Not so Isolation Journal 99

I woke up this morning before my alarm to a horrible bad dream, someone was attempting suicide in a most horribly graphic way, it was like something out of a film, but not a film that I've ever seen.

I then got up with my alarm at 6.50am and quietly went downstairs, emptied the and refilled the dishwasher, collected up all my food for the day and drank a coffee, ate some cornflakes and fed the cats (letting them out the back door as they were confused by me being up so early).  I then made another coffee and put it in a mug to take on the journey and put make up on and got dressed - I'd laid out my clothes the night before to make it less stressful this morning.

Alan was confused as I'd planned to get to the office for 8.30am and so I planned to leave at 7.30 and ended up leaving about 7.50am as I dropped my eyebrow shadow on the floor and had to clear it up as it was all black and manky.  The traffic was super quiet and so I ended up getting in for 8.20am and it was really quiet in the car park as well.

I put my mask on and walked across to the office carrying my run club stuff as well as my hand bag, Alan's Macbook and Rachel's bag of stuff that I'd been looking after for her.

The office smelt really clean and it did seem quite spacious, but it was weird walking back in and not chatting in close proximity to everyone.

We logged on and started to fire up the new Salesforce system and had a kick off call as normal and then I cracked on with trying to work out how to use the new system.  I had a new job to match as well as CVs to send (the system wouldn't let me do this) and I think it will be good, but will take me a while to get back to the normal speed of doing things.

At lunch the team went out for a meal, but I'd brought my wild rice and black bean salad so I ate that instead with left over cucumber salad and Nic was too busy as well so we went out for a walk at lunch.  I wore my mask to go to the bathroom and the rest of the time I was at my desk.  The one thing that threw me was when my boss threw my mobile at me to answer which I was super uncomfortable doing.  I held it at a distance and then sanitised my hands.

Today was definitely more productive that it has been, even though I was cross at the system and constantly on the phone to work out what to do.

I finished my last call at around 7pm and then went to get changed into my run kit and drove over to Woodhouse Moor for run club at 7.30pm.  I was nearly late and had to run fast across to meet at the end of parkrun (Queen Victoria Statute) and it was really nice that I knew everyone in the group - Zeni leading, Clare E, Lizzie and Emily.  We had a lovely chatty run and some effort on my intervals and my "peaking" on garmin went down to "recovery"  I ran around 6K in about 35 minutes including running back to my car at the end and I drove home which took around 40 minutes in total.

I called Alan on the way and then spoke to my parents briefly and got in and put on a load of washing and had a shower whilst Alan finished off the Hello Fresh for tea which was Pork burgers with wedges and coleslaw.

We watched an episode of Spooks and he went up for a bath and had been for a run earlier.  I then I tidied the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher and made banana bread which finished cooking at midnight and turned out terribly, the edges were burnt and the insides uncooked and fell out.  I'm a total idiot and should leave these baking things to Alan sometimes!

Isolation Journal 98

We ended up not going to bed properly until around 3am so we woke up about 10am, and just had a lazy morning in bed and got up around 11am, mostly prompted by Maya bringing up a mouse that she'd eaten like an apple with the just a "core" remaining.  I put some washing on and Alan started to make some lunch.  We had a delicious aubergine and okra taco recipe that we'd previously had from Hello Fresh and it was really lovely.   I also hoovered and mopped most of the floors.

We watched Friends and then more Storage Hunters whilst we ate and then we went out for a cycle up to Fairburn Ings and back home via Ledsham.  Annoyingly as my heart rate was low for the 52 mins of cycling it didn't even register as points on my Vitality!  It did change my garmin training status to "peaking" that was positive.

We had hot cross buns and a cup of tea and watched some more Storage Hunters.

When we got back I did some more tidying up and Alan went up for a bath and I went to take the compost out, remembered that I'd not planted my pansies that arrived earlier in the week and so I quickly planted them out in any place I could fit them after doing some weeding, hacking back the artichokes (I needed to saw the stems with a bread knife!) and then removing the old tent greenhouse frame that had gone rusty.

I then cooked the Hello Fresh BBQ and had to swap the chicken as it went out of date on the 28th, the beef was the 29th, but was ok and I made the 2 salads and chicken korma and koftes.  I also made some rice with beans for my lunch so that I'm all safe tomorrow with my own food.  Alan made us a JD and ginger. 

We ate and started to watch Zoolander, but Qubit turned it off by accident and so we watched some John Oliver and Modern Life is Goodish and then I finished off cleaning up the kitchen and changed both sheets on the bed.  I listened to more of "The Wind Up Bird Chronicles" as I was doing the chores.

It's now nearly midnight and I'm feeling pretty anxious aboutt getting enough sleep for work tomorrow, hopefully it should all be ok.

Isolation Journal 93

I woke up fairly early and read some more of The Midnight Library as I really am excited by what I'm reading.

I had some cornflakes and coffee for breakfast and had a morning of sorting out of things and a few teams meetings.  I'd also prepped for a lunch and learn I was delivering with a colleague on Mental Health Awareness for managers.  

Alan made a pasta bake for lunch which was really nice and I then delivered the session with my colleague.  One of the questions asked annoyed me basically "How do you know someon has a genuine mental health problem?" it annoyed me because people assume some people claim to have mental health problems and don't and my view is that if someone is that desperate...they are likely to have a real mental health problem!

The afternoon is fairly productive, I had a bit of an issue in that our forecast for the team has gone backwards it's been quite frustrating and a fairly difficult month, although I did sign off on the final part of a retainer which is a better way to end the month.  I picked up another job for another colleague which was good.  

I finished up work around 6.45pm and then went for a walk with Alan and we spotted Qubit as we were leaving hanging out in the field near the road with cows in it, we tried to call him in, but he wouldn't come so instead we went for our walk and chatted and saw beautiful sunlight over the wheat fields and saw someone parascending and we walked back through the public footpath through the fields.  We saw Qubit again and eventually managed to encourage him into the house.  

We needed to get home before the Tesco delivery at 8pm and so we made sure we got back and Qubit went back towards the door and started to hassle Fudge and Smudge from number 5, so I had a chat to Kirsty and said that I could feed the cats when they are away on holiday and told her that I'd return "Little Fires Everywhere" and would lend her "The Midnight Library"

I made Hello Fresh for tea, a premium recipe of steak with black garlic butter and mash and a salad and I had a fruit corner cheesecake yoghurt for dessert and a Rowntrees fruit pastle lolly.

We watched storage hunters and then tried hard to feed the worming tablets to the cats, I got one into Maya with cheese, but she wouldn't take the other half and Qubit we had to team up to get it down his throat.

Isolation Journal 89 & 90

Two in one entry today as I was away for the first time since March yesterday evening.

I woke up yesterday and checked my phone and had a negative Covid result from my test on Friday so I decided to go with my plan of visiting my parents and my brother.  I'd packed my stuff mostly the night before so I had some cornflakes, packed up the rest of the bits and pieces and set off just before 10am.

The roads weren't too bad, I had only planned to stop once for a toilet break and I always aim to get to at least Leicester Forest East Services on the way down and if I get to Watford Gap or further I'm over halfway and feel happy.  I got out at Watford Gap, tried to charge my car, but it wasn't working so I headed to the toilet.  I had no interest in stopping for food really as it was too busy and I felt uncomfortable and social distancing wasn't great.  I got back to the car, texted my brother and my parents and then carried on.  I had been listening to the Archers and then I swapped to some more of the Wind Up Bird Chronicles.

I ended up driving only for 3hrs 40 and ended up at my brothers around 2pm.  I had a protein bar and a banana for lunch on the go and he did offer me some lunch, but he'd already eaten.  When I arrived at my brothers it was just the 2 oldest girls Beatrice and Florence and they were very hyper and excited to see me.  My brother's wife came back shortly after with the two youngest boys Lenny and Winston.  They were also quite excited and Winston was doing ok after a couple of trips to hospital this week as he'd cut his hand and they weren't sure if he'd need it stitching, but fortunately he didn't.  They drew some pictures on the patio in chalk and then I headed over to see my parents in the garden.  I managed to curb my alloy wheels when I was parking the car and I really need to sort out my insurance claim to get them fixed up.

They've done a lot of gardening during lockdown including planting melons, aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes, cauliflowers, nasteriums, cucumber, lettuces and sweetcorn.   We sat outside and chatted and I gave them some malbec and some prosecco as well as a rag wreath I finished off under lockdown.

We went for a walk around the recreation field at the back of the house, it was a nice walk, but it's sad that at the back of the garages people have just dumped mattresses, fridges and other rubbish.  I used to think that the street was a really nice area, but some of it with my eyes these days just looks a bit tatty.

I texted my brother to find out what to do for food that evening and suggested I bought them a takeaway and he suggested I come back for around 7pm to read a story for the girls.  By the time I'd moved a few things around in my car it was five past seven and Beatrice told me off for being late.  

I read them Andy Pandy and Hansel and Gretel and made up a story about some cats stealing  a fish, they were very excited and out of routine and I felt a bit guilty as it took them a while to fall asleep and they tried hard to convince me that I should sleep in their room!

I went downstairs and we chatted whilst Steph fed Winston and he fell asleep and then we ordered a curry from the Raj using the Uber Eats app with a code that gave me £20 off and my brother a £15 off voucher.  By the time we'd faffed around the food was ordered around 9.30pm and I ordered some poppodoms with dips, Tom Yum seafood soup and a vegetable thalia and a portion of lemon rice which was way bigger than I'd expected so there were a lot of leftovers.  

We ended up chatting until around 1.30am discussing holidays and indeed lack of holidays as kids, something that seemed to bother my brother more than me, the fact that they still have a Range Rover in the garage and my brother worked out it was last taxed in 1995 and could be worth a lot these days - I said that when the time comes, he can deal with it.

I eventually fell asleep around 2am and woke up a few times, as I was quite warm and there were a few odd noises, but I was fairly comfortable on my sleeping bag on the sofa.  The kids initially woke up about 6.30am and came downstairs around 7.30am and I had cornflakes for breakfast and a couple of coffees as I was knackered!  The kids did some more chalk drawing in the garden and played with the bubble machine when it turned 9am and screamed a fair bit!  I had a shower which I desperately needed and then headed over to my parents for around 11am and we chatted in the garden some more and then had lunch of ham, cheese and salad sandwiches including home grown yellow tomatoes.  I went to the toilet in their house in my mask and sanitised before I went in and sprayed down the toilet after I left.  We went for another walk aound the field and I tracked it and it was just under 1K - they could make a parkrun there!  I managed to find a green parakeet feather by my parents house as they hang out there, there was also a nest in their kiwi bush and I couldn't work out what bird lived in it.

I set off home about 1.30pm and my Mum gave me fabric for some masks, some soap and some lemon drizzle cake Naked bars and an aubergine and nasterium.  The satnav gave an ETA of 6pm and it was a bit slow on the M25 and then there were some slow sections on the M1 with roadworks, but nothing stationary fortunately.  I chatted away to Alan for a big chunk of the journey and really missed him when I was away.  I then listened to more Wind Up Bird Chronicles - it's a very very long audio book!  I got to Leicester Forest East services just over half way and went to the toilet and it was a lot less busy than Watford Gap yesterday and so I braved the Waitrose and bought sushi as I'd been craving it as not had any for ages as well as some pepsi max and kefir.

I drove for another hour, but ended up stopping at Woodall as I started to feel too tired, so I went to the loo and emptied some rubbish to get a bit of a walk in and some fresh air.  Then my sat nav said an hour to do 35 miles, but it included a bit diversion through some South Yorkshire villages and so I was quite slow.

I was home for 5.45pm and about 3 hours 45 driving time and 20 - 25 mins stopping and break times.

I unpacked the car and said hello to Qubit who was hiding in a box and then had a cuddle with Alan and then a quick tea and sit down watching some cricket.

I decided to go for a run around 7.30pm and do about 8K and take it steady.  I listened to more Wind Up Bird Chronicles and did my Lumby Loop circuit and then as I got towards the end my stomach felt really odd and I had to run in and go straight to the toilet.  I then had a shower and Alan finished making tea of Carribean beef and courgette rice, I quick hung some washing out and we ate and watched Storage Hunters UK.  I prepped some strawberries and cream and then cleaned up the kitchen.

Isolation Journal 86

I had a reasonable night of sleep and woke up and faffed around on my phone so only had a chance to grab a coffee before logging onto the morning call.

It feels like a bit of an unproductive day, but I did manage to book and complete 2 meetings with clients and get through some calls with people I've not spoken to for a long time.

I had the first of the client meetings at 12pm and I'd only picked up breakfast around 11am which was yoghurt, granola, lemon curd and apple and so I made a ham sandwich with salad for lunch and finally finished eating it around 2.30pm.

Maya was insistent on sitting on my keyboard an awful lot today and stole my water at one point.  I had to make sure that I'd locked her out of the room for one of the meetings with the clients.

I caught up with a friend who I'd placed previously to see how she was getting on and it was good to catch up with her.

Finished work around 7.20pm and then cooked dinner which was a really complicated Hello Fresh recipe of Chicken Katsu burgers, salad and wedges and had 3 different sauces to mix in 3 different bowls and breadcrumbs, it was really tasty, but I should have saved half for tomorrow as it had 1275 calories in!

We watched Peep Show and then I went out to run up and down the driveway at 10pm and did just over 5K in about 31 minutes and at least managed to burn some calories back.  

I'm now in a boring bit of "The Windup Bird Chronicles" the main character is talking about a story of war with the Mongols and it's very long and involved.  I cleaned the kitchen and had a bath and my heart rate went up to "high stress" in the bath. 

I also found out my youngest nephew needs stitches under general anasthetic tomorrow as he'd cut his hand on a jar of olives that he managed to break, I hope that he's ok.

Alan seemed a bit better today thankfully, so I hope he is on the mend at last.

Isolation Journal 84

Alan woke up at least an hour earlier than we needed to be up and so he went downstairs and I snoozed for another hour and listened to headspace to get back to sleep.  I had two slices of toast and marmite for breakfast and 2 coffees.  Alan is still feeling bad with his ear and lack of sleep, but the GPs are being really careful with who they'll see.

We had a kick off meeting and it was quite productive and then I caught up with Rachel as she was in the office today, but couldn't get logged onto the call.  Alan was on a call and Qubit brought in a mouse and put it in his shoe, so I had to rescue it for him.

I booked a good candidate meeting for tomorrow morning and then I dealt with some of the work for Katie who is off on holiday.  It was a busy day and I made a few calls for myself and then got downstairs and did pilates online.  I've still got the leg nerve issue and so I was taking it easy, but it wasn't too painful.

We had reheated Chinese leftovers from Friday evening for lunch and then I had a peach as a snack a bit later on.

I had a few more MS Teams meetings and managed to land an offer for Katie which was good news.  It got sunnier later on in the day so I opened the window and Maya got out on the flat roof and then climbed next door and tried to get in Ally's window, I managed to encourage her back with some more treats.

As I finished my last MS Teams meeting I then realised I'd picked up another 16 jobs, although none for me, it seems to be a trend.

Good news is that the government has u-turned on the A'level results and so hopefully a lot of the affected students will still be able to go to their chosen University.

I worked through until 6.30pm when I loaded up Zoom and we logged on for a team building activity of a virtual escape room.  I'd chosen one with a rogue CEO who was being investigated, I'd selected "Advanced" and it was really hard!  It took about 2 hours and I had a glass of fizz and Alan cooked dinner which was a hello fresh meanball sub.  

I then watched more Storage Hunters, cleaned the kitchen and mopped the floors and had a bit of cheese and a chocolate ice lolly.

Isolation Journal 83

Again I woke up quite late, but Alan was still asleep so I went into the other room to mess around on my phone until Qubit demanded I fed him, so I did and then he was sick onto the table so I had to clean it up.

I managed to finish Little Fires Everywhere as Alan went to sleep in the other room and it was a great book - It grabbed me through from about 100 pages in and I really wanted to keep reading on.  It now means I can start my new Matt Haig book - hooray!

I decided to get up and go for a run to get it out the way and so I steadily did 9.1K through a Lumby Loop and a few different segments.  My left leg was quite stingy with the nerve thing that I've had for the last few days, but not really whilst I was running, but I took a fairly steady pace.  It was warm, but started to drizzle as I was running.

When I got back Alan had made pancake batter and so made us some pancakes with apple sauce with maple syrup.  We watched some UK Celebrity Storage Hunters and then I tidied and hoovered a bit before having a bath.

We then went over to see Alan's brother and the kids and had pizza cooked in the BBQ oven which was delicious.  The kids were quite hyper and excited to see us and did a lot of running around.  Winston dog was also excited to see us.  I had a glass of prosecco as Alan was driving us to and from.  I also gave some of the spare bedding plants to them as I'd run out of space to plant them.  I ordered some Amazon Prime Now whilst we were chatting as I figured I needed some ibuprofen gel and ibuprofen for my leg, hopefully it will help.

We got back just before 10pm and the order arrived about 30 minutes afterwards and so we watched more UK Celebrity Storage Hunters and cuddled the cats who were being particularly loving.  

I realised I've run about 1010K in my current trainers and I've not used my Vitality half price Runners Need discount yet for this year - my last pair were bought back in November 2019.  I decided to buy some next generation Asics Nimbus 22 and also a pair of Aftershokz headphones.  

Isolation Journal 82

Alan I think had a bit of a sleepless night and moved around a lot and I ended up waking up around 7.30am and then slept a bit more until 8.30am and then woke up and went in the spare room to mess around on my phone and read and I had a message from my Mum as she was worried that the weather would be poor and as we'd be meeting in the garden we worked out that it wouldn't be as much point.  So I decided to drive down next weekend instead.  My Dad also posted a highly irritating post on facebook about basically people not working shouldn't be getting benefits and that you can't tax the poor into prosperity - he's been retired for 23 years and worked for 33, my Mum probably only worked full time for about 7/8 years and then stopped to have children and didn't really work much other than a part time role when I was about 13 and another that went full time when I was at unin, but our generation are likely to have to work until around 70 years old and I don't feel this way.  As Alan pointed out, people can work extremely hard and earn less than millionnaires or indeed billionnaires as wealth isn't a clear indication of work ethic and especially not fairness.  

I stayed in the spare room messing around on my phone and reading "Little Fires Everywhere" until he woke up when the door bell went at around 11.30am and I suggested we should have breakfast or maybe brunch instead.  The door was Royal Mail who had delivered the cool mat to us that I'd ordered for him.

I decided to go to Berts Barrow and I bought some milk, cream, bread, sausages, burgers, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, cucumber, cold brew vanilla flavoured yoghurt, broccoli and it was about £25.  There was about the right number of people in the shop, I wore my mask and there was a queue outside when I finished.  

I made scrambled eggs on toast with sausages and coffees and orange juice.  I had marmite on my toast and some sriracha sauce.

Alan introduced me to the very addictive show of Storage Hunters and I watched far too much of this today!  We discussed going for a walk and thought about going to Malham Cove, but neither of us fancied driving too far and so we went to St Aiden's where we've run a race at before, but not walked around.  As RSPB members we get to take advantage of free parking which was good.  We walked about 5K in around an hour and a half and chatted and got rained on a bit which was actually quite nice.  Alan has been really tired and lethargic and I was feeling a bit low energy today as well.

It was Jenny's birthday today and I'd ordered her some flowers and also some craft stuff, I think she's finding things a bit challenging at the moment, so hopefully it helped to cheer her up.

We drove back and then watched more TV (more Storage Hunters), and I had some toast as a snack and more storage hunters and Alan went to cook the last Hello Fresh recipe which was fish, but the fish had massively gone off so he made a couple of burgers instead.

I'm sort of glad I didn't go today as I've been feeling tired and have a bit of a sore throat, not sure where I would have caught anything from.

Isolation Journal 77

I didn't sleep very well at all, I kept waking up just as I was drifting off and I think it was only about 6 hours or so in the end.  I had cornflakes and 2 coffees for breakfast and I picked up the milk, orange juice and eggs and brought them in.

I logged on and had a catch up call with both Rachel and Katie and then had a morning of sorting out emails and then I signed on for Pilates and at the end had a chat with David about the weird nerve thing that is happening to my left leg - basically when I was shaving my legs the other day I noticed the nerves all over my foot tingling like mad.  He didn't think that it was anything to be too worried about, but recommended roll downs and prayer stretches.

I had reheated pasta bake for lunch and then also lots of water!   I arranged a team meeting for our team and the colleagues who look after the more junior end of the market.  We then had a client meeting and then I interview prepped a candidate.  I finished the day by placing a candidate into a job, I was especially pleased as we've been tryinig to help her since I found her a role about a year ago and she couldn't start as she'd had a stroke.  I was really pleased to hep her.  I even managed to send out a LinkedIn search for Rachel.

I finished off at 6.45pm and went for an easy run of 6.5K and then cooked Hello Fresh for dinner which was potato wedges with steak strips and mushroom and red wine sauce with green beans.  I took all the recycling out and the flowers were past their best and put them in the green bins.  I listened to Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami whilst out on my run and cooking - I'd listened to a good few hours whilst commuting, but not for about 6 months, so I'd started from the beginning again.  We watched Peep Show and ate dinner and 

I then had a shower in the bath and I called my Mum back and suggested I could try and visit them although she sounded uncomfortable.  We ended up down the odd conversation topic that she was saying she is 94% English DNA, and no African DNA, I pointed out all of us are likely to be from the same, very likely African DNA, but then she started saying we are all descended from Adam and Eve, very odd.  My brother texted to say that he'd ended up getting the job he'd applied for as the external candidate had turned it down.  We then chatted for about 45 minutes and.  He was suggesting I might be better to stay at his and I think that should be fairly safe as he's very careful and has definitely already had Covid even though he tested negative for the antibodies 4 months later.

I followed up on twitter as I was due to have a flash fiction prompt from Tania Hershman but it hadn't arrived via stupid hotmail, so I had to follow up and she kindly resent it for me.  

Isolation Journal 76

We woke up late again at around 10.30am, Alan had been sleeping in the other room for most of the night as it was so warm and his ear had been giving him grief.

I came downstairs to a dead pigeon that Maya had brought in and mauled with feathers everywhere, I cleared it up with Alan's help, thankfully it was completely dead.

I made some tiger bread toast, sausages and scrambled eggs for breakfast with orange juice and we watched some Peep Show this morning.  I listened to more of "I heart Las Vegas"

I then watched some CSI original Vegas episodes as I've finally had a play around with the SkyQ box.  One of the only things I used to watch when I had Sky was CSI, NCIS and Criminal Minds, I used to watch them for hours whilst my ex would go to bed at 9pm about 20 minutes after I had got home.

I went upstairs to read, but ended up messing around on my phone and then eventually got up and hoovered and mopped all the floors and cleaned the bathroom whilst listening to "I heart Vegas" and then went for a run.  I didn't really need to go for a run, but it seemed like something I could chalk up to achievement for the weekend.

I ran 7.2K and just did a very even pace and it seemed to say it was a base effort and took 43 minutes.  It was a nice sunny evening and I did a few Strava segments to increase my Local Legend efforts.  

Alan made dinner which was a Hello Fresh pork and rice dish and also harvested the rhubarb in the garden and bought some more yesterday and made a crumble.  I made Lynchberg Lemonades for me and Alan and we watched even more Peep Show and I accidentally ordered another copy of Girl Woman Other from Hive, forgetting that I'd ordered it already from Fox Lane Books!

Isolation Journal 75

We woke up at a fairly decent time, shortly after 9am. Alan made us coffee and a hot cross bun each and we watched some more Peep Show.

I then tided up the kitchen and the dishwasher hadn't been cleaning well so I ran it on a rinse cycle and did a load of washing.

For lunch I made a salad with dressing of ginger, honey, sriracha, olive oil, mayo and salt and pepper and cooked some sausage rolls.  

I felt quite low energy and dizzy today, I stood up really quick  and nearly passed out first thing.

I listened to more of "I Heart Vegas" as I was doing chores and then watched a bit more TV.  Alan is still feeling poorly with sore ears and just feeling really weak.  I'm not sure how best to help him, but I fed him some of the vitamins I've been taking - vitamin D and a "megavit" from Holland and Barrett.

I went upstairs and messed around on my phone before getting my "Little Fires Everywhere" book out and had a good read.  Last night I'd also ordered Girl Woman Other from Fox Lane Books that is my most local independent bookshop, it was more expensive than Amazon etc, but I'm keen to support them. 

I've definitely been feeling premenstral with levels of rage bubbling away and today I had stomach cramps and finally my period arrived.

Alan made tea which was Hello Fresh and Haloumi with lentils.  And we started to watch Greyhound, but I was really struggling to concentrate that wasn't helped with Qubit came running in and panted like mad.  Moments later I spotted a facebook post from the neighbours about an injured rabbit and then the Amazon shopping arrived and Chris our neighbour explained that Qubit had brought in a rabbit and it was stuck under a bush.  Between us we managed to get the rabbit out and it hopped away into another field.  I took the recycling out, moved the bins down from being stored on top of each other and spotted Kirsty looking at the rabbit and trying to scare off one of Anna's cats from going for it!  We had some ice cream and Qubit licked te bowl out.

I tried to focus on the film, but couldn't so went for a run at 9pm.  Sunset was at around 8.50pm and it got dark quite quickly, but I got around my run quick enough to be able to do it in the light and I appreciated not having to do lots of intervals up and down the driveway.  I ran about 5.8K in 31 minutes and my VO2 Max went up to 51 and I'm still "productive" with my training.

I then watered the plants and I ran a bath and got stuck for ages playing Pokemon go.  I came down and watched a bit of Frasier with Alan and had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and a lolly and I put on "Lose a stone in 21 days" as a lot of people are talking about it.

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 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.

Banyan Bike Tour and more Yoga!

Up early yesterday to be picked up at 7.30 am for my Banyan Tree Bike Tour.  There are lots of bike tours available in Bali and so it's a bit hard to pick which would be the best one, so I did a bit of reading around and ended up choosing this one as it was rated highly on Trip Adviser and also because there looked to be a lot of cycling through more remote parts - e.g. rice fields etc.  The tour cost 450000 rupiah (£27) and included both breakfast and lunch as well as bike hire, water during the ride, snacks during the ride, guides and transfers.  I was impressed that within less than half a day of enquiring about the trip, the owner had emailed me back with the details and confirming my booking.

I was picked up from my hotel by a guy called Nomad, we then picked up 2 Austrian ladies (who say in Bali they are from Europe so as to not be confused with the many Australian tourists!) called Regina and Petina.  They were friendly and we chatted until stopping at the bridge where in Eat Pray Love Julia Roberts is knocked off her bike by her male love interest!  I didn't take the opportunity to take a photo as I didn't really think it necessary - it was a nice enough bridge though.  We joined up with 4 chatty and very nice Americans from Colorado - 2 couples Marsha and Ali and Kim and Bill.  We drove a little further and stopped at a restaurant for our breakfast which had a fantastic view over the rice fields.  

I had coffee, a fresh pineapple juice and a vegetable omelette for breakfast to set me up for a day of cycling.  It was all very tasty.  I sat with the Americans who were very friendly, Marsha and     Ali had previously lived in Jakarta for 20 years as Ali who is originally from Iran worked for the World bank previously.  Kim and Bill who is a dentist had previously lived in Saudi Arabia for many years too and so they were very comfortable with travel and temperature!  Ali was hilarious, very dead pan comical and with an accent not dissimilar to Joe Mantegna.  We got back in the mini bus and were dropped off to pick up our bikes.  Here I am looking very cool in a helmet with my bike (note the long sleeved shirt...)

I deliberately didn't opt for the "extreme biking tour" as whilst I'm ok on a bike, I didn't fancy my chances in Balinese heat and I was pleased with the pace of the tour - some of the group were in their 60s and so occasionally we had to wait for them, but it was in general a comfortable pace.  

We headed off onto a path through some rice fields which looked lovely, but it became fairly challenging as there were small drops off either side of a very narrow (a little wider than the bike tyres) path.  I had to really concentrate so that I didn't fall off my bike.  Unfortunately I think that I was possibly the only one person in the group who didn't fall off - no-one injured themselves bar a couple of scrapes and bruises, but everyone enjoyed it and was in good spirits.  The most spectacular fall happened right in front of me.  Regina was peddling past a completely naked Balinese guy in one of the rice fields who was using the irrigation system for the rice to have a bath (initially standing up until he saw us and sat in the water).  I don't know whether it was the distraction of the naked man, the very narrow path or both, but she wobbled over and fell into the stream in front of the naked guy getting covered in mud in the process!  I don't know who was more shocked - her or the man!

We cycled into a traditional Balinese compound house with a lady sat feeding her 8 month old grandchild by chewing up rice and feeding it to him.  You can also see our guide and also Regina with a muddy t-shirt in this photo.

We continued along and cycled up a really big hill (well I say cycled, I got so far and then just rolled to a stop, so I got up and pushed my bike the rest of the way.  We were rewarded at the top with a lovely slice of watermelon - Ali liked it so much that he bought one and put it in the mini bus to carry that had been following us around.  By this point he'd fallen off the bike a total of 5 times!

We cycled through a load more rice fields (fortunately this time with slightly wider and more solid paths) and then over a dam before stopping for a banana snack and then carrying our bikes up a steep slope before getting back in the mini bus to take us to the Bike Tour owner's house for a traditional Balinese lunch.

Just before we got in the minibus again to head off for lunch - Gdang our guide, found a nice spider to show us.  "Is it poisonous " I asked before taking a photo "I don't know" he said and then put it on his face and took it with us on the ride to lunch.

(I've just googled "big spider Bali" to see if it is poisonous or not and the 6th image that comes up is also from Banyan Bike Tours!)   Apparently it is "somewhat" poisonous!

We then had a lovely lunch at Bagi's house (owner of Banyan Tree Bike Tours) which was some of the best satay and curried fish that I've ever tasted along with noodles, rice and vegetables.  The best bit was the dessert - some lovely rice pancakes wrapped in banana leaf and a stripey rice cake.

We said goodbye to the Americans (who I'm pleased to say have already registered their postal votes for Obama in advance of the election as they are still going to be in Bali on the 6th) and then we went back via a coffee plantation.

At the coffee plantation we saw lots of interesting plants - Cinnamon, cocoa, pineapples, vanilla as well as both Arabica and Balinese coffee.  We also saw a couple of Mongoose (Mongeese??) who are used to make a very expensive version of coffee - Kopi Luwak or Civet Coffee.  They basically eat the coffee beans, they pass through their digestive system and the beans are roasted and prepared to make a very expensive coffee.

The Austrian ladies had mentioned that they were interested in going to a Yoga class so I suggested that they try out The Yoga Barn as at 6 pm they were doing their Community Yoga class which is free.  I got back to the room despaired at my sun burn - (even Factor 50 can't survive loads of sweat!) and had a nap before wandering down to the Yoga Barn again.

This class was probably a lot more similar to the Yoga that I do back at home.  At home I take a class at my gym in Ashtanga yoga and this was the theme of the class that was taught by a lovely guy called Mark.  At the start of the class he had a brief discussion around yoga and then he gave us some insect repellent.  The class was very warm and lots of poses and vinyasa flow.  At the end he made us do the "Happy Baby" pose - lying on your back with your legs in the air holding your feet - some people laughed and he very positively said that it was a good thing and that "You should never regret something that made you laugh" - A pretty good philosophy I think.  I really enjoyed the class, even though I was very hot and sweaty by the end of it  I think that the Austrians enjoyed it too - highly recommend the Yoga Barn!

I headed back to my room for a well earned shower and change and then went over to Bar Luna to see what was going on and to grab some dinner.   I had a very tasty Kerouac Chicken Sandwich - grilled chicken, very tasty bread with avocado, beetroot and lettuce with mayo spread on the bread and some pesto sauce to go with it.  I also took advantage of BOGOF Mojitos which were also very tasty.