Isolation Journal 25

It was fairly late by the time I got into bed last night, probably around 2am, but I didn't expect my first open eyed "this is a new day" realisation to be at 11.50am!  I'd missed the chance of logging into the parkrun zoom call and it was lunchtime.

I made some black pudding sausages and scrambled eggs with sriracha for brunch (or lunch!) and we watched some Scrubs.

I'd planned a few things I wanted to do over the weekend on my post it notes and I did a few of them like tidying the lounge, dining room and kitchen and I managed to hoover a bit later, but still need to mop the floors down.  Alan cleaned the bathroom and after nearly 14 weeks of black marks post lush bathbomb we have a white bath again!

At 4pm I realised that it was nearly time for my 5th dance class with Eliza, so I watched Catfish and ate leftover curry from last night (not the best way to prepare for a dance class) before the class at 5pm.  I was awarded star of the week and we learned that our dance teacher had interviewed and recruited her sister to do all the admin for her (her mum hoped writing invoices and posters would encourage her in her writing) with a payment of not playing loud music at least 2 times a week.  I do enjoy the sense of entrepeneurship she has demonstrated.

My friend Gem came around to get me to sign a form for the guides for gift aid and it was nice to see for a catch up with her daughter and husband Chris, I also saw both the neighbours from number 2 and number 5 as well.  

Alan went for a run and then after he'd returned told me that he thought that I should cut his hair for him.   Last time was quite stressful, but I'd watched a video from Brad Mondo which seemed to have a better method and so I shared it with Alan and we watched it and used it to cut his hair, again he put it live on Facebook, but I'm more pleased with the end results even if it took 40 mins!

I then took my opportunity to go for a run and did 6.5K in 35 mins and watched the sunset.  Felt a bit sluggish, but was very pleased to be out.  Dinner was ready when I got through the door and so I had a pork stir fry with rice from Hello Fresh and we opened a bottle of Cava and watched Hidden Figures as my friend Mark mentioned it earlier.  It was a really good film, although my attention span for films is very challenging at the moment  

I'm now running a bath and I've very naughtily opened a bag of Cadburys treatsize chocs that I ended up getting for free as they were incorrected sold as weighing more than the catalog, but 8 weeks later they've not asked me to return them, but I have to say after very little chocolate in the past 3 months, I'm eating it, but with less joy than I thought I'd experience.

Isolation Journal 24

This nearly didn't happen as I managed to fall asleep on the sofa in front of Dirk Gently.

Slept ok, woke up ok, although with massive anxiety about a job that I was matching at work today that I wasn't as far along with as I had hoped.  

Had some cornflakes for breakfast - the milkman had been.  I planned on making a quick coffee before work, but I managed to spill the drip tray everywhere whilst I was refilling the hopper with beans.  Took me 10 mins to clean up.

Today was a 3 coffee day and Alan made some rice and we had leftover bolognase from yesterday and ate in the garden whilst it was sunny.  Qubit got into the next door neighbours bush and meowed and then we picked some raspberries, I cut down some nettles and Alan cut down the elder that was growing in the wall at the back.

2 meetings on Teams today with clients/candidates that was quite productive and some good calls, but just need more candidates for this particular role, it's stressful sometimes when you know there must be another candidate out there, even when you have looked pretty hard.  I had some shortbread as a snack.

I finished later than I'd hoped at work, but managed to download a couple of songs and Alan and I djed for about 2 hours and got thrown off a few times when it detected matching music content.  He used his app a bit which seems to be working well.

It transpires that Katie Hopkins has been permanently banned from twitter today for inciting hatred, I'm not surprised and I'm a bit confused about people complaining about lack of free speech.  It's not that she can't speak and say the same things, but a service provider has chosen to no longer allow them to do it on their platform.  It's like if you were invited to a party, starting upsetting other guests and were asked to leave, it doesn't mean that she can't say these things anymore (although I wish she wouldn't!), but it means they don't have the AI and audience to spam it out to millions of people.

I'd had a rum punch whist DJing and finishing at 9pm neither of us really fancied cooking so we ordered our first takeaway curry since lockdown and our first ever from Saffron on the Just Eat app.  It was really good and it was supposed to take 45 mins so I headed out for a quick run.

I was just going to run up and down the driveway, but the sunset was so beautiful that I ran half a kilometre up to the start of Gorse Lane to take some photos.  The delivery driver arrived as I'd only run about 2 miles and for 20 mins so I took the delivery and went inside.  I left my watch running to tick off 5 vitality points as it only counts workouts if they are longer than 30 minutes.

We watched Dirk Gently and then I fell asleep.

Isolation Journal 23

We had a bit of a rubbish night of sleep as the next door neighbour's had an alarm go off around 1am so we had about 20 mins of trying to check they were ok, we wondered if it was a CO alarm and tried to wake them to make sure they were ok.  They were, but we texted, and then called and then we finally got a text back after wandering around outside for a bit.  The main thing is that they were ok!

This moring I was a bit groggy, but had coffee and banana bread and my first MS teams meeting and then moved onto another MS Teams meeting where I was sharing some knowledge around how to use a particular spreadsheet.  I had a busy day for the rest of the day, but it went by in a bit of a blur, but I did manage to get through all of my job applications that are hugely up compared to previous months.  We also recorded another update video and I did some research into things that have happened in light of Covid that we might see as positive and want to keep such as the fact that working from home as a more common scenario would mean that people with mobility issues are better placed to access some roles that previously might be solely office based and that if offices are refurbished they may install automatic doors to limit touch points and that would also improve accessiblity for people.

I had a pilates class at 12pm which was challenging, but good and as the class started the guys who were coming to look at our roof as we'd had a leak last week arrived about 10 minutes in, so Alan had a chat with them and they started work on the roof and seem to have fixed it for us.  I roasted the leftover chicken thighs from earlier in the week and made a sriracha mayo dressing with some grated carrot, iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes and cucumber and mixed it together, I was really pleased with how tasty it was.  Today was a 3 coffee day.

I snacked on a bit of banana bread and some hot cross buns a bit later and had a delivery which was some of the plants I'd ordered from Gardening Direct 3 lovely lavender plants that smell lovely.  I need to work out where to plant them.

I finished work and faffed around on the internet for a bit and realised it was time for guides.  Gem had run the meeting and we had a bit of a scavenger hunt and then another activity for our UMAs and presented some badges.

Alan was doing a lecture online and then cooked tea which was ready as guides finished.  We watched some more Dirk Gentley and I had a glass of malbec and had a pasta bologanase for dinner.

I suggested a walk with Alan to get us out of the house and actually despite all the rain it was a lovely fresh evening with loads of amazing woodland smells.  We walked up to the bench that we can see from our house and that looks down to where we live and chatted about lots of things.  We wondered how in such a short space of time we went from "hug and hoody" to where we are now politically.  We walked back home and it was quiet and there was birdsong.

Isolation Journal 22

It was a day when I wasn't fully signed on at work, so I didn't set an alarm and so naturally work up at 9.22am...only Alan also hadn't set an alarm and so had to leap out of bed and get logged on for work.

I sorted a few emails for work, arranged to pay my service charge for my flat and arranged a meeting with a client for 11am on MS Teams.

I had crumpets for breakfast and made some for Alan and used the coffee flavoured spread on two and meant to do a plain buttered one for Alan, but accidentally put marmite on it and so then made him an extra plain one and I had 3 crumpets for breakfast.  I took the compost out and picked some raspberries for a snack.

I then had my client meeting which was useful and got into my running kit.

I decided to go for a 19KM run as my run club has been doing a run challenge to run or walk 19KM in 19 days in June, but I knew that I'm not having trouble getting out and doing some running, but that I am having a bit of a challenge doing longer distances so it seemed like the perfect challenge as why else would you choose a random figure of 19KM.

I had been planning to go for a walk with my friends son afterwards, but the timings unfortunately didn't line up.

I ran to Fairburn Ings again and this time further along around the first lake that I got to and then towards Castleford following the river, I was going to take a peak at the Kingfisher hide, but it was just a bit too busy so I went back to a less popular route.  At 9.5K I looked around and took a little video and then ran back.  I didn't pause my watch to get an accurate time (although I did for 10 seconds when I got confused and saw a frog!) and it took me around 1 hour 57 to do the 19KM.  I took my camelbak with some shotbloks and had about 3 to keep me going.  I listened to the end of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck as well as a bit of the High Low Podcast.

I then had a quick bath and had some lunch - jacket potato with marmite, butter and cheese.  

I then went upstairs for a nap and snoozed whilst the Daily Briefing was on.  Then my brother gave me a call because it was my second oldest Niece's birthday - she is 4.  She seemed to like the colouring and drawing books that I'd got for her and also showed me a few other things.  I got to see all 4 of my nieces and nephews, it was a busy video chat!  My brother is convinced he had Coronavirus back in March and said that he was less worried about the two oldest going back to school because of this, but he does work in the NHS so it must be a strange time for him.  Alan was on Zwift whilst I was chatting away.

Alan had a pop up green screen delivered that he'd put up and was struggling to put down back into the container, he didn't appreciate me laughing, but it wasn't what I had expected to see when I'd come downstairs.

I then made dinner - pork and chorizo stew with Ciabatta and logged on for a zoom call with my friends Hayley and Sam and we had a good catch up for 2 hours and then I came downstairs and prepped some strawberries and had strawberries and cream and Alan made banana bread which I had a couple of warm slices of with butter.

We watched a couple of episodes of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and then I watched some Catfish.

Isolation Journal 21

3 weeks of isolation journalling today, it's flown and also not flown, such a strange sense of time these days.

I didn't sleep well at all last night, I got about 7 hrs 11 mins, but it doesn't seem that I felt like I'd slept well at all.  I stumbled downstairs and got some coffee and cornflakes and then logged on for work.

I was pretty busy this morning, I placed someone yesterday and so had some checking to do and a few other MS teams meetings.  Whilst I felt tired I think I was pretty productive today.

I made some pasta with the wild garlic pesto I made last night for lunch, it was so garlicky it was painful!  Alan couldn't finish it!  I guess the roots and seeds are more powerful than the leaves!  I snacked on some chocolate digestives and an orange ice lolly to try and get the taste out of my mouth.  

After work I managed to sign off at a reasonable time around 6.15pm and then I went for a run with Alan, I managed to get him excited about a couple of cherry trees nearby and we found some ripe cherries to pick.  I also dropped £2 off to pay for my online dance class and some spare egg boxes as they have chickens who are laying about 2 eggs per day each.

We ran about 3.5K and it wasn't fast, but it allowed us to pick up some tasty cherries!

I had a wash and Alan made tea - Hello Fresh orzo pasta with lamb meatballs.  I ate dinner and then went upstairs to do a zoom marathon training plan writing session with my running club.  2 people signed on and we had a good chat.  Currently London marathon is rescheduled to October, but the Great North Run has just been cancelled until next year, so it all looks quite uncertain at the moment.  We had a good chat about training load and marathon planning.

I then came downstairs and poured myself a whisky and ginger and watched some Catfish.

Isolation Journal 20

Alan got up earlier today to go to his office and was running around as he'd also agreed to take the go pro back to our his work colleague Danielle who leant it to us when we went snorkling in Barbados (we didn't expect to have it so long)  Qubit came running up the stairs and had caught a baby rabbit.  The rabbit was unharmed (although surely scared) and we managed to catch it (well Alan did, even gave it a little stroke) and put it in the laundry basket and set it free in one of the neighby fields.

I had 2 black coffees and a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast and another day of a lot of teams meetings, 3 lots of internal meetings including one quite detailed one coming up with ideas.  

I managed to place a candidate today which was good news, it's been a bit busier over the last 2 weeks, but since lockdown it's been much quieter than usual.  At least organisations are becoming more comfortable with the prospect of recruiting and onboarding remotely.

I had a couple of small potatoes for lunch with cheese, marmite and butter for lunch and a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber with cider apple vinegar, olive oil and salt dressing.  I had a couple of chocolate digestives and a tunnocks tea cake as a snack.

Alan got back after meeting up with Danielle and opened a small package that was from his Uncle Dez and had some old currency that he'd found in his Mum (Alan's Grandma's) belongings.  I'd watched a bit of the Daily Briefing and it seems really odd that there are no scientists around these days.  I also responded to my Mum's face book post that she'd shared of Boris Johnson writing a whole essay about statues, I really genuinely think that people are more important than things (even if the things are made to look like people) I commented that perhaps it would be better if our "prime minister" spent more time on things like looking at the fact that many children will be going hungry over the summer holidays.  I'm very touched by Marcus Rashford who has donated many meals to kids and is campaigning to get some government policy change on this.  I shared these thoughts in response to the Boris Johnson post and got told by her friend Pauline (who I remember as a child being the kind mum of my friend Peter) "So typical of you and you ilk?" although hasn't clarified what she means by this, but given her previous pro brexit anti social justice replies I'm guessing she is all about the statues..

I tweeted This world is confusing, apparently children are important when they are an excuse to drive 260 miles during lockdown, but not as important when they are hungry needing meals throughout school holidays.  Neither are as important as bits of metal and stone made to look like people

Work finished up late around 7pm as I had a few longer calls this evening and a lot of emails to sort through.  Another win on the day was that I'd picked up a role to refer to our sister company which felt like good news.

Alan had prepped the Hello Fresh for Chicken Tikka Masala from last week, accidentally we'd not checked the best before date on the chicken so I swapped it for some we'd got delivered with the Amazon Prime at the end of last week.  

I ate dinner and we watched Scrubs and then after I'd let the food go down I went for a run, I went a little way along towards Newthorpe and as it started to get dark came closer to home and the last 5 minutes I ran up and down the road up to the gateway.  I did just over 5.6K in just over 30 mins.  I listened to the audio book of Suble Art of Not Giving a... quite useful giving all the social media rage going on.

I had a shower in the bath and then had some cherry crumble from last night.

Isolation Journal 19

Another late rising, I think it was probably around midday before the time I got out of bed.  I had a coffee and some granny smith, granola and yoghurt and then watched some TV before getting up and cleaning the house.

I hoovered the whole house and tidied up my office/bedroom and put up some nails to hang up some art work/paintings.  I cleaned surfaces and the bathroom and did 2 loads of laundry.  I listened to the Archers, the High Low Podcast and With Me Now podcast as I cleaned.

I then got ready to go running and went out for about 7.5 miles in about an hour and 8 minutes.  The heavy rain a few days ago meant that it was almost tropical feeling with everything feeling really steamed up.  I ran an out and back route down to Fairburn Ings RSPB Reserve which was very pretty in the sunshine.  I also saw lots of lovely red poppies along the way.  I was feeling quite heavy and wasn't particularly fast.  I'd not taken water with me and managed to survive by eating 2 shotbloks at the turnaround point.  I listened to the end of "I am not your baby Mother" by Candice Brathwaite which was really powerful.  The final few sentences mentioned about how it's not all about social media sharing, but it's mostly about what you do when no one is looking which really struck a chord with me.  It made me think very much that I need to make sure that I am doing the right things at work to be a part of positive action and change.  I got back in and necked 2 pints of orange squash and ice with a dash of salt.

I came back and had a bath with some lush lavendar bubble bar and then whilst Alan was on Zwift I mopped the lounge and the dining room.

I then had left over Chinese not realising how late it was and so Alan had to have a snack crumpet and cheese for his tea and made cherry crumble for our "tea" which was delicious.  He also made a lovely rum punch for us both.

I watched some more catfish and then we watched The Night Tonight and some Scrubs.  I also ordered a card on moonpig and a meatbox for my Dad for Father's day.

I also finally sent over the pictures that the guides had drawn for our local Self Isolation Support group and booked in my virtual marathon training sessions.