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.

20 things in 2020 update at the nearly half year point!

I've finally (at nearly halfway through the year!) had a look at how I'm tracking on my 20 things in 2020 goal... some are slightly more challenging given the substantial issue of a global pandemic which I'd not really considered when I wrote my list, but interestingly some of them I've completed more easily given our lockdown situation.  I've now made a spreadsheet to track things a bit more closely...

1 - Complete 20 parkruns - an "easy" one as I've averaged more like 40 per year since I discovered parkrun in 2014. This seemed like an easy one when I set the target as I did 49 last year...20 as a number was purely arbitrary to fit in with my theme, how wrong I was!  I'm currently sat on 10 (I missed two on New Year's day because I was too hungover and one on the day we flew to Barbados), I'm not sure that it will actually be possible as parkrun is only just restarting again in New Zealand.  I have just started logging "not parkruns" so maybe that will be my workaround if I need it...I really hope parkrun starts again soon (as long as it's safe!)

2 - Donate to charity / recycle 20 bags or boxes of stuff - living in a house with no storage is great in some ways as it forces this issue, but recently I've definitely accumulated too much and a sort out would be useful.  This is certainly one that I need to focus on more, although donating to charity in terms of stuff is hard at the moment because of charity shops being closed and things like shpock being harder to use with social distancing etc.  I'm currently on 2...I need to up my game!

3 - Go to 20 yoga or pilates sessions. - This has possibly become a little easier as I find it hard to leave work on time or do much in lunchtimes, but since we've been in lockdown I've been doing pilates 1 - 2 times per week online as well as doing one yoga session with people in a class (wild!) at the start of the year, I'm tracking well on 14 sessions at the moment.

4 - Write 20 letters or postcards - I probably should track this a bit better as I've probably made more progress, but I've done a few multiples and want to push myself to do more letter writing.  I'm on 7 different iterations, but with a few multiples.  

5 - Complete at least 20 crafting sessions - either alone or even better with friends - I was doing quite well with this at the start of the year, 2 Artnights and a sewing session with Sam, but it has got a bit harder, so I might need to do more independent or zoom sessions as I'm currently on only 4

6 - 20 sessions of creative writing / blogging entries - I didn't expect to, but lockdown and my friend Lauren has really inspired this in me, I've done online flash fiction classes, I've kept an Isolation blog, and a couple of mental health blogs and even this one - so this is completed with more than 20 done, but I'm enjoying it and will happily keep going!

7 - 20 sessions of mindfulness - Ideally I'd do this everyday, but I'm not great at always remembering, so this is a nice achievable target. - I'm only on 1 as I'm not counting using Headspace to get to sleep - I must do more of this as I think it would really help me.

8 - Today having a stunning walk around Fairburn Ings RSPB nature reserve I realised this is one thing that makes me really happy and so I want to do at least 20 walks or runs around beautiful nature locations. - This is a bit hard at the moment as I know we can travel further, but we are very cautious, so I could count all my lovely runs, but for now I'm just counting the ones that I've got as far as nature reserves and so I'm on 5.

9 - Leading or backmarking at least 20 run club sessions - Again a hard one at the moment, not sure when I'll be back to normal on this, but whilst we've been in lockdown I've written a few session plans for people and run zoom sessions for #runandtalk and so if I count those then I'm on 13.

10 - Volunteer at least 20 times - If I count Guides then I'm on 16 as we've kept the meetings going via Zoom which actually feels more important even though it's not quite the same as meeting in person.  I hope we get back to that soon.

11 - Meet friends for coffee/lunch/catch ups at least 20 times - Again another coronavirus impacted activity, but if I count some of the zoom catch ups then I'm on 11 and hopefully will meet people for some socially distanced walks soon.

12 - Read 20 books - I'm really struggling to read, even before Coronavirus, my attention span was terrible, I'm nearly at the end of my first proper book and I'm going to be easy on myself and count audio books too, but I am trying to improve my book reading as it is good for my brain and my mental health and I have a big stash of great books to get through.  I'm currently on only 2 audio books completed.

13 - Watch 20 new films - I'm sure I'm further along with this than I've tracked as from what I can recall I'm on only 6, but I'm not sure I've written them all, so I need to track it a bit better, I'm sure I can catch up well during lockdown though - this is what I've noted down so far.  I think I'd have hoped more would have been in a cinema setting...

• 1917
• Starter for 10
• Hunger Games
• The Voices
• Hidden Figures
• Arrival

14 - Spend 20 hours learning something new - I'm not sure how to best count this as I've got 2 hours so far from my flash fiction course, but I've listened to lots of lectures online and so I might give this a bit more thought.  I think I'd thought that it might be more hands on.

15 - Get at least 8 hours sleep 20 times (this is a challenge as my regular 11daytime sleep is only 6.5 hours) - before lockdown I only managed to do this 7 times, I'd be getting up at 6.20am and not in bed often before midnight, it was a challenge, post lockdown means that I'm now at 40 in total.  So this one is now complete.

16 - Visit 20 new places (not countries, just different places that I've not been before, whether a restaurant, or a nice place to walk) - a bit harder to do this one post lockdown, but I'm tracking well with 13 at the moment.

17 - Visit the gym at least 20 times (pretty sure I didn't manage this in 2019) - I was tracking ok....I'd managed 3 sessions I think before lockdown, I might count the online zumba sessions that I've been doing with my friend Gui which would add another 5 including a HIIT session and put me on 8.

18 - Plant 20 "things" whether seed bombs or vegetables. - I need to focus a bit more on this, but with seed bombs, lavender, mushrooms, potatoes and raspberry cuttings I'm on 8.

19 - Watch at least 20 live music acts (should be achievable as we are least going to Blue Dot festival again and hopefully might still get tickets to Glastonbury in the resales - fingers crossed!) - This is a tough one, we had one festival and one gig booked, but we're now postponed, I may have to have a rethink...i'm on 0!

20 - Get to work without driving at least 20 times (I'll cheat if needed and include working from home!) - this is complete as I've only driven my car about 4/5 times since March!  It is more than 20, but I've not counted!

So out of a possible 400 at the halfway point I'm on.... 182 so not doing too badly, I think I'm on track with most of them.

I also set myself a challenge of not buying any new clothes in 2020 other than underwear, lockdown has made this more achievable as I've not had to worry about outfits other than leisure wear, active wear and decent camera workwear.  I've so far only bought a swimming costume and a sports bra and a second hand coat to replace one that was broken.

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.