Lockdown Diary Week 3

Not sure how much longer I will feel like writing another version of more of the same, but for now, here it is.

5/4/2020 Sunday
This week I have succumbed to a popular lockdown trend which is all about counting one’s blessings and being grateful. I am not going to torture anybody with attempts at poetry (small mercies), but I will say this. I fully appreciate how lucky we are to be locked down as a group of 4 people who get on well together. On the whole. Most of the time. Imagine being stuck in this scenario with a religious zealot with ambitious quarterly conversion quotas. Or with a militant fruitarian. Or that guy from GMTV who shares the sofa with Suzanna Reid.  Lockdown is bringing out the best in our family.  The girls have been amazing, and we have had some truly priceless moments of nonsensical fun in the last couple of weeks. During the day we mainly go about our own separate business, only bumping into one another by the kettle, but in the evenings we all gravitate towards the kitchen and living room area. Tonight we had an impromptu general knowledge quiz with Alexia as the quiz master, Amelia and I keenly competitive players, and my husband taking it easy. As predictable as it gets and equally comforting. Other days we cook and bake together. What I mean by this is my husband cooks, Amelia bakes, I load the dishwasher and Alexia shows us her favourite tiktoks.
So there. Blessings, counted.

6/4/2020 Monday
My husband took up juggling as his once a day exercise activity. Every afternoon he puts on his tracksuit bottoms and trainers, picks up his balls, and off he goes to a stretch of grass at the end of our road. He comes back 45 minutes later, out of breath and rosy cheeks. I ask him how juggling can be so tiring, he says he drops the balls so much that he is up and down all the time so it becomes a proper jumping frog workout.

Lockdown sofa conversations;

– I want to grow something unusual this year. What can I grow?
– A pair of balls?
If looks could kill.

– I am going to have a bath today.
– Good idea. The whole family appreciates it.

7/4/2020 Tuesday
Holding my breath for Boris for the second day running. I am scared to switch on the radio.

8/4/2020 Wednesday
In the parallel universe which I planned meticulously, and which did not happen in the end, we would have been spending this week in North Yorkshire.
Smoked Kipper Cottage, pet friendly, three storey, walking distance from Whitby harbour, sleeps 6. The refund is in the post.

As a substitute, we are watching a nature programme set on the riverbanks of Dorset. My husband’s choice. We are being shown a type of mayfly which has a window of only one day to mate. My husband is visibly moved by their plight. He reacts with solemn ‘Shame, man’, the all-encompassing South African expression of empathy. I console my husband the best I can.

9/4/2020 Thursday
Went to Sainsbury’s for the first time since the introduction of queuing 2 metres apart and standing between strips of tape on the floor. Let’s just say, I will not be doing that again in a hurry.
Back to corner shop diet for the foreseeable.

Trying to remember what the exact point was of having a different name for each day of the week.

10/4/2020 Good Friday
Duolingo has been sending me angry emails for not sticking to the daily lessons plan. Being a totally predictable lockdown cliche I decided to brush up on my French. I have been meaning to do that for a while and now finally I have no excuse. Duolingo is not allowing me to access more advanced modules before I complete the warm-up sessions, so I have spent the last few days listening to ‘les femmes et les hommes mangent les pizzas’. I could of course move on to a different app, but I am dying to see what the Spiritual, Politics and Economics modules contain. La curiosité a tué le chat

11/4/2020 Saturday
I am amazed how unstressed I have been about almost complete lack of work and what follows, income, over the last three weeks. Must be the wine.

In other news, I have continued to shun the news as much as practicable. Replacing BBC Radio 4 and LBC with Magic FM and Capital as my favourite car radio was a master stroke.
I have managed to make descaling a kettle the whole day job.
Each family member successfully dodged all house cleaning activity.

A brisk walk in the park has now become a fixed item on my daily agenda, and it is beginning to look suspiciously like a recommended amount of weekly fitness activity, something I have not come close to in years.