annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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March 24th - Day 2
I kind of wish I'd named the days of being at home so I'd know how long it's been - did they only announce lockdown yesterday or was it the day before? I have no fucking idea. Shall I call this day 2? I think I will.
Today has been mental. Honestly, I spoke to my neighbour over the fence and also to an ex-colleague who was walking on the beach at the same time as me, both saying they were bored, talking of having ordered lots of puzzle books, doing lots of housework. I felt really lucky (OK, and a bit smug) to have more going on, even too much.
We did do housework today - we defrosted the freezer (hold the front page), which I don't think we've done before. In order to do this I had to clean the fridge and empty all the shit out so we had somewhere to put all the frozen stuff while we went for the ice with a hairdryer. All this before doing Tuesday art group.
I can feel I'm getting a bit manic - I don't need to do all the things every day - there isn't time and sometimes there's other priorities, like finding out what exactly is in the freezer, maybe eating some of it, maybe putting a pie in there, or making some stock. Turns out there's a lake of stock, some homemade passata from our tomato glut last year, harissa, homegrown borlotti beans - I assume it remains OK after all this time but that the flavour may have deteriorated. I chucked out the... I went to get a drink then and can't remember what I chucked out... nah, no idea. Loads of stuff. [Edited - I chucked out the hallacas - Venezuelan Christmas food, that the deadbeat dad gave to Son the year before last, that none of us know what to do with. Gone. Was reminded when I went to close down the laptop - I'd googled it as I'd never seen it written down]
Tuesday art group was fab. There were five of us today, plus one of Sam's cousins who lives miles away but joined in anyway and did a great sketch of Shirley. We formed a Whatsapp group so next week we'll be able to chat better - I don't know why none of us thought of it earlier - we were texting round in circles. I did these, practising different shapes with the wet, some more successful than others:
After that, like right after, there was singing group live, which was fucking mayhem. I'm trying to do these live things on the tablet I bought Sam to watch films on, years ago, the cheapest I could find as I was very skint. My laptop, for reasons I don't understand, won't go online without being plugged in and that's only possible in here (front room) and my phone is very small. Live singing group required me to be able to see and hear the teacher, to hear all the other singers, for them all to hear me and for the teacher to see me. Fat fucking chance. The tablet had a total breakdown, coughing and spluttering like it had a virus or something, so eventually I tried the phone (I needed to be upstairs with all the doors and windows shut - I call it singing, but that's a generous description), which was OK but the teacher was also having problems - we spent 45 minutes together during which time we sang three songs - well, I came in at the tail end of Rod Stewart's 'Sailing' - good as it makes me cry too much to sing, and we also managed 'Three Little Birds' and 'Old Man River', but none of us could hear each other and the time was mostly spent looking at the teacher's screwed up face as she peered at her laptop, pressing and swiping to no avail. But she's intending to run all her singing groups on different days so by the time next Tuesday comes around she'll have it sussed.
I knocked up what was intended to be a quick lentil and veg soup for my lunch, but not a single lentil to be had in my kitchen so it ended up being carrot and potato with a few spices chucked in (and onions and garlic, of course). It reminded me of when the kids were young and we were really fucking skint and lived on potato-based soups and endless bleeding pasta. I still like the soups but could manage with never eating pasta again, apart from carbonara, which is delish.
At this point a sensible person would have had a lie down, but instead I took Shirley to the beach as I hadn't left the house for a couple of days:
Very cold but brilliant, fresh air, open space, hardly any traffic. I got the dead fish away from her before she'd eaten too much of it, little fucker.
Yin yoga, keyboard practice, enough already. And I blogged.
Tomorrow I'm going to take it easier. Keyboard practice early - I keep doing it last, when I'm too tired, and having a go at the back room so it doesn't show me up online. I'll take before and after pics.
Take care, dear friends. If you feel like it, let me know how you're doing and what you're doing. We will get through this, one day at a time. Virtual hugs all round xxx
12:14 a.m. - 25.03.20
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