annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Day 180
Day 180. Fucking hell, eh? Although I keep to the numbering of days I don't think I write much about actual pandemic stuff here - we've got used to it, haven't we? The latest news from the UK is that from Monday social gatherings of more than six people will be banned, apart from schools and workplaces. Fuck knows what that's about. The cases are rising again, almost 3,000 new cases a day, back to where we were in May.
I started the writing workshop today and was really enjoying it - we began with a quote I now can't find from Machiavelli about honouring yourself as a writer, then the internet went down, the whole fucking internet for miles around, for hours and hours. I cannot tell you how pissed off I was. I took myself into the garden to chill out but I couldn't fucking hear myself think, there was so much racket. The kids in the school behind the back fence were on their lunch break - 600 of them, aged 5 to 11, chasing each other round the field yelling and shrieking. Light aircraft taking off and landing just down the road, always two in the sky at any one time. The rec being mowed - big field, big mower, loud. The bloke across the road back on fence building, using a drill to make holes for the screws, endless two seconds on, two seconds off. Her next door on the phone to her daughter. She has a good, carrying voice. A few gardens further away, a loud radio playing fast music, interspersed with adverts, really hyper, manic, stupid, fucking adverts that I couldn't quite hear but couldn't not hear either.
Then M turned up and we went to the beach again. It was really hot and still, the water was totally calm and flat so I took off my boot and paddled, leaning on my stick and keeping my foot in the position it's in in the boot, as much as possible. Then I sat in a chair by the water and it healed my bruised soul as much as my bruised foot. My foot didn't hurt at all, out of the boot and it does when I wear it, even just sitting down, like now. Not real pain hurt, but definite discomfort.
I had decided to just swim in my underwear and fuck it all, but the shingle shifts under your feet and I really don't want to damage myself further, so I just paddled, a few times. The videos they sent me include exercises to do - flexing and rotating the foot, bending it sideways. I don't know which movements are left that the boot is protecting it from. It also said to walk as much as feels comfortable, with the boot on as this aids healing so at least I'm doing something right. I walked 2,319 steps today or .96 of a mile, while I had my phone in m,y pocket, so that's not bad. It was great on the beach. We were just by the cafe, down the shingle bank, on an almost empty beach, a few paddle boarders drifting about, little waves lapping, seagulls squawking. Just what I needed.
I then tried an art thing this evening and was really too tired. It was on Berthe Morisot, and very enjoyable but I kept fucking it up. Putting the wrong brush in the paint so when I expected to make a pale ochre mark it had a big streak of dark green in it as well. After an hour I realised I was too tired and that I didn't have to do it now - it'll be online for a week, no one is making me do it, so pack it in. Which I did. The face wasn't too bad:
but nothing like the one I was copying. Never mind.
Three good things today: Daughter joining me and M on the beach and us all having a laugh together; getting my feet in the sea again - it'll be too cold soon; my weight dipping under 92 kg for the first time - I'm not doing the proper keto diet but I am still losing weight, a bit at a time.
Take care, you lot xxx
11:58 p.m. - 10.09.20
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