Life During Lockdown

I’ve had a very busy week, but I managed to finish a couple of hours early today so I’ve already made tasty vegetable chilli, done a few chores, and prepared for tonight’s listening party (BSP, The Coral and Joy Division). I’m very glad it’s a three-day weekend, and hopefully I’ll have time for a couple of bike rides as well as making bread, playing some board games, and getting myself mentally prepared for what is likely to be another challenging week.

It’s a little cooler today, although at least two of our neighbours have builders in (why?) so it’s still quite noisy outside. I didn’t cycle today, but I did have a long walk this morning and I used my after work period to catch up a few chores and sort out my Trello board so that when I start work tomorrow I at least have a proper list of things I need to do. Having hundreds of emails in my inbox really stresses me out so I’m hoping to get round to those tomorrow, after which it’s a glorious 3 day weekend during which I hope to cycle at least twice.

I also did my first proper presentation from home (with slides and everything). The technology didn’t let me down so I was quite happy about that. I’ve got one delivered via Zoom in a couple of weeks so I just need to make sure it works the same as Teams in that respect.

Of course, the first thing I did after writing the last post was to go cycling anyway. It was still warm, but nowhere near as warm as my study which generally does a good job of reflecting whatever is going on outside (heat and noise). I feel a lot better for the exercise, and I am glad I went.

Today has been death by a thousand paper cuts of heat, noise, and general irritation with the world. These feelings will pass (they always do), and I’m quite looking forward to the amount of interesting work I have to do over the next few weeks (the week off I have planned at the end of it also helps). The weather looks like it might hold out for a few days, so hopefully I won’t regret my decision to not cycle in 26 degree heat this evening and instead spend the time doing chores and then focusing on self-care.

The weather was beautiful today, and I was very glad to finish work and get outside. I cycled to Sutton Park which was like stepping back in time (not in a good way). There were lots of people there, not a lot of social distancing, and the general feeling of everyone partying and having a great time in the sunshine. When I see something like that I just regard it as dangerous now, so after a little time relaxing in a remote bit of woodland I cycled back home on the roads and got my miles in somewhere quieter. Rush hour traffic shouldn’t be quieter than a park, but that is the world we are living in now.

I also went to a great workshop (via Zoom) exploring how we are all doing working from home and what we may want to change when we get back. I have many thoughts on this which I will articulate at some point.

After work today I heated up a portion of last night’s (veggie) cottage pie and then after dinner I went cycling. I got home before the rain and spent the evening making bread. I suspect I’m becoming one of those people.

I’m just looking at the weather forecast for next week and it looks like it will be warm and sunny. It’s perfect commuting weather, and I realise that my commute is the main thing I miss about not being at work. 17 miles of cycling a day, mostly on towpaths, giving me the perfect opportunity to bookend my day with some exercise in the fresh air. I’ll still try and cycle every evening after work, but it’s becoming harder to find places to go as the roads get busier and the narrow towpaths gain popularity with all the other people who want to exercise somewhere a bit prettier (and safer) than a dual carriageway riddled with potholes. This week I may have to head slightly further north and see if I can find somewhere with a few less cars and people.

I’m trying hard to make weekends different. I have one extra cup of coffee before my morning walk, and generally go to one of the two parks that are a little bit further than I can get to in a pre-work walk. Yesterday I did some computer things but not a lot else. Today I’m making bread, yogurt and cottage pie, and hopefully getting a lock down haircut (which is like all my other haircuts – I’ve not been to the barber for years).

I also made this blog, which contains most of what I’ve written during/about lock down. I’ve been hosting this locally, but I wanted to have a cloud version and thought it may at least be interesting to go back and read when we are in whatever the new normal looks like.

It’s Friday. I finished work at about 3:30 but it was hard. I did manage to cycle though, and cooked pasta and vegetables for dinner. Lockdown is generally better than how life was before, but it would be nice to have some proper social interaction at some point.

Today has been a very long day. Up at 5:30, working until 5, and less exercise than usual. It’s been really productive though, and I also did the disk swaps in my computers so everything is back where it was a few months ago. Having my 2 best computers running the same OS made no sense, so my Thinkpad is back to Ubuntu with i3 and it’s blazingly fast again (and Teams and Zoom work great on it, so I could use it for work in an emergency).