Isolation Journal 51

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isolation Journal 9

Today I was supposed to be on a day off at work, but I had to do a few bits and pieces and this evening managed to book a very important meeting and so have been prepping for that meeting that will be at 10am tomorrow morning.

I had coffee and cornflakes for breakfast again and I faffed around a bit on the internet doing a few bits for work, watched some Frasier with Alan and listened to the Archers on the BBC Sounds app whilst and then got into my run kit to persuade myself to go running.  It was much rainier today so actually it was much cooler to go running.  I am still tracking ok for my 1000 mile yearly target, but the walk on Monday meant I had a bit of catching up to do so I needed to run 8km.  I then got distracted watching PMQs and I had to get back before 2pm to give me time for a shower and food before going to meet my friend Tana for a socially distanced walk.  I managed to do a more or less out and back route through Lumby and kept a decent pace and picked up 3 Strava trophies and average pace of 8.16 per mile.

I had a shower and then had a granny smith, a yoghurt and some goats cheese and chutney on crispbreads for lunch.  

I was meeting Tana and her very cute 2.5 month old baby girl for the first time at Walton Colliery Park for a walk which was lovely and we saw some goslings and swans.  We walked for an hour and got a bit lost, but found our way back to the carpark.  It was so nice to catch up and I really feel for anyone who has had a baby around this time, hopefully we'll be in a better situation soon and at least she got to meet her grandparents just before lockdown.

Driving was weird as I was on the motorway and it was as busy as usual and more busy than I would have expected at 3pm and I drove back around the start of "rush hour" too.  

I watched the daily briefing which was fragmented and confusing and I'm still baffled why the MPs have voted to not use online voting.  I drank a bottle of kombucha and remembered I should buy more.

Alan went out for a run and I listened to some more Archers and cooked Hello Fresh for tea Hake with tomato, caper and olive sauce and tagliattelli.  I had to make my decision on work so I've opted for 80% for July to review as needed as this week we have had far more new roles come in.

I'd been debating whether to do Zumba at 7pm or attend an online talk by Tania Hershman and I decided on the talk.  She talked about her work which includes what she calls "hybrid" work and I loved this concept.  I had hoped to do a bit more writing today, but I felt quite cross and out of sorts and I'm not sure why (other than all the obvious horrific things going on)

I then subscribed to Hay Player  as I wanted to watch a few things including a few James O'brien talks. 

The news that Alok Sharma has contracted Coronavirus and is having to self isolate I found interesting and I wonder if that will make MPs rethink this cancelling of online voting as by voting for it in this way is like saying they want to conduct a survey of physically disabled people, but going to the top a 25 storey building with no lifts to do it.  I don't get the logic of voting against not only the interests of your constituents, but in this situation putting yourself at risk.

Isolation Journal 4

We woke up late again this morning, mostly because we were so warm even with the fan on full blast, but mostly because I made the mistake of engaging with my Mum's friend on one of her posts on Facebook.  My error here is that she's retired, a staunch brexiteer and hits the return button so often that there are more comments pinging all over the place.  I wish there was a feature on Facebook to block certain people's comments appearing from a certain time in the evening... it has my heart palpitating and my mind racing!

We got up and I had some cornflakes and coffee for breakfast after I'd dealt with a couple of work matters.  

I got drawn back into the ongoing Facebook debate, I'd posted a video last night prompted by the (to me) inexplicable loyalty to some of the government actions during the discussion.  I remain convinced that you can still be loyal to a Government or political party or a country and yet disagree with a policy or action of an MP or special advisor.  Critique and opinion forms better ideas and policy, and in this situation as my Mum asks me "How would you do better?" I think my awareness that I know very little about virology would mean that I would collate as many scientists as possible to help me.  I'd look at the world and steal all the ideas that had worked well and I'd make sure messaging was clear - "Stay Alert" is not a clear message when it comes to a microscopic and invisble virus, if it was a war maybe, but it's not.  The wartime rhetoric that has been invoke is problematic for many reasons, not least that as a globe we are stronger to collaborate globally to contain the virus and develop a vaccine.  Anyway, this was the video - Jordan Klepper vs. Trump Supporters This particular person was clearly provoked by this (although I provided no commentary on it, just the link and some thinking emojis) and she went into an overloaded rant and a few comments later was talking about Brexit and calling it the "Chinese" virus.  I shared a quote that I'd found on a Psychology Today article  

"Our survival will not be enhanced by racism or denial of racism. On an individual level, our immune systems are enhanced by compassion and community, and damaged by contempt." and also the link from the WHO as to why it's not helpful to name diseases based on country of origin.

After we'd wasted far too much time on this I'd changed into my run kit to test my knee out on a gentle run with Alan.  Qubit brought in a baby bird that he'd caught and killed which still makes me sad even though he does it far more frequently than any other cat I've lived with.

We ran a different route today through the fields and over the railway and I was trying to find some street art for my photo challenge.  It was really warm and so there was lots of walking, I tried to top the run up to over an hour for a full 8 Vitality Points, but it only gave me 5.  Fortunately my step count took me up to over 12500 so I did end up with the full points.  My knee is still sore, but it seemed ok to do just over 7K so hopefully it's just a niggle that will go away easily.

We'd not had lunch and had not much time before our 6pm online DJ session so we had the remainder of a treacle tart and cream for lunch before showering, changing and getting a few more songs ready for our DJ set.  Alan had done some visuals and we'd created a playlist themed around the political events of the week - not too serious, just themed around Dominic Cumming's jaunt to the north and inspired by some dancing rumours.

In the midst of getting ready Qubit came running into the house with a baby rabbit.  We thought it was dead, but Alan prised it out of his mouth and he hopped off.   We had no spare boxes to hand and the rabbit managed to get upstairs and we had to empty the washing basket and catch it.  I took him out to the paddock in front of the house and slowly tipped him out and he hopped off into the field.  He was really cute and it still upsets me that Qubit is such a big hunter, at least he was ok.

We Djed for 2 hours, I made a few mistakes, the feed went a bit sketchy and I'm not sure I'm getting any better, but Alan enjoyed playing with his app that he's just finished coding.

Alan then made chicken stir fry for tea and we watched Have I got News for You and more Friends.  We noticed Qubit was limping a bit, although would let us look at his paw and ther wasn't an obvious injury so we are keeping an eye on him and hope that he'll be ok tomorrow.  He was also happy to eat his dinner and some treats, so hopefully will be fine.

And so to bed, late again...I need to get better at going at a proper time.