The Lockdown Diaries

[treibeis]

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.

I live on one of the main roads here (when you go eastwards, it becomes the Reeperbahn, which, what people always forget, is a main traffic artery). There have been so many fuckers "pudding the pedal to the meddal" here in the last few weeks.

They don't get nicked, though. Because the Law - and I'm not anti-police - are all here, in the park, checking that people who have bought a tall larr-tay here, aren't drinking it too close to where they bought it.

[Balderdasha]

Day 11. Monday 30th March.

I believe this sensation is known as "hitting the wall". Possibly caused by the mix-up with my medication at the weekend catching up with me. Possibly ten straight days of home-schooling. Possibly a touch of depression. Whatever it was, I couldn't get myself out of bed this morning. My husband picked up the slack, gave the kids breakfast and let me sleep in. The kids did cosmic yoga together without me and watched an episode of storybots about how computers work.

I eventually emerged at 10am. Now the trouble with a morning like that is that my usual response is to descend into self-loathing, guilt and recriminations. I tried hard today to be kind to myself. I had a shower, drank a coffee that my husband had made me, ate breakfast and cleared up the kitchen. I still had a headache and couldn't face the children for a bit longer so they played some Animal Crossing. Around 11:30am I was feeling a bit more human and ready to resume home school.

I printed out the two week's of timetables for my daughter's school and started to tick items off. We're ahead of some tasks and behind with others. I set my daughter to work on a phonics worksheet and got the stickle bricks out for me and my son to play with. We made a stickle brick rainbow. Then I set my son up with a jigsaw while I reviewed some time telling lessons with my daughter.

My husband made wraps for lunch. After, I played snap and solitaire with my son while my daughter drew out a timetable for home school.

The weather this morning was a bit dreary but by 2pm it had cleared up so we went to the park. We timed ourselves to see how far we could run, walk, jump or gallop in a minute. We played Simon Says. We practiced turning clockwise and anti-clockwise. We ate our "half-time" fruit snack, banana and cherries. I taught my daughter how to eat cherries without getting cherry juice all over your face. She accidentally swallowed one stone.

I had a chat (at a distance) with a lovely local Indian grandmother I know from one of the playgroups I took the kids to when they were younger. I got the kids to do races up and down a hill to tire them out. Then I tried to teach them how to roll down the hill. They haven't quite got the coordination to stay horizontal and get any proper speed up. I got so frustrated that I even physically demonstrated it myself once. Something that needs more work. I gave the kids piggy banks and ran around singing the Benny Hill theme tune. We walked around all the side cul-de-sacs of our street looking for more rainbows in windows, and gratifyingly found another 14. I didn't realise that many children lived on our street.

Back home, I read my son some books while my daughter did some handwriting practice. Then we watched an episode of Worst Witch and now they're playing Animal Crossing again.

Poor start to the day but improved markedly.

[Balderdasha]

The "tire the kids out in the park" strategy was too effective. My son's taken himself to bed for a nap. He'll never go to bed tonight!

[treibeis]

Day 11. Monday 30th March.

I believe this sensation is known as "hitting the wall". Possibly caused by the mix-up with my medication at the weekend catching up with me. Possibly ten straight days of home-schooling. Possibly a touch of depression. Whatever it was, I couldn't get myself out of bed this morning. My husband picked up the slack, gave the kids breakfast and let me sleep in. The kids did cosmic yoga together without me and watched an episode of storybots about how computers work.

I eventually emerged at 10am. Now the trouble with a morning like that is that my usual response is to descend into self-loathing, guilt and recriminations. I tried hard today to be kind to myself. I had a shower, drank a coffee that my husband had made me, ate breakfast and cleared up the kitchen. I still had a headache and couldn't face the children for a bit longer so they played some Animal Crossing. Around 11:30am I was feeling a bit more human and ready to resume home school.

I printed out the two week's of timetables for my daughter's school and started to tick items off. We're ahead of some tasks and behind with others. I set my daughter to work on a phonics worksheet and got the stickle bricks out for me and my son to play with. We made a stickle brick rainbow. Then I set my son up with a jigsaw while I reviewed some time telling lessons with my daughter.

My husband made wraps for lunch. After, I played snap and solitaire with my son while my daughter drew out a timetable for home school.

The weather this morning was a bit dreary but by 2pm it had cleared up so we went to the park. We timed ourselves to see how far we could run, walk, jump or gallop in a minute. We played Simon Says. We practiced turning clockwise and anti-clockwise. We ate our "half-time" fruit snack, banana and cherries. I taught my daughter how to eat cherries without getting cherry juice all over your face. She accidentally swallowed one stone.

I had a chat (at a distance) with a lovely local Indian grandmother I know from one of the playgroups I took the kids to when they were younger. I got the kids to do races up and down a hill to tire them out. Then I tried to teach them how to roll down the hill. They haven't quite got the coordination to stay horizontal and get any proper speed up. I got so frustrated that I even physically demonstrated it myself once. Something that needs more work. I gave the kids piggy banks and ran around singing the Benny Hill theme tune. We walked around all the side cul-de-sacs of our street looking for more rainbows in windows, and gratifyingly found another 14. I didn't realise that many children lived on our street.

Back home, I read my son some books while my daughter did some handwriting practice. Then we watched an episode of Worst Witch and now they're playing Animal Crossing again.

Poor start to the day but improved markedly.

I'm usually unsympathetic to what parents of young children have to do, as they're usually unsympathetic to what non-parents do, but: singing the 'Benny Hill tune'? Fucking stroll on.

[White No Sugar]

Day 24.
Still pondering DIY haircut, still not shaved. Pulled calf muscle on jog yesterday, barely able to walk today. Rescued card table and Risk board game from loft as Mrs WNS refuses to attempt playing one of my 12 or so football related board games stashed up there. Shortened a venetian blind from the last house so that it fits better in this one, three more to do this week. Bought two jigsaws on eBay, god only knows when they’ll get here. Contemplating getting an tropical fish aquarium but that’s been contemplated for 30yrs. Cleaned up cat puke using toilet paper...how flash is that eh?

[Benjm]

I live in a terraced house. Our next door neighbours have a lodger who currently spends about five hours a day standing on their front path, so less than five feet away from our living room and bedroom windows, talking loudly on her phone, rarely finishing before 10pm. She's French and is probably stuck some distance away from her family at a difficult time, but it is really starting to annoy me. Am I being churlish?

[Amor de Cosmos]

I live in a terraced house. Our next door neighbours have a lodger who currently spends about five hours a day standing on their front path, so less than five feet away from our living room and bedroom windows, talking loudly on her phone, rarely finishing before 10pm. She's French and is probably stuck some distance away from her family at a difficult time, but it is really starting to annoy me. Am I being churlish?

Hey. It's England. It'll start to rain in a minute and she'll go inside.

[Benjm]

The climate, perhaps unhappy about being taken for granted, is stubbornly refusing to produce the goods.

[Sporting]

I would ask her politely to be a bit quieter, She probably doesn't realise she's talking so loudly.

[Balderdasha]

We've just acquired the ability to sneeze on other characters in Animal Crossing...

[Benjm]

I would ask her politely to be a bit quieter, She probably doesn't realise she's talking so loudly.

Thanks, Sporting. That is the sensible thing to do. I tend to assume that this kind of neighbour interaction will go far worse than it usually does, so put it off as long as possible which only exacerbates the worry. That much is my problem, obviously, rather than next door's lodger's.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I live in a terraced house. Our next door neighbours have a lodger who currently spends about five hours a day standing on their front path, so less than five feet away from our living room and bedroom windows, talking loudly on her phone, rarely finishing before 10pm. She's French and is probably stuck some distance away from her family at a difficult time, but it is really starting to annoy me. Am I being churlish?

Empty your chamber pot out of the bedroom window and shout "garde a l'eau!".

[Benjm]

Empty your chamber pot out of the bedroom window and shout "garde a l'eau!".

Strong, decisive and with a hint of continental sophistication. If I don't report back, it's because it went very, very well.

[HORN]

A friend of a friend, recuperating from a second hip operation, lives on a hill, so has been driving just over 0.5 miles to a park she'd normally have walked to which is flat where she can exercise. Having been sworn at, spat at and had her car vandalised she's decided to knock it on the head and stay home.

[DCI Harry Batt]

That's appalling, Horn. This mob/shaming stuff is hideous. And an obvious likelihood in the current nasty climate some are feeding.

[laverte]

Thanks for starting this thread Balderdasha

A

when i was 8 maybe 9 the head said why don't you write your thoughts down on paper and we'll find an envelope it will be just like talking to your daddy

We are moving house. We could have timed it better. i'm a(t) risk so while the removal people are here i'm locked in a bedroom. The one with an en-suite bathroom of course.

he'll write back of course he will

Logistics. The people are putting our things into boxes. i would like to know what they look like, to give thanks at least. You shouldn't really have to work today. Are you precautioning? To keep myself occupied i will be forming words. Against the keeeuuursh of masking tape and the thud of footclumping and the fizzle of a far-off radio i hear voices occasionally. One is worried about mum alone. One is down to the last few something. Logistical questions arise and are resolved. Nou enters and exits, answering.

that's the last diary i never sent the thoughts too unfit one doesn't like to

This room, with the en-suite, has been emptied already. Shelves now naked, closets departed, walls go on and i managed to keep a hold of a lamp although the morning sun is strong today. The bedsheets beneath me feel soft like waves. i would swaddle myself inside them but i am taking care not to overheat. i don't like to drink from the bathtap. Perhaps i drifted off earlier. My mouth is dry. i suppress a cough i invented for myself. i try to lose myself in some music. i would get up and dance around to it. But not today.

B

i wake up alone, the flat empty and unclean. i drift into the kitchen with my mug with cute pigs on it, wipe down the tap, wipe down the kettle. The people and Nou are unpacking in some far house which i visited last month. My memory dredges up a scene of Nou firing me questions about the spaces between things. There is a staircase. Can i handle a staircase? As staircases go it is ok. It goes up from the front door. The steps seem steep to me but all steps do, i recognise that this staricase is not exceptional. It is not exceptional i tell Nou. Can you live with it? Can you cope with it? Can can you you

he didn't i couldn't

Nou has worked so hard on this. She was made redundant just before Christmas, the season of merriness and resource action. She worked hard to find a new job and succeeeded. She ummed and urred because it will uproot me. She trusts me to be fine. i have to agree. She travelled to the new town, looked at flats, looked at houses, found the new house, ummed and urred and invited me to see it and asked if we could be happy here and i said i can cope with it, with the unexceptionalness of its copability. She has always been the more enthusiastic. She called removal people and got quotes and organised a date and hired a small van and packed boxes and entered and exited and has been sitting in a van with strangers for two hours and is about to go up and down the staircase with beds and shelves and manifold boxes. Today the staircase poses logistical questions. When the day is done she will return in the same van with the same strangers and tomorrow she will begin cleaning this old flat, our old flat, with the same thoroughness and drive she brings to everything. She takes my breath away. So i will do what i can to help her. i will clean the empty room with the en-suite. i might need a nap, though.

C

Nou has a mother who is in her 80s. This mother is not worrying, and to show that she is not worrying she calls Nou three or four times a day to tell her that everything is fine and that there is no need to worry. She sometimes floats theories about the coronavirus which might not stand up to the strictest scientific scrutiny. She sometimes uses precisely the same string of words in the evening call that she used in the afternoon call. But Nou is happy to hear from her regardless. Nou is a bit of a worrier. She can't help it. Today while we were cleaning the mother's head popped up on the tablet and out of courtesy she asked after the health of my mother and it was a bit of a faux pas because i have deliberately not been worrying about my mother because i don't know where she is and haven't heard anything even from the secret agents i generally use to find out what the fuck is going on with her. Instead i have skyped some friends and they have tactfully underplayed their own fears and concerns because that's what friends do when you are ill. My friends are beautiful and if only i could see them

i didn't he couldn't

In the afternoon i slept.

F

i can't always remember which day is which but this one is going to go down as the day i move into my new house. We were living in a house when i had my big attack 10 years ago and since then we have lived in flats always. This house is going to be okay though because everything i need is downstairs. There is a sitting room, a bathroom, a just-about-double bedroom and a kitchen so that when i wake up in the wee hours i don't need to go too far. However, when i am feeling up to it i can also go up the stairs to the first floor where there is a bigger bedroom and another bathroom and a study which Nou will be using more than she realised when after considerable umming and urring she said yes to the parasitical letting agent and thus began our uprooting. It is going okay so far. i am not feeling worried. Downstairs Nou has worked hard to fill the bookcases and resolve logistical questions pertaining to the kitchen utensils. i found the scissors. i will look around the upstairs rooms on another day.

dear daddy im writing from my new school we have a blue uniform can learn the catechism this is called a dormitory why am i here

G

The layout of the new house has proven to be practical as i was able to help myself in the kitchen and watch the tv all night without waking Nou. i hope to catch up on sleep later.

H

still no word

X

This is yesterday. Nou began her new job. She went to an office to meet a boss and pick up a new computer and get security clearance and to look around the empty place where she isn't working. While she was out i tried to read some books but my heart isn't in it. The shelves are full but my heart isn't in it. i stared out of the window and formed words to describe what i saw. It's mostly houses. The street is quiet but for some hardy people walking their dogs into the wind.

Y

[Balderdasha]

Great diary laverte! I hope you settle in well in your new place.

Milk is my current sticking point. I've got about one pint in the fridge and a pint of long life soy milk in the cupboard for an emergency. Milkandmore should be delivering two pints today but it's not arrived yet and the last delivery from them didn't arrive at all. I've added three pints of milk to Friday's delivery from a local farm, but again it remains to be seen whether that will actually arrive. This might actually force me into a physical shop, which I'm trying to avoid, but my children consume a lot of milk.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Oh my. That's writing, laverte,

[DCI Harry Batt]

A friend of a friend, recuperating from a second hip operation, lives on a hill, so has been driving just over 0.5 miles to a park she'd normally have walked to which is flat where she can exercise. Having been sworn at, spat at and had her car vandalised she's decided to knock it on the head and stay home.

Where in the world is this, by the way?

[HORN]

Preston.

[HORN]

I like this photo from my local rag - the driver really seems to have gone for the full house.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Preston.

Thanks.

[ursus arctos]

There's been a notable uptick in military traffic above the Hudson today, both helicopters and jets.

It may be related to the fact that the hospital ship docked 35 blocks south of us.

[Balderdasha]

Day 12: Tuesday 31st March.

I managed to get up a bit earlier than yesterday. Kids had already played a full game of Mario Party though by the time I gave them some cereal. For PE this morning we tried out Andy's Wild Workouts (a cbeebies thing aimed at younger children). Got my daughter to do her spellings while I played "Build a Beetle" with my son (it's a physical version of the beetle drive game that you can play with just pen, paper and dice).

For garden time I rooted out six gardening gloves and we weeded the patio. Or rather the kids weeded for five minutes before abandoning that in favour of riding their bikes and I finished off the rest. We found plenty of woodlice, snails and ladybirds under the weeds so that's their entomology lesson for the day.

Husband made egg fried rice and a garlic, butterbean, tomato dish for lunch with celery and sugar snap peas.

Played snap and solitaire with the kids. Then my daughter did a piece of schoolwork where she had to draw different plants in a farm outline. I found a handwriting practice book which my son worked on and then we did a dot-to-dot together. Was slightly losing the will to carry on teaching them so my husband started getting ready to take the kids out to the park. Meanwhile I discovered that my daughter had drawn a smiley face on the side of our sofa in permanent ink. Lots of "we are very disappointed in you" then I did her hair while we watched some songs on YouTube to brighten the mood.

Husband took kids and bikes to the park. I plucked my eyebrows (something I find reduces my anxiety levels, no idea why), ate a packet of hula hoops and then did a round of laundry while watching RuPaul's drag race on Netflix on my phone.

The parents in my daughter's class are all suddenly panicking that house party is an insecure app so they've all switched to zoom. There was a class call at 3pm but my daughter missed it due to being out at the park. When they got back we watched a video of her teacher reading the first chapter of"Martin's Mice" by Dick King Smith, then my daughter did her Arabic lesson with daddy while I read my son some books. One had lots of animals in it and we looked up the real versions of the animals on Google images throughout. He was particularly fascinated by stag beetles.

Left the kids watching Hey Duggee, and my husband snoozing on the sofa, while I cleared the kitchen and cooked a simple pasta and salad dinner.

Time to look up some April Fool's idea for tomorrow. Last year I made up bowls of cereal and milk the night before and stuck them in the freezer. Any suggestions for this year? Simple indoor pranks with the emphasis on amusing rather than mean, please.

Our milkandmore delivery has failed to arrive again. Running very low on milk. Might have to go to a shop soon.

[Balderdasha]

In other scintillating news I managed to order a new inhaler for my son. The receptionists now seem to be able to issue a prescription for any item you've had in the past over the phone without bothering a doctor.

Also, our ecobrick now weighs 89 grams. Only 311 grams to go (they have to weigh a minimum of 400g to be usable for building).