today.  She got back to me about 11.30am and the class started at 1pm so I paid the £30 taster fee and started to plan what I was going to do.

I decided to log on briefly to the parkrun call on Zoom and it was nice to see friendly faces and catch up with people for around 45 minutes.  Maya came and sat next to me which was amusing as I wasn't trying to type and work.  I got to see Curtis's bees and Anne & Noel's tomatoes.

I didn't really have time to make lunch and had a slightly heated debate with Alan about what *we* were doing for lunch.  He'd been to pick up the click and collect from Tescos and so I'd guessed he had planned some lunch in amongst that, but it turns out that this wasn't the case.

I prepped for my class and started the first exercise which was:

Write a short scene in a busy high street you know well (or other busy scene of your choice).  Describe the actions of the shoppers, moving from the place, to the crowd, then to individuals.  (200 words)

I'd chosen to write about a memory of crossing the road in Delhi on a trip to India 5 years ago (maybe it was the facebook memories that had reminded me?)  

I signed onto the Zoom call at 1pm and got to meet Ardella who was lovely and funny and reminded me ever so slightly of Jo Brand.  There was a schedule that we loosly stuck to - intros, what we'd been doing in the way of writing, and one of the group of our 9 read out a story that she'd been writing about slavery and slave ships that was really good.  Lauren also read out the short story and poem that she'd shared with me earlier in the week.  During a quick break I had a maple & pecan plait and a packet of skips - I really must be more organised with food.

We read a couple of passages of Bonfire of the Vanities and used them as spring boards for discussion and as a way of writing a couple of exercises.  I refined my busy scene and although I couldn't get to 200 words (218 was as low as I managed) I went first at reading out my piece which seemed well received generally and I enjoyed hearing others.  Lauren's was great and about getting on the tube and really moved me along with her on the story.

The class overran slightly past 4pm and then I went downstairs to see Alan and we planned to drop the masks made my neighbour Anna to my friend Hannah for her two boys and then go for a walk at St Aidan's.  We sat outside and chatted with Hannah and her husband Chris - they are about to go on holiday to Dorset and do some camping and it's the first time they've been away in years.  James was jumping in and out of the car and beeping the horn and Alex was in his Karate kit and being generally well behaved apart from climbing on the car.  Whilst we were there, Alan got a call from Apple to say his Macbook had been repaired and was in the Apple store in Sheffield ready to be collected, so instead of going for a walk we headed to Sheffield and went to get his Macbook.  

I needed the toilet when I got there and most people seemed to be properly wearing masks, although a lot with them around their chins.  We picked up the Macbook and then looked for something to snack on and I opted for a quick Subway sandwich which confused Alan as he didn't think it would be something that I would eat.  He also ordered a couple of Starbucks drinks and we picked them up and headed back to the car.

Alan drove back so that I could eat my sandwich and then when I got home I started to cook tea which was a cod and rice Hello Fresh dish.  We ate in front of the TV and watched Peep Show and Alan made us Ginger Beer and Gentleman Jacks to drink.  He had ice cream and cream for dessert, but I was going to run to get my Vitality points, so I plugged in the end of the High Low Podcast and then some of With Me Now and ran up and down the driveway for just over 30 mins and 5K.

When I got in I had a Rowntrees Ice Lolly and then ran a cool bath that I stayed in for far too long messing around on my phone.  I did manage to change the bed sheets, but the house is a mess and so tomorrow will be another weekend clean up and tidy up day.

Isolation Journal 67

Another groggy wake up, I think I'm just going to have to make peace with the fact that I just don't feel like a morning person ever, regardless of how much sleep I get.  I think it wasn't hugely helped by the fact that yesterday was a non exercise day so I'd not showered yesterday and so felt sticky and gross this morning.

I grabbed breakfast and had banana bread, apple and yoghurt and 2 coffees and I got logged on and finished up a few invoices after I'd borrowed Alan's macbook as it displays things so much better than my laptop (I can actually see the "submit" button without adjusting the screen resolution).

We finished well for July, certainly ahead of April, May and June.  I wasn't as productive in the morning although had a key account client update which was useful, but I decided after finishing up the admin for the month end to go out for a run for half an hour at lunch and helped my friend with her CV and how to apply for a job.  I also ordered dinner from our local pub - fish and chips and garden peas.  I watched a bit of the latest briefing from number 10 as the local lockdowns randomly came into place at 9pm yesterday, announced on twitter for "Greater Manchester" and "West Yorkshire" and it very much seems as though you can't go to a friend or family member's house, but it's fine if you want to sit indoors in a pub!  I also saw later today around 8 different office colleagues very close together in a bar on instagram and it just makes me nervous about going back into the office.

I managed to run about 5.7K and was reasonably swift, in just over 30 mins, but my watch keeps telling me that my training is unproductive.  

I had a shower when I got back in and potato waffles and fried and egg and had some sriracha sauce.

The afternoon was more productive, I got more CVs off for jobs and tidied up my emails, I'm still really worried that I've forgotten to do something on Rachel's handover, even though I've worked really hard to try and cover everything.

I finished work at 7pm and had just enough time to put some shoes on and head to pick up our takeway tea from QOTT.  I listened to some of the High Low Pod Cast as I walked and then got in and quickly went to see whether we'd be better eating inside or at the dining room table - I had a quick chat with my neighbour and offered her some of the leftover bedding plants from last week that had died a bit so I watered them in an attempt to bring them back to life and then it started raining heavily with thunder and lightening.  

My watch auction finished at 8pm with a final sale price of £45 to go towards a food back donation.  The guy who won I think will appreciate all the additional stats it can give you.

We ate at the dining room table and I had 3 of my Beer 52 beers that had arrived earlier today (my Harry Potter fabric finally arrived as well) I chose a couple of IPAs and a coffee and coconut stout.  After we'd eaten we played Exploding Kittens and Cat Chaos card games.

We then went out to try and find Maya (Qubit joined in our games) and had no luck, although she eventually came in around 10.30pm.  

We watched some Mock the Week, 8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown and Family Guy.

I managed to finish "It's Not The End Of The World" by Judy Blume last night as well, my reading has come on loads since putting my mind to it and I'm enjoying it.