Isolation Journal - 36

It was my not day off day off today, but I wanted to be on the first call with Katie who is joining our team so I dialled in and then we had another call at 10am nationally that I dialled in, both of them I was in my run kit and Maya joined in!  I had yoghurt, granola, fig and granny smith and 2 coffees for breakfast.

I did a few bits and pieces of work and came up with an idea for an online work book club - I'm very pleased with the name - Page Turners.

I then went for a run, I needed to catch up to hit my running 1000 miles in a year target and today I got to 503 and needed to be on 500 today so I'm back on track!  I was fairly fast around my circuit of South Milford and Lumby and covered 5 miles in 43 mins.  I felt a bit chesty, but I'm mostly sure it's not covid as I logically wouldn't be able to run sub 8 minute miles if it was ill, I bet it's mostly paranoia!  I got a note from the Covid app because I'd had a bit of a sore throat 2 days ago to say that I can get a test if I want one, even though they don't necessarily think that I will test positive as they want to contrast symptoms reported.

I had a shower and then made lunch for me and Alan - a salad some olives, couscous and grilled halloumi.  I finished listening to "What Alice Forgot" and I really enjoyed this book, although I wasn't sure if the ending was really what I'd hoped for or expected, I guess I was almost hoping for a more twisty ending.

I then got my mask ready and sanitiser and left for my 2.40pm appointment to give blood.  I went to a different site today as it was closer and had parking nearby.  The emails took pains to tell me not to be early and arrive at the specific time so proudly getting out of my car at 2.36pm, putting my mask on and walking the 3 minutes to the donation centre I walked through the door and approached the reception desk.  "What time is your appointment?" the masked lady asked sharply, I looked at my watch "in five seconds" I said smiling behind my mask "you have to wait outside until your appointment time" "but it's 5 seconds?!" "you have to wait outside" so I walked out and then straight back in again at 2.40pm "you have to wait until you are called!" she barked at me, "You didn't bloody say that though!" I thought as I waited in the spitting rain.  She called in the 2.40pm appointments about 2 minutes later and I had some covid questions asked quickly and was instructed to go and wash my hands and then go to the "welcome" desk.  I did so and sat in a waiting area for 40 minutes drinking isotonic drink and watching the lady be short with a few more people, some were slightly more direct with their thoughts on her manner!  I had a trainee take me through to ask me questions and then his manager did my haemoglobin test which was fine, I sat down again briefly and then went to donate which didn't take very long at all.  I then had to navigate a mask alongside my cup of squash and penguin biscuit!  I felt fine and so walked back to the car and drove home and rung my boss on the way.

I dropped a feedback form to the NHS Blood with some suggestions for how they could improve things to avoid the weird situation I was in and then I dialled in for a catch up call with Hayley and Sam which was nice, Hayley has been doing some workshops on zoom which sounds like they are going well.  

I then cooked dinner - Hello Fresh Lamb Curry with Naan and initially I was listening to the High Low Podcast, but then called my Mum and Dad for a chat, they seem to be doing ok and are doing a few walks around the park when it's quiet.  The good news it my Mum has got a new phone and it's an Iphone, so hopefully she'll be able to take and send and receive photos a bit better.

We watched a bit of Mock the Week and then Alan went to record some video for his app and I worked on writing an 8 week training plan for people to get back to running with hyde park harriers and planned guides meeting for tomorrow.

I'm still feeling a little bit chesty and a bit of phlegm and my paranoia about this isn't helping!

Isolation Journal 35

I didn't sleep very well, only about 5hrs 22 mins and I woke up and found that the cats had caught a mouse and were chasing it around, it was still alive.  I caught it, but it managed to escape and got down a crack between the wall and the monks chair.  It's weird, I think Tuesday has become my new Monday, I really struggled, I felt grumpy, stressed, irritable, again I think it's probably PMT.  I had some cornflakes and a couple of coffees.

I did a video session on how to fill out a short order form.  I then had a few more video meets, a national public sector one and then another about temp.  

I felt grumpy and awkward most of the day.  Alan whipped up a salad and some cheese and meats for lunch and I tried to help him with the insurance claim for our BA flight back from Barbados in March.

I was a bit more productive in the afternoon with some good calls and I also wrote a good quiz for Thursday 2 rounds, I think colleagues will hopefully enjoy them.

I had thought about going for a run, but my right buttock was sore, so I haven't gone today and so obviously now feel a bit guilty about it all.

I cooked dinner - a Hello Fresh sausage with bacon jam and salad and sweet potato fries and we had a couple of ice lollies.

I have snacked far too much today on both chocolate, meats and I also had 2 cups of early grey tea.  We watched Athlete A which was horrendous, I can't believe that these girls suffered so much for so long, it was really shocking.  

I added some photos to a photo competition that my running club has been running and watched some cat fish.

Isolation Journal 34

A fairly productive day, very groggy when I woke up again - about 6 hours sleep as Alan was quite late coming to bed, although I think that he slept relatively well.

I had 2 coffees and cornflakes for breakfast.  A few teams calls to fill people in on what I'd had from a meeting last week and sort out a few admin invoice type issues.  

At 12pm I had a pilates class, I really think that it's helping me avoid injury to do Pilates and working form home means it takes less than an hour to complete at 45 minute class as I just wear comfortable clothes and walk into the lounge a minute before.  

I quickly made some lunch with the brown mushrooms, shittake mushrooms, salami, cream and parpadelle pasta from Delifresh and ate it in front of the computer.  Alan seemed to appreciate it.

I had a productive afternoon at work and I even managed to book some tickets to see Dizzee Rascal and The Lightening Seeds at an airport nearby.  It's only 5 miles away and they are drive in events so we can stay in the car or get outside in a little area next to the car - It's nice to have some live music to look forward to.  

Alan made tea early so he could get on Zwift and also do some work on recording a video for the app that he's developing.  It was Morrocan Beef Stew with Hello Fresh.  I did a Zumba class with my friend Gui online, I'd not seen that it was his last for a while so I'm glad I had a chance to sign up, it was really good fun even though I'm still very uncoordinated!  Even after 45 mins of pilates and an hour of Zumba, I'd only earned 3 Vitality points, so I went for a 30 min run up and down the drive again listening to more of "What Alice Forgot".

I had a bath and faffed around on Facebook and then came down and Alan was prepping strawberries and added some icing sugar and I put cream on and made a Gentleman Jack and Gingerbeer and we watched Scrubs and I was a geek and did some of my online training for work on the new Salesforce system that we are getting soon.  I was a bit disappointed that I've been taken off "superuser" training as I know I'll get asked all the questions anyway.  It does look amazing - I think it will make my life so much easier!  I'm actually quite excited.

Isolation Journal 33

I got up and fed Qubit around 8am and then finally properly woke up at around 10am.  I had coffee and cornflakes for breakfast and we put on a film after watching a bit of Scrubs.  I've never watched Silence of the Lambs so we put that on, it was a really good film and I didn't know the plot twists despite it being around since 1991.

I didn't do very much today, I was feeling quite down and frustrated, probably some of the things running around in my head from yesterday as well as I'm guessing probable PMT looming.  

We had chicken salad for lunch with Sriacha Mayo dressing and I added in some extra ingredients like radicchio and heritage tomatoes.  

I then did hoovering around the house, took the bin out and mopped floors and cleaned the bathroom as the house was just a bit smelly.  I took all the cardboard recycling out and got it blown around and also took the bin and the compost out which helped with  the smell.

I then finally got organised and went out for my run and dropped off my dance fee payments for yesterday along with a little Hello Kitty coin purse.  I ran 7.2K and would have run a bit further, but it was so windy and rainy.  I listened to a good few more hours of "What Alice Forgot" as I tidied and went for a run.

When I got back Alan was on Zwift and so I did a bit more tidying and polished the dining room table.  I then ordered some dark wood polish as it's going a bit white.  Alan did most of the cooking for tea and made a Hello Fresh oven baked risotto.  We had crumble and ice cream as two separate pudding dishes!  I also naughtily snacked on salami and mortadella and 2 chocolate biscuits earlier.

As we sat down to dinner we watched Hannibal and weirdly I remembered at least one scene even though I've not watched it before.  

We then put Mock the Week on for something a bit more light hearted than cannibalism.  I also then got into a slightly stroppy debate with WW who I had trialled in December to try and lose weight as I'd hoped the "free food" scenario would make tracking what I ate easier than myfitnesspal.  The trial was via Vitality and was 6 months, but they gave no notification email that they'd be taking £21.45 out of my account.  I did manage to block the payments via paypal so they couldn't take anymore, but I had no response to my cancellation email and request for a refund.  It's not loads of money, but for something that made me so cross for a week I resent having to pay.  They won't respond to emails currently and instead sent me to speak to a WW coach... they managed to cancel my account, but can't process a refund.  I need to call up which is irritating.  I also got the worst non apology "I'm sorry you feel like that" which coupled with PMT meant I was truly riled!  

Isolation Journal 31

Alan really didn't sleep well last night, I could tell by the way that he was holding his breath as he was sleeping, I'm not sure why he does this, but I know if he's doing it, he's not had a good night of sleep.  I got the milk and orange juice in.

I had another tasty breakfast of yoghurt, granola, apple and homegrown raspberries and blackcurrants and today was a 3 coffee day with 2 in the morning and one at 3.30pm.

We had a briefing call from our MD today and he had some slides on it and it occurred to me that all the way through the daily briefing they kept saying "next slide please" but never actually had the ability to click a button, seems quite inefficient.

I put a load of washing on, hung it out and then put the dry washing away.

We had another Delifresh order arrive at 12.09pm, the order was emailed to say it would be 12.07pm, I'm amazed they can get it so close!  I unpacked everything - love how it's plastic free with just the odd thing in a paper bag.  Everything was a bit covered in condensation as it was so muggy today.

Alan made a tasty lunch from some of the order - a gnocchi, tomato and pepper pasta bake with two types of cheese - it was delicious.  I then had a busy afternoon at work with a candidate interview on Zoom and a client meeting on teams where I picked up a lot of new jobs and had 2 interview requests to arrange for Monday.  I then had a further 4 interview requests for Thursday and Friday!  i also was on a mission to sort out my emails and got them down from nearly 400 to less than 200, If I get on top of them I feel more focussed and I make more placements.  

I had an amusing scenario where I was talking to a client discussing the weather as usual chitchat and mentioned how hot it was, she mentioned that it was thundering where she was (around 8 miles away) and then 2 minutes later I heard it, the rain she had then followed 2 minutes after!  I remembered as I was on the phone to one of the candidates and had to climb the ladder in the bedroom to shut the skylight and got a facefull of rain.

I tuned in to my friend Lauren's friend Lorraine who does an Instagram live of cocktails and comedy and sorted my emails until 8.15pm.  I had though Alan was asleep, but he'd had a bit of a snooze and was watching TV, I offered to sort dinner and went down to the local pub The Queen of t'owd Thatch or the Thack for short as they had reopened yesterday after being closed for a bit to work out what they wanted to do with all the challenges of being a pub at the moment.  They had arranged a fish and chips Friday takeaway, usually it's all preordering, but they had suggested in Facebook that there was enough left to just turn up so I went and got two portions of fish and chips with garden peas, curry sauce and a bottle of prosecco.  I also reminded Annie one of the owners that I owed her £2 for some mashed potato I'd got back in April to go with Alan's birthday meal.  I wore my facemask as I got there inside as I wanted to make sure that they were all safe.  They are finding it hard to work out how to reopen as they have so many pinch points in the pub layout as a cosy little building, they were quieter yesterdy than they'd hoped which makes me sad as I'm really keen to keep this good quality, friendly and local business going through this very difficult period.

We ate our tea outside on the picnic chairs as our usual bench was soaking wet and we watched 2 of the neighbours (Kirsty and Chris) looking at where to put a fountain they'd bought and chatted to one of the other neighbours (Becci)  about Donald Trump and Greek mythology and we drank the prosecco and chatted until it was getting dark and there was lighting in the distance, we finally wen tinside at 10.30pm and I had an ice lolly and cleaned the kitchen whilst listing to "What Alice Forgot".

Last night I started reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens for the Uni of Leeds Alumni bookclub that I've joined.  I might try and read some more tonight if I'm not too tired, I'm so pleased to be actually reading books again.

Isolation Journal 30

Alan had a really bad night of sleep as it was really warm, I didn't do so badly as I slept completely not under any covers and I was pleased that I finally finished reading a book and read the last story of Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks before I went to sleep.

I had a coffee and granola, homegrown blackcurrants and raspberries and granny smith and yoghurt.

We had a few teams meetings and I had a few niggles to sort out from the day before, but I managed it.  I also had a difficult conversation that I'd been dreading for weeks with a client, hopefully I've offered a solution.  At 12pm I had a Pilates class online again, it was very warm!  I then made a quick chicken salad with Sriracha mayo dressing and a couple of small jacket potatoes with marmite and butter.

I had a fair bit on in the afternoon and tried to multitask logging onto another interactive webinar on our Unity group.  One of the topics discussed was how people really dislike the term BAME as it doesn't account for the fact that Black and Asian experience is very different.  

We had a quiz at the end of the day which I won and it was all about facts about other people in the team, it means that I'll have to get one together for next week.  I managed to cook a prawn stirfry from Hello Fresh and eat it before the guide meeting at 7pm.  The meeting went well, we played a game of counting to 10 without interrupting each other, then we did a couple of UMAs including guessing who wrote different statements and then thinking about guides in the future.  I used the Whiteboard function and got them to draw which was fun, but a bit chaotic!

I then went out for a quick run and pushed my effort a bit more and did 6.5K in about 35 minutes.  I got back and chatted with my neighbour and watered the plants from yesterday and had a quick shower before having a big hunk of chocolate cake that one of the other neighbours had made with some cream, it was delicious.

I then watched Big Brother and Alan had a bath,

Isolation Journal 29

Another "not" day off for me today.  Alan got up as normal and logged on for work at 9am, I faffed around on social media before getting out of bed around 10.15am and made myself yoghurt, granny smith, granola and home grown raspberries.  Only one coffee today.

I got straight into my run kit as I wanted to get a run over and done with and I put on a load of washing and took out the recycling and chatted to the gardener who mows our lawn for us.

I had planned to run for about an hour, but it was about 28 degrees so after a fairly fast 5km I decided to head back as it was just too warm and did just over 4 miles!  I listened to more of What Alice Forgot which is such a good audio book! I had an ice lolly when I got back and felt a bit light headed so sat down for a bit.  I was due to take little Alex (not so little anymore) out for a walk, but he had heatrash so wasn't heading out, so I had a long bath and then headed downstairs and made a salad with sriarcha mayo dressing and a couple of small potatoes with cheese, butter and marmite. I had another ice lolly.  Some herb plants that I'd ordered arrived and I planted out some mint, coriander, parsley, chives and nearly pulled up some seedlings that I then realised had grown from a tomato I planted 3 months back, so I replanted them!

I did a bit of work email stuff and Alan suggested we head out on the bikes and so I got my bike out and didn't get into biking gear, just the shorts and t-shirt that I already had on.  We cycled to post a parcel and then went to Fairburn Ings via Lumby and locked up our bikes and went for a walk and did some more mapping using the inaturist app.  We then cycled back via Ledsham just under 10 miles in total, I was surprised to get some cycling strava segments not clipped in or in proper cycling gear.

I've also been trying to sort out re-letting the studio flat that I own in the centre of Leeds, I'm not sure the agent I've been with since I bought it in 2017 are being very proactive so I'm considering whether I change agents.  It feels wrong to have it vacant, I wouldn't mind reducing the price especially if it could help a key worker.

We chatted with our nextdoor neighbour and I cleared up some feathers from a bird that the cats had clearly brought in.  Alan then made some chicken Laksa for tea and we ate outside and watched Chris from number 5 on his sit on mower cut the grass and Alan watered the plants and the lawn for us and Denise at number 4.  I had a Gentleman Jack and Ginger and we had ice cream and cream for dessert.  I then had a rose wine with some ice and came inside to watch some Catfish and plan my guide meeting for tomorrow as well as write a session plan for run club.