Isolation Journals 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128

 So I've got a bit out sync, I'll try and summarise....

123 - Friday - Work was busy, Rachel was on holiday, I persuaded Alan to go out for a walk at lunch to pick up my prescription and it was windy, when we got back onto Whitecote Lane we found a tree that had fallen down and blocked the road and one of the trees in Andy and Becci's paddock was also losing a branch so I had to call North Yorkshire County Council to report and sort out the tree in the road.  I managed to finish work just in time to walk down to the Thack and pick up some Fish and Chips for dinner before they go on holiday.  It was windy, but I chatted to my Mum and Dad as I walked.

124 - Saturday - I woke up fairly late and then put my running stuff on and wrote a letter in reply to my Aunty Alison and Ron who had sent me and Alan an Anniversary card and I posted it on my run.  I took an epic photo of Maya looking like she'd written a disapproving letter.   Alan made orzo pasta for a very late lunch and then after I'd had a bath we went out for a walk and then he made a rice pudding which we had for "tea" and then we went to bed.

125 - Sunday - Another late rising and I mostly faffed around before deciding to go for a run and I wanted to do over 10K and so I did and managed a reasonable time.  We then had another late lunch, I made Korean Tacos and then had a bath and tidied up the house and mopped the floor whilst Alan went out for a run.  

126 - Monday - I'd negotiated with Alan to go into the office for the morning as he is uncomfortable with me being there the whole day and so I went in for the morning, only drank water that I'd brought with me and we have a one way system and lots more sanitiser.  It felt safe, but I went back at lunchtime and logged on from home and finished off another very busy day.  My extra beer 52 delivery arrived.

127 - Tuesday - worked from home all day, made waffles and scrambled eggs for lunch and in the evening some meatballs and spaghetti for tea and had a couple of beers and then we went for a walk in the dark along Whin Lane.

128....Will catch up tomorrow!

Not so Isolation Journal 103

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not so Isolation Journal 100

Another earlier start back into the office today.  I didn't sleep very well, it took me a while to drift off and I woke up about 25 minutes afterwards.  My alarm went off at 6.50am and woke me up in the midst of a dream.  I was a bit slower to get up and get moving, but I got downstairs, fed the cats, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, had some of the badly executed banana bread and yoghurt for breakfast and then got dressed left about the same time as yesterday around 7.55am, but as I got down the end of Whitecote Lane there was a load of farm equipment completely blocking the road and so I had to do a million point turn to go back on myself through Newthorpe, so it was probably around 8.40am by the time I walked into the office.

The morning was relatively productive, lots of trying to get on top of how the system works and I'm getting there slowly.  I managed to send some CVs eventually, but it seems a bit clunky getting eveything as I used to.

At lunch I ate at my desk and had rice and bean and also a naked bar as well as 2 apples and a satsuam for snacks.  I then went for a walk around the block along the canal with Nic again.  She noticed that there were a lot of people walking around the back of my desk and suggested that I move to a more corner area with less people around me so I'll swap with Rachel when I'm back in the office again on Friday.

I worked out that I still had 15.5 days of leave to take and so I took off a week in October with a plan of booking onto an online writing course with Arvon.  

The afternoon was fairly productive other than the frustration of having a meeting that lasted for 40 minutes which could have been an email about a client transfering over some temps.  I finished up around 6.30pm and then went to the toilet before heading to the car in pouring rain.  It was so wet that it took me a long time to drive back in the rain more slowly.

When I arrived back home Alan was cleaning the cooker which was impressive!

I cooked Hello Fresh when I got in - Toulouse Sausage and potatoes with a tomato and bean sauce and listened to PMQs as I cooked.  I also ate 30g portion of cheese, marmite and skips whilst I cooked as I was way too hungry.  I had thought about going for a run, but it got late after I'd let my dinner go down and so I decided to email the vouchers we'd not yet been able to book for our wedding as they are due to expire very soon.  I asked the Alfresco Adventures and the Yorkshire Heart Wine Tasting people to ask about how to book.

I also checked my course on Saturday and messaged my friend Jenny to see if she might be interested in meeting for a walk and she seemed interested.

We watched Friends, Taskmaster and generally stuff on Dave whilst Alan waited for an Amazon order to arrive and we ate feasts and then wine gums after the delivery had arrived and I had a beer as well.  I meant to go for a run, but it was too wet and I didn't fancy it, will need to do 10K tomorrow!

Isolation Journal 78

I don't know why, but I don't like Tuesdays...groggy wake up, got cornflakes and coffee, logged on for the team call and then sorted emails and covered a few calls and sorted a spreadsheet.

I'd managed to place someone yesterday, but I realised I'd completely messed up the rate quote, I worried about this for a while, then spoke to the client and managed to sort it out, but I'm frustrated that I ended up in that situation. It has been very hot today that hasn't really aided my ability to behave coherently.

We then had 3 deliveries, one for Alan - a new extractor fan for the bathroom to replace the one that had broken, he fixed it, a book that I'd ordered direct from my most local bookshop Fox Lane Books and they had wrapped it beautifully and also refunded my delivery which they really didn't need to and finally a shower cable for the shower so I don't have double water spray which I managed to fit with a bit of Alan's help.

Maya managed to sneak out onto the flat roof and looked very pleased with herself.  

I had a temp BD session kick off call at 1pm and then quickly made some salad with lettuce, coriander and radiccho for lunch with a slice of tiger bread and some smoked wensleydale cheese.

I had a meeting at 2pm with a client that was quite productive and I'd found out some really sad news that the partner of a candidate I've placed twice and known fairly well for a few years had suddenly been bereaved.  Her partner had died very suddenly and it's so sad as she's younger than me.

I managed to make some headway sorting through my emails and catching up on admin and then finished work around 6.45pm again and went out for a quick run and managed to do 5k in my fastest time for a while of 25.25 and finished up with 30 mins of exercise.  I listened to more of the "Wind Up Bird Chronicles"

I quickly showered and then made dinner of Hello Fresh Lamb Linguine - Alan was feeling ill with a bad headache so I cooked. 

I then signed onto the Zoom call for the Chalk the Sun reading session and somehow ended up reading an excerpt from my "novel" that I've been writing.  The feedback was generally positive and gave me some food for thought.  I also enjoyed hearing other people's writing too.

I then watered the plants, tidied the kitchen, put washing and dish washing on and ate 2 ice lollies.  I came up to write, but wasn't feeling very inspired so have just managed this and probably my flash fiction challenge and then I'll get into bed.

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 54

Not quite sure why we woke up earlier than expected, but I think possibly the neighbours were doing the hoovering.  It was good as we had to wake up for Delifresh delivery and also it meant that for once I could sign on for the virtual Opposite Zoom call.  Alan was also up after a coffee and headed to the neighbours garage again to fix up things to make it able for us to get Sky Q (I don't know what this is, but apparently it's "better" and Alan definitely knows more about this sort of thing)

The Delifresh delivery times are very precise - yesterday it was suggested it would be 10.07am, it was then revised to 10.04am and arrived pretty bang on.  It took a while to unload as it was all plastic free and so I had about 7 crates to unload with tasty treats including 900g of smoked Wensleydale cheese, mortadella ham and milano salami.  

I chatted on Zoom to parkrun people which was really nice, and as I was putting away the shopping they were asking for a tour of the house, so I obliged.  I also had to help Alan check TV signal.  

I had to sign off early as we had visitors including Winston Dog.  I'm still getting used to a bit more social interaction, we were very careful and we shared a picnic of olives, salad, beetroot, cheese, meats and chutney along with some pork pie and scotch egg that our guests had kindly brought us.  We also had caramel short bread.  It was nice to see the kids who are very funny and chattted away and wanted to sit next to me to eat lunch.

I was pretty tired so watched some Spooks and messed around on my phone and then had a nap, but set my phone to wake me up in time for the last online dance class at 5pm. 

I then listened to some Hay Festival recordings about young adult literature and researched MAs in Creative Writing as I'm wondering if I should do some further study to help make me hold myself to account.  I also read some of "It's not the end of the World" by Judy Blume to remind me of the sort of stuff I used to read when I was a teenager.

I then persuaded Alan to go out for a run with me and we saw some amazing sunsets and I asked him for suggestions about idea for something that I could write for young adult fiction and I had a potentially workable idea byt tthe time we'd got back home.

I made some cheese on toast on the olive loaf and some mortadella and salami and the left over salad.  Then watched more Spooks.

Isolation Journal 52

Today felt really hard, I'm not exactly sure why.  I woke up not too tired and had enough time to get up and make coffee and yoghurt, apple and granola for breakfirst.

I logged on for our team call and got stuck into work, but really struggled to be as productive as I'd hoped.  I'd booked onto an Arvon course with Hisham Matar and listened in the background for the first section and then participated for the second, he was really interesting and the writing exercises were really interesting - write a description of the room you are in, past tense and in the third person and then 3 people including my friend Lauren and a lady that Lauren googled and found online and then they had to rewrite the same piece and task but without stating it, having in mind that the main character had found out that they were to become a parent.  I found it challenging, but a good exercise to complete.  It made me feel like I should definitely be doing more writing.  I think it's one of the things from a very young age that I've wanted to do is to be a published writer, and so I should really try and make it happen.

Our bathroom sink is really smelly, I tried to clean some of the gunk underneath the plug hole and I managed to drop the stick in there, it's been a clumsy day.

Alan made some scones for lunch and we had them with clotted cream, jam and strawberries - they were delicious!  It did cheer me up a little as did the subscription flowers that arrived, more eucalyptus foliage and some white/yellow snapdragons.  I was busy so  I popped them in a few vases of water and then later on in the evening I tidied them up and moved the hydrageas from last time into one vase for the fresher looking ones and one for the older ones.  I now have 4 vases of flowers around the house.

I did some more work and still struggled to be as productive, did a handover with Rachel who is now on annual leave for 2 weeks - I'm going to be super busy!

I then started cooking dinner, but the chicken in the Hello Fresh mango chicken and bulgar wheat took too long to cook so I had to hand over to Alan to finish up and start my end of term guide meeting which was an online Harry Potter Escape room that I'd done with my friend's son.

After guides I sat down with Alan for a bit and he wanted to go for a run and so we went and did 5K up to Sherburn on an out and back route, we went past our local pub that looked pretty busy, but socially distanced and safe. 

I then tidied the kitchen, did a load of washing and set off the dishwasher.  I had a shower in the bath and then listened to the High Low Podcast and put the washing away switching to the Archers.

I then came down and watched some Catfish and updated this blog...

Isolation Journal 26

Alan woke me up at around 9am today as he'd booked a Tesco delivery (amazingly we booked a slot for early this morning yesterday, we were surprised, we didn't even need to do click and collect)

I felt better getting up at a reasonable time, yesterday I felt like I really wasted the day.  We had peacan plaits and coffee for breakfast and watched a bit of Scrubs and Best of Big Brother.  I'd planned to take my friend's son Alex for a walk, but she'd not put two and two together that it was father's day and so they headed off to the coast, which I totally understood because as a chef her husband is usually working.  I'll hopefully head over on Wednesday instead.

I mopped the house and hoovered upstairs to tick off another post it note I'd put together.  

Alan made bread and burgers and cooked them on the barbecue outside along with some artichokes from the garden cooked with garlic and rosemary and also I dug out some corn on the cobs that we'd had for ages.  As he cooked I sorted out some compost from the compost heap as I'd put in some wool lining from the bags we get in Hello Fresh as they say compostable, but it does take a lot longer than everything else!  I also planted out two of the lavendar plants at the back next to the wall and one at the front.  I hope they grow well.  Alan also picked me some raspberries for me and I'll have them for breakfast tomorrow.

After lunch I spent some time sorting some emails and working out how I was tracking on my 20 things in 2020 goals.  I then ordered some more facemasks as I had an idea that I wanted some with bees on them and I found one supplier on Etsy who use fabric with puffins and bumblebees on and donates £2 per mask to a children's centre in West Yorkshire - perfect!  I also listened to a panel discussion on Hay Player from 2018 with Candice Brathwaite and a few others about motherhood.  I had one of the cookies that Alan got from Tescos.

I gave my Dad a call for fathers day and had a good chat, it's hard not knowing when I might see my parents again, I don't tend to visit and they don't tend to come up all that regularly, but not knowing and feeling restricted does make it seem a lot harder.

I then made some dinner an Aubergine Curry a Hello Fresh recipe - it was delicious! And we watched the IT Crowd and I did a bit of work for an urgent role that I need to shortlist for and my anxiety about not finding the right candidate/missing candidate was calmed a little bit as I went through 215 candidates and found very few that I had perhaps not already covered.  I wish I'd been able to do this all on Friday or even yesterday as it would have made my weekend less anxiety ridden.

I then went out for a run at about 9.30pm - I am sad that from now the nights will start drawing in earlier as I love having the scope to run in the light until past 10pm at this time in the year.  I was feeling a bit nervous as it was a bit dark and also a woman was attacked about 3 miles away in Fairburn earlier this week so I did hill reps and listened to What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty that I'd started listening to yesterday and also listened to during cooking - it's great!  I ran just over 4 miles in about 36 minutes and added it to my (not) parkrun times weirdly the same best time this week of 26.39 so I have something to work towards next week.

I had a shower in the bath and then came back to finish off my blogging updates and also cleaned the kitchen and enjoyed some Haagen Daas Praline and Cream and debated with Alan how to say Praline.  I also watched a bit more Big Brother and Alan went to bed after a bath with a bit of a cough and I made him a honey and lemon and he's going to sleep in the other room.  I hope he feels better by tomorrow morning.

Isolation Journal 6

Another late rising today, but I did manage to read 1 short story before I got out of bed which was an achievement.  I took Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks with me to Costa Rica in December 2018 and read and loved most of it, but inspired by the Flash Fiction earlier this week I've been inspired to read it again.  

We had a ridiculously childlike breakfast of potato waffles and sausages and some Reggae Reggae Sauce and I had a couple of coffees to wake me up properly.  I watched another Hay Festival online talk from A C Grayling about democracy which wasn't hugely positive about the democratic future for us post Covid, but did make some helpful suggestions about how it could be changed to be basically more democratic.  The one quote I especially enjoyed was "There is no such thing as a majority, only a temporary coalition of minorities across different elements of society" (i'm likely misquoting, but this was the gist)

I refilled the coffee machine with the emergency coffee that I got from Amazon whilst we waited for our deliver to arrive from Modern Standard last week (of course they came on the same day10 and Qubit wanted to smell it - he wasn't keen.

I watched a talk from Hay Festival last year by Michael Rosen, I loved his poems as a kid and I love some of his newer work.  It was lovely to see how much the kids in the audience loved his work as well.  Really inspiring.  I've just googled him to find out how old he was out of curiousity and he is 74, I also spotted that he was really poorly with suspected Covid-19 and I hope that he's doing ok.  

Alan prepared the ingredients for a stew and put it in the slow cooker, and I tidied some of the potatoes up out of the kitchen that had started to sprout and planted them in planters in the garden after I had cleared off the weeds.  

For lunch I made us another salad and the avocado was just about perfectly ripe thankfully!  We ate outside on our very lovely garden chair with a blanket over the top to cover from the ridiculous sunshine.  

I watched the Daily Briefing and it was heartening to see that many homeless people have been helped during this crisis, around 15000 people, but I'm sad that there were that many people who were homeless and needed support.  I'm incredibly confused and concerned that they have all of a sudden decided that even though the death rate is the same as when we went into lockdown, they have deemed it ok for those who have been shielding to go outside again.  The photos of crowded parks and beaches also massively worry me, I am incredibly fortunate to be able to work from home and not have to go into busier situations in the coming weeks unless I choose to, so I'm going to choose to remain not too different from my current situation to hopefully mitigate the easing of lockdown which (in my opinion) is just too early to be safe.

I decided to go for my run and needed to find the last photo for my photo challenge for the theme "chasing rainbows" and I ran into the village and said hello to some of our friends including our 6 year old dance teacher from yesterday.  

I found a couple of rainbows in the village and then ran up to Lumby and found a couple more.  I ran back through Lumby and debated whether to go left and a longer route or right for a shorter one.  I was pleased that I went for the longer route back and enjoyed some beautiful evening light.  I had a nice chat with our neighbours at number 2 on the way back in.

Alan's stew was nearly ready so I had a shower and then ate some tasty dumplings and enjoyed the last of the meat (stewing steak)) from our very delicious order from The Ethical Butcher.  He put on Space Force, but I've been a bit distracted so I'm not sure what I make of it.  

Lauren had finished work at 8 so we had a wrap up video chat on our creative week and we have a few really good ideas for collaboration of work for flash fiction.  She also shared a great drabble with me in relation to our idea for our collaboration.  I've started mine... let's see how it all turns out.  

Isolation Journal 2

After another late evening writing before bed so we were woken up with a start at 8am by Amazon delivering a parcel for Alan.  I got back into bed and fell back to sleep for a bit and it was probably around 10am before we got up.  

We had cornflakes for breakfast (which apparently provides you with 50% of your daily Vitamin D needs which I'd never focussed on as much until I knew it can help your body be more resilient to Covid, well apart from when I binged on it after I broke my shoulder in 2018)

I listened to another Hay Festival Lecture on vaccinations (well half before I had to cook lunch) and again I'll finish listening again.  We had gnocchi fried with chorizo, courgette and spring onion and Alan picked and prepped some of the artichoke that we've been growing in the garden.  He used garlic oil and roasted them in the oven.  We've been really enjoying the Artichokes as have the ants and the aphids, it's hard to clean them all off!  We ate outside and it was really hot!

I wrote 2 cards/letters one to my Dad's cousin Polly who I know is living by herself and I'm guessing might be finding lockdown more challenging and also one to my friend Gloria who is turning 40 - I found a weird inspo card from the 90s that I've had in my possession since it was being thrown out by the worst company I think I've ever worked for.   The card said "Desire breeds Power" and I think she'll enjoy the oddness of it.  

As a CIRF part sponsored by my running club Hyde Park Harriers I had set out a plan to deliver marathon coaching this year, but with all the marathons postponed and not being able to run in groups I've been preparing some session plans for people to do whilst they are running by themselves.  So far I've done a session on intervals, a progression session and today was a hill reps session.

I also listened to a parkrun podcast that has been continuing in lockdown - With Me Now as I tidied out the awkward cupboard in the kitchen to put in the new pans that arrived from Amazon at 8am this morning.  Alan also watered the garden with the hose and accidentially knocked off the water to the dishwasher and then subsequently fixed the dishwasher.

We decided to go for a run to post my 2 letters and took it steady as it was warm and Alan is regaining his fitness after some time out from running.  I also twinged my Piriformis and so was taking it a bit slower.  It took us a little longer than planned so I ended up dialling into a weekly call that I have with my friends Hayley and Sam via zoom at 5pm whilst we were still walking home across a field.  

I had a good chat and catch up with Hayley and Sam and then I debated whether to do the Wednesday evening online Zumba class with my friend Gui and I did and took it easy.  Qubit arrived in the middle and meowed loudly.

We then had Hello Fresh for tea - spicy meatball curry and rice and then rhubarb crumble and vinetta for dessert and caught up with Have I got News for You 

I'm now currently enraged by my Mum sharing a post defending Dominic Cummings, which I really don't understand when she is far more negatively affected by government policy than I am, I could say a lot more on this, but I'm currently engaged in a row with my mum on messenger.

Isolation Journal 1

I really should have started an isolation journal back in March, but I'm guessing that I'm not the only person feeling like this.  At the time when everything started to change, it changed fast and even though I had more "time" my mental energies were a bit frazzled.

For me as I've mentioned in my previous post it all felt (feels) a bit like a dream, we flew out to a tropical island and by the time we flew back my reality was very different, but rather than try and distill the past 10 weeks into a journal entry, I'm going to just think about today as part of the weekly challenge from Curtis Brown Creative.

Last night I went to bed fairly late as I have this week off as holiday, I'd decided to participate in a creative writing week with my friend Lauren and so I didn't end up getting into bed until around 1am as I'd been up doing a freewriting challenge.  Annoying my laptop decided to freeze and omitted half of what I'd written!

It meant that I woke up after around 7.5 hours of sleep and finally dragged myself out of bed after 9am knowing that I needed to get myself ready for a cycle ride.  I'd arranged to meet my cousin for a socially distanced catch up at Towton Battlefield and swap cakes.  My cousin is gluten free so I decided to make some chocolate cornflake cakes and used my favourite life hack ever of melting chocolate with a hairdrier.  I ate a banana for breakfast and had a black coffee from our lovely new coffee machine.

Alan came with me which was helpful as I'm still a bit nervous about cycling and despite googlemaps claiming it was 4.5 miles it ended up being 6 miles.  We met just after 11am and had a nice long chat whilst some farmers were laying out some cabling across the field.  We had the new awkward scenario of how to exchange cakes whilst keeping a social distance, it almost looks like a very small hostage exchange.  I felt bad on the way back as Alan pointed out that we'd not actually gone for a stroll around the Battlefield especially after reading my favourite 1 star review.

boring field

I like to come to the old battle fields. This battle field is the most boring one out of them all there is nothing to see but boring old fields. I payed a tone of money to get there and when i got there all it is, is fields after fields and the best moment was the trip there and back!!!!!!

I made some pasta for lunch with some roasted courgette and yellow pepper and chorizo and made some marmite sauce for mine after my friend Lauren had told me about it - basically cook the pasta and save some pasta water and mix it with butter and marmite.  It was very salty, but delicious.

Whilst I was cooking I listened to half of a talk from the The Hay Fesitval online by Devi Sridhar above the Covid-19 pandemic and I need to finish watching it because she was giving some really balanced critique of the UK handling including the observation that countries with less strong health systems were more rapid and robust with their responses and consequently experienced less deaths than those who on paper were better set up with strong health systems and so perhaps delayed their decisions to respond longer.  

We ate lunch and I watched another event from The Hay Festival live by Daniel Davis on immunity and Covid-19, Lauren was also watching and we both found that it was very science based in explanations and for me I need to re-watch it!

Lauren and I then had a video call to talk through the writing that we had done and to compare some notes about how we'd found the writing exercise.  It was really nice to actually do some writing and have someone else give some feedback.  I had written a piece of freewriting and thought about the concept of freedom in lockdown and Lauren had written a piece inspired by the writing prompt He knew she’d never come back.  Lauren had written with pen and paper and it made me think that I might like to try doing some writing that way as I think typing and writing use slightly different parts of your brain.  We're going to do some more writing and discussion over the week and have both booked onto a "flash fiction" course with Arvon on Thursday.

After I'd finished the call I watched the Daily Briefing from Downing Street which had two of the questions from the public that I would be asking if I'd been given the chance - Will people fined in similar situations in lockdown looking to access childcare now be able to appeal their fines in light of Dominic Cumming's behaviour being described as "legal" and also a question about if we can go shopping for non essentials why and when can we see our families?  Matt Hancock gave a more consistent briefing than we have seen over the past couple of days, but was extremely dismissive of the media and didn't allow follow-ups on their questions.  I'm worried about why we have the highest death rate and yet we still don't have a robust test, track and trace system set up and what is happening with the app?  It amazes me that people are still willing to defend our government without question as we are so far behind the world in being able to get back to some sense of normal life.  

After the briefing I decided to go for a run, I'm aiming to run around 1000 miles in 2020 which sounds like a lot, but is actually only 4.4K per day when you break it down.  I also wanted to take some pictures for the photo competition that one of the ladies from my running club has set.  I took pictures for the "bugs eye view" and "red, blue or yellow" categories.  I was going to go for a run up and down the hill on the road next to the house to keep an eye out for an amazon pantry delivery, but it had been left by the door when I went to set out for my run so I unpacked it and set off.  I ran 5K in 27 minutes.

Alan made dinner and we had a Hello Fresh recipe of Lamb Kofta and he even made a rhubarb crumble which we had with a bit of vinetta that was delivered with the Amazon Pantry order.  The biggest issue I have with lockdown is just how much sugar and puddings I'm eating, generally I've been healthier in terms of sleep and excercicse - I'm running, cycling, zumba and walking as well as Pilates classes, but I definitely need to try and cut down on the sweet things!

Whilst eating dinner, we watched a very odd film that promised more in the description than it delivered.  The Voices - A likable guy pursues his office crush with the help of his evil talking pets, but things turn sinister when she stands him up for a date.  It gets 6.4 / 10 on IMDB, but I would probably give it 3 - 4 as it really didn't have a very coherent plot and was just a bit gross, but not in a funny or contributing to the plot way.

We then put Friends on again in the background whilst I started to  write my isolation journal...