Welcome to Blog Day! At the start of this lockdown journey – goodness me, everyone is on a journey – my intention was to write every day and I do but I only seem to have time for notes.
I have no idea if anyone else reads this and, to be honest, I really don’t mind if nobody else does as I love writing it for me. But, just in case, I like to make sure it is as readable and chatty as it can be – hopefully with a smattering of amusement.
I am feeling a bit caged today and I’m blaming my 10 minutes of freedom from yesterday. There was absolutely no point sulking so I did my hair, put on some makeup, decided to wear my happy stripey beach dress and cranked up the tunes in the kitchen to have a little dance. I was better in no time.
I’m a bit hooked on my new book by Marian Keyes (The Woman Who Stole my Life) as it just brings real life to life with her observational humour just jumping off the page. I’m loving the new and forgotten words like: “notions” – apparently these are frowned upon things to have, according to one of my fabulous Irish friends; “banjaxed” – a brilliant word for broken; and “parvenue” – which, according to the dictionary, means a person of humble origin who has gained wealth, influence, or celebrity. Oh, to be in a position to be described as parvenue!
You know my amazing orange sunflower chair? Well, I’ve just noticed I’m using it as a clothes horse and that will have to stop as I refuse to let it be sent down the same path as other big objects. In years gone by, my exercise bike became overflow wardrobe space as the handles were a perfect match for the coat hangers to the point it was no longer rideable and ended up being thrown away.
Just as an academic exercise, I decided to check-in against my list from Day 1. Oh dear, it’s not going very well at all, is it! I haven’t finished knitting my green dragon, sorted out the stair basket box, learned how to play mahjongg, upgraded to SkyQ, written any letters to long lost friends & family, been creative with my scrap book of tickets, got fit by skipping (unless we count the 10 minutes in total, perhaps!?) or relaxed very much.
But I have tidied some of the cupboards, played for an hour on my piano, received all the refunds from the gazillion cancellations (other than Ryanair – I still can’t figure out if I admire or despise Michael O’Leary as he just doesn’t give a hoot), watched a lot of tv (but not finished off the dvd mountain yet so Netflix isn’t allowed just yet), read 3 of the 87 books and written many articles.
- Call me cynical but the EE free data for NHS workers sounds like a great big marketing data collection campaign to me. I really do hope I’m wrong.
- One of the articles says to put on a favourite song & dance to make you feel better. Aaaah, so that’s why I felt so good in the car yesterday or was it just a precious 10 minutes by myself?
- There were many pictures in the press of people standing outside B & Q – STOP IT. Plus they were definitely not 2 metres apart and it scared the life out of me just looking at it.
- 10k unclaimed bodies will be buried on New York’s Hart Island this year. How terribly sad.
- As for the government handouts, the sentiment is very clear – if you haven’t paid in, you can’t have a handout. Richard Branson, you should be ashamed as you’ve not paid tax in the UK for over 10 years and he is worth about £4 billion. I’d like to channel my inner Helen Mirren on that little conundrum.
- The Sunday puzzles were good fun but I messed one of them up as I got too cocky. Typical!
- Failure and bounce back with resilience was a theme in some articles, especially for women. I’ve failed at so many things – medicine, civil engineering, violin, driving tests, losing weight, promotions to name a few. But I’ve done ok overall. I’ve certainly always subscribed to the theory that we have many careers and passions all in one lifetime. My general rule of thumb is that if I can’t influence or not made to feel included, I walk away. If people start taking me for granted, I walk away. DIMO – do it, move on – that’s one of the new expressions I’ve learned today. How cool is that!
- Princess Charlotte is nearly 5 and she’s renowned for her tongue pulling. I cringe when I remember being really cross stuck in traffic and sticking my tongue out with fury at the bloke who blocked me in. Mortification personified!
- The funniest picture I saw was an isolation work pod as it looked just like a tiny rubbish tent. We’ve got into a very comfortable groove so no silly garden contraptions for us.
- There was more about how the people cheating on their partners are coping. Really?!? Who’d have thought it was trending!
- Instagram influencers are really struggling to reinvent themselves, apparently. This has all passed me by and I don’t really get Instagram.
- Discombobulation – my most favourite word ever – was in an article. Today is definitely word day.
- Wearing the right work clothes in the house makes a big difference to how effective you are – I’m validated – YIPEE!!
- We can’t come out of lockdown as we just can’t be trusted to do the right thing. You only have to look at how we are sliding into bad habits to know this is true.
- Donald Trump has had another toddler tantrum and thrown his toys out of the pram with the usual bluster. He has announced he probably won’t be doing any more press conferences. I believe that the world is now a much safer place.
My List: A few chapters of my book; & even more Modern Family. That’s about it as I was catching up with my blog.
My Lowlight: I didn’t get to talk to mum & dad today or any of the friends that I meant to call. I feel a bit bad but tomorrow is another day.
My Highlight: We has a great laugh with Dave’s family and came 2nd in the quiz. I dropped in about the sun loungers and Dave was fine but he still doesn’t know about the glasses (unless he has read this properly!)
