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.

Isolation Journal 5

We woke up a bit later again today, we really must try and get back to normal tomorrow evening as we are back at work on Monday.

Alan got up and made french toast with berry compote and coffee and we watched Friends on TV - it's up to the point where Phoebe meetings Mike which are some of my favourite episodes.  I read about the Michael Gove Tweet and cynically seems like an attempted distraction more than anything else.

We kept the cats locked in as we were worried about Qubit, but his paw did seem much better and so I sneaked out Maya earlier on and then in the afternoon we let them both out.

Alan then got into his running kit and after I'd hung out the washing I got into mine and we went out for a gentle jog up to the nature reserve at Ledsham.  I managed to get some photos on the way for a photo challenge with both my friends and also with the running club.  We sat in the reserve in the warm sunshine and saw one person in the distance, we're very fortunate to be living where we do.  We chatted about a few things, notably racism and misogyny and why my beliefs are so different to my parents.  I concluded that school was a major common factor as well as Blue Peter and good kids tv.

We covered about 7 K in just over an hour and I got a photo of my reflection in a random discarded new roll of tin foil as one of the categories was "Your Reflection".  My knee is feeling better and so hopefully I can do a bit more running again tomorrow to keep on track with my distance targets.

I made a salad for lunch and disappointingly the avocado was way past it's best and I had to cut out all the black squidy bits.  I also was craving a baked potato and had a topping of butter and marmite - delicious and a lockdown tip I'd heard from the High Low.

I watched the Daily Briefing which was interesting as they focussed on re-opening sports including football and horse racing from next week rather than the fact the R number is still high and the death rate is what it was as we decided to lock down. They also had Professor Van-Tam on who was very clear about how it wasn't the time to "rip the pants out" of the government guidance or indeed the fact that “In my opinion the rules are clear and they have always been clear,” he said. “In my opinion they are for the benefit of all. In my opinion they apply to all.” As I have the freedom of choice to be able to continue to work from home and the impact on my day to day life hasn't been as severe as others I feel that my approach will be to remain in "lockdown" in terms of what we've been doing for the past 10 weeks with a small exception that we might have a few outdoor garden conversations.  Not barbecues or anything where we'd have to access or have our house accessed ideally.  I am aware not everyone can work from home, so if those who can do continue to be socially distant, maybe we can mitigate what is likely to be a second peak.

We then had a 5pm appointment with a friend's 6 year old daughter who has opened an online dance school on zoom and she performed a number of songs that me and Alan had to dance to with some of her friends and family also signed up.  If we liked it and go to the next one it's £1 per class that will go to charity.

Alan and I then both had baths and I watched another Hay Festival talk - David Mitchell being interviewed by John Mitchinson and a bit later on Paul Krugman talking about the economics post Covid-19 Lauren and I had also swapped our Dribbles earlier and talked about a few other ideas for writing.

I got an email from Easyjet to say that it was 30% off flights to Barcelona, I went with Alan back in 2016 and saw someone on Facebook's memories there pop up and it made me really think it would be nice to get back there.  I looked into costs for flights in March and for £83 for the 2 of us seemed like a decent calculated risk.  Hopefully we'll have a bit more normality by that point.

I watched the Nasa SpaceX launch with Alan outside in the garden and we tried to see it, but didn't have any luck and then forgot to look at it outside for the ISS later.  It was really interesting watching how smooth everything went and how the Falcon? landed back on the boat.

Alan made a pasta bake for tea with Hello Fresh and I had a couple of Jim Beams and Ginger Beers and we put Friends on TV again.