The Lockdown Diaries

[Gangster Octopus]

I met no-one on Monday
Stayed in for a drink on Tuesday
I was staying in by Wednesday
And on Thursday and Friday and Saturday
I chilled on Sunday

[E10 Rifle]

An overall impression, after a week in the Big Brother house, is that kids are better at handling this than grown-ups.

Got into the Zoom thing, and we had a Friday night drink with a few friends on Friday night, from which I came away feeling quite pissed.

It's gonna get tougher for everyone though, I think. Take it easy, people.

[Amor de Cosmos]

First sunny day this week. No traffic, but a fair number of people out walking, singly or in couples, on both the roads and sidewalks . All well separated. It looked like an Alain Resnais film.

[Balderdasha]

Today was the nineteenth anniversary of La Signora's stroke. She celebrates her survival every year. This morning she set up a family Zoom, Vancouver, Victoria, Houston and London. It was a greatstart to the day — for us. Since then I've done a bit of house-work (it's amazing how much gets done when you can't go outside.) Then I carried on reading [i]The Mirror and the Light,[i] before nodding off for a hour on the couch. It's now almost time for Phoebe the Dog's walk. it appears to have stopped raining for a bit and the wind has picked up. I really love the wind.

That is a wonderful anniversary!

[Amor de Cosmos]

I met no-one on Monday
Stayed in for a drink on Tuesday
I was staying in by Wednesday
And on Thursday and Friday and Saturday
I chilled on Sunday

You are Roger McGough and I claim my roast beef.

[Balderdasha]

Day 10. Sunday 29th March.

A rude awakening: my son weeing on the bathroom floor (combination of it taking a while for him to get out of his onesie and my husband leaving the loo seat up when he got up in the middle of the night). Cleaned that up and went back to bed while the kids played Mario Party for a bit. Then cleared up the kitchen and made beans on toast for everyone for breakfast. Gave my husband a bit of a lie-in. He bore the brunt of my medication mix-up yesterday, and he drank one beer and one whisky at virtual pub night which is more than we usually ever drink these days.

Played a bit of Animal Crossing with the kids, then when my husband got up he started on a roast dinner while I did today's art activity. The eggs I bought came in blue boxes so we made two of them into mini aquariums with colourful fish on strings. My son was very engaged with this, mostly with cutting out bits of yellow card to be gold coins in a treasure chest.

My daughter has recently decided that she likes roast beef so my husband now has the incentive to roast a joint of meat for the two of them to share. I have Quorn peppered steak instead with all the side veg. My son mostly eats Yorkshire puddings and raw carrots.

We did two jigsaws, a dinosaur one and a building site one. Had a phone call with my in-laws. My husband has started teaching our daughter Arabic for ten minutes a day with an app (I'm absolutely thrilled by this. I've always wanted him to do it and he's never felt like he had the time). I did loads of laundry. We watched some more worst witch. The kids are now doing ringfit adventure.

The clocks going forward an hour will make it a bit trickier to be ready in time for PE at 9am tomorrow, but we'll manage.

Time to start planning some home school activities for this week.

[Eggchaser]

My son, having today point blank refused to wear anything other than a Spiderman dressing up costume, then just his pants and then a dressing gown, has got himself fully clothed just in time for him to come upstairs for his bath.

Another week of this and I am going to crack.

[Benjm]

I met no-one on Monday
Stayed in for a drink on Tuesday
I was staying in by Wednesday
And on Thursday and Friday and Saturday
I chilled on Sunday

Taking UK garage back to the garage.

[Sporting]

My son, having today point blank refused to wear anything other than a Spiderman dressing up costume, then just his pants and then a dressing gown, has got himself fully clothed just in time for him to come upstairs for his bath.

Another week of this and I am going to crack.

How old is he?

[slackster]

Got into the Zoom thing, and we had a Friday night drink with a few friends on Friday night, from which I came away feeling quite pissed.

Heh. I did that on Thursday night when we conducted our monthly Record Club meeting over the Zoom virtual Dog & Duck. We were pretty much done in a couple of hours but I was in all sorts of trouble after from drinking too much, more quickly than usual, due to the strangeness of it all.

Generally the first week in lockdown hasn’t been too bad. We’ve been able to access supplies locally as needed without too much bother and I get out regularly to walk the dog (in rural isolation). Been forced into swerving exercise and more strenuous activities due to a stiff back, which is taking a while to mend. Probably ate more chocolate and drank more than I usually would, and it’s a bit anxiety-inducing processing the news feeds and not having the option to socialise when you fancy it - yet it’s still a bit of a novelty...which will wear off pdq, I imagine.

[Balderdasha]

Another side effect of this situation is that it's encouraging me to be less wasteful than usual. I'm not very wasteful anyway but I just cut open a squeezy bottle of honey to get the last spoonful out for my daughter's bagel where usually I would probably have binned it and opened the next bottle.

We've also just started an "ecobrick" project. An empty 2-litre diet coke bottle which we will gradually stuff full of non-recyclable single-use plastic (like bread wrappings or mini cheddar packets). My daughter's whole school has been encouraged to do this and once lockdown is over they will be donated to a local church which is using them to build an eco-lodge somewhere in South Wales.

[E10 Rifle]

Having posted positively upthread, four-year-old son's just had a massive toilet-related meltdown.

[Eggchaser]

How old is he?

Just turned 6.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Got a fair bit of decorating done over the weekend, and have enough to do to fill next weekend too. This came with the discovery that there is an entire other carpet under our living room carpet (in parts at least), another legacy of the previous occupants who did all sorts of strange things with the house.

Got daughter out for a walk and talk today and we must have hit on a particularly quiet time as the paths and roads were almost deserted. Visibility was fantastic, there are places on my run/walk route where on a good day you can see well into Scotland, Northumberland and the Cumbrian fells from the same spot, and today was one of those days.

A group of us (who are dispersed and rarely see each other at the best of times) have formed an online poker club and looks like a lot of evenings will be filled with that.

Suspect though that this week is going to start to be a grind for a lot of people.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Sunshine! Trimmed the rosemary hedge back, also a jasmine which has gone totally bonkers. Planted a some perennial cuttings I was given that managed to sprout their way out of a plastic back over the Winter. Spring at last!

[Balderdasha]

Having posted positively upthread, four-year-old son's just had a massive toilet-related meltdown.

Things my four-year-old has had meltdowns over this week:
- we only gave him two Yorkshire puddings with his roast dinner and when daddy offered him another one from his plate it had gravy on
- his sister winning at monopoly
- thinking I had only prepared mango for his sister when actually I had prepped a bowl of grapes for him too
- too many other things to remember

[Amor de Cosmos]

As mentioned up-thread the regional park near us is closed to traffic. Which, in spite of a multitude of illuminated signs saying so, has led to a stream of cars cruising the neighbourhood looking for somewhere to park. It is strange. What with many of the locals sitting on their front steps chatting to passers-by the entire vibe is of somewhere that's far busier and more animated than would usually be the case. It won't be like that for long, in two hours the streets and decks will be deserted. Uncanny.

[San Bernardhinault]

I went for my bike ride with the group today, intending to behave well. I did, but the group did not. One person got a puncture - normally we'd all crowd round to help, which is obviously daft in current conditions. So I kept riding with one other guy, but the others all stopped. It made no sense. Then they jumped a barrier to use a public restroom, again which seemed weird. Then they decided they were going to get the ferry back across the bay, which is utterly reckless and stupid. I doubled back instead. I deliberately kept myself at least a bike length back from anyone, but others decided to draft me. It's an unlikely vector, but it seems stupid to tempt fate, and also stupid to give a signal to those who want to shut cycling down that riders aren't well behaved.

There were a lot more individual and couple cyclists than normal, but far fewer big groups. Again people seemed to mostly be behaving sensibly. There was almost no traffic at 7:30 this morning. It was genuinely eerie on the first highway I drive because I saw no other cars at all. But coming home around midday it had got much busier and I have to wonder what all those people were up to.

[ursus arctos]

I think that it can be harder for established groups like that to break behavioural traditions than it is for any of the individual members on his or her own.

[HORN]

Mrs H and I went for a bike ride on Saturday and were sworn at by a bloke on a tractor for our lack of respect for the law.

[Foot of Astaire's]

My parents, both of whom are in their 80s have been managing ok up to now, going to the local supermarkets before 9 but I've been asking them daily if there's anything they need. Today I got my first request

"Would you pick up a Mail and an Express for your dad?"

I'm going to have to risk driving out of town for my shopping because there's no way I want anyone to see me picking those up!

[DCI Harry Batt]

Hard no, from me.

[Patrick Thistle]

My parents, both of whom are in their 80s have been managing ok up to now, going to the local supermarkets before 9 but I've been asking them daily if there's anything they need. Today I got my first request

"Would you pick up a Mail and an Express for your dad?"

I'm going to have to risk driving out of town for my shopping because there's no way I want anyone to see me picking those up!

Morning Star and the i, then

[Foot of Astaire's]

Morning Star and the i, then

Ha! I wish. You know, outside of Manchester city centre I dont think I've ever seen the Morning Star on sale.

[ursus arctos]

Some absolute muppets are taking advantage of the lack of traffic on the West Side Highway/Henry Hudson Parkway to live out their Valentino Rossi fantasies on their muffler-free motorbikes.

I give them 15 minutes before they are nicked.