Everyone OK? If you’re anything like me you may be starting to feel a bit odd. At the risk of making this all about me, I do feel a little strange. See how I asked how you were just so I could launch into a rant about me and how I feel?
I’m a weird human cocktail of intermittent lethargy, anger, worry, bouts of industrious activity and frustration. At the same time, I have to admit to preferring working from home, at least for now. I guess as time goes on this groundhog day thing may become a bit of a thing. I suppose you could say….
Physically too, I feel pretty useless. All I see online and on our road is an endless stream of sweaty people exercising and working out, whereas I take the dogs on a thirty-minute stroll and I need a lie-down. I’ve been doing the odd ten minutes here and there on the rowing machine kidding myself that this will burn off my isolation diet.
I am eating well, but “well” in that sentence has the same meaning it does when someone tells you that you “look well”. We all know that means you’ve packed some timber on and my diet is currently delivering on that count.
If the internet is reading this, I’ve seen enough work out videos now, thank you.
As evidence of my distance from normality, I regrouted our shower floor on Friday. I had to order the kit I needed online several days earlier, watch some YouTube videos on how the hell you do it and then inevitably still do it wrong. These are strange times indeed if I am seeking out DIY tasks.
My worries are many and varied, and in no particular order and only focussing on my immediate domestic ones, include Emily, who is incredibly fed up with being stuck at home with us and not being able to see her boyfriend, whilst at the same time shouting at folks through the window who are out and about, who she knows are potentially lengthening the lockdown. I worry about Rebecca, Tom and Freddie, more out of missing them, and not having a hands-on relationship with Freddie is heartbreaking when he is too young to have any clue why we aren’t with him a couple of times a week as we normally are. The selfish worry that he might “forget us” is real.
I worry a lot about Louise working in hospital every day and of course the more elderly members of our family who must be lonely and bored out of their minds.
I know countless others have many more worries in both number and magnitude, but I’m playing the deck I was dealt for better or worse.
At the very bottom of my worry list is, of course, our trip in August. Sure, it’s trivial and not at all important in the scheme of things, but I’m allowed to give it some thought. Will it go ahead? If it does, what restrictions and procedures will be in place? If it doesn’t go ahead can we re-book without losing the family fortune (about £7.50) on dates that we can all do?
My anger, well, I won’t go into that here. Have a look at my Twitter feed if you want to get a feel for that. I’m losing followers there more quickly than Boris Johnson is getting through Sudoku puzzles, but I need to vent and Twitter is getting it.
With no end in sight to the lockdown (for all the right reasons), I suppose it is easy to fall into a bit of a mental tizzy, but as we have ten Hillsborough tragedies happening every day currently, plus all the care home deaths not being reported, feeling a bit weird is a small price to pay as we live through a proper real-world catastrophe. This far into a lockdown might be the time that people really get fed up of the strictness, as evidenced on my dog walk yesterday when the local school playing fields looked like a Saturday afternoon at Glastonbury, but hopefully, in the coming weeks, the benefits of what we’re doing now will start to show. We need it to, as currently, our stats are the worst in Europe, which normally only happens once a year at Eurovision.
I really don’t want these posts to become a place of negativity and preaching, but please remember, those poor souls dying today were infected around three weeks ago. I do wonder why government sources are starting to talk about curves being flattened and infection rates slowing. That is not the message people need to hear. Things will still get worse before they get better and as much as we might need to hear some positive news as a reward for our (lack of) actions, please don’t get complacent.
I hope my binge list helped a bit last week. Do go back and read the comments on both Facebook and the blog itself as others threw in their own suggestions. We’re burning through box sets more quickly than NHS staff are going through PPE if they are lucky enough to have any. As an example, on Friday we stumbled across Brassic (Sky One on demand), enjoyed it, and boshed the whole first series in a night.
It seems that the Sky Movie channels are running all of the Star Wars films on an endless loop and I’ve watched a lot of those in bits and pieces. Similarly, there’s a channel showing all the Harry Potter films. There are hours to be spent right there.
Yesterday felt more like a Sunday than every other Sunday ever didn’t it? Our Saturday that felt like a Sunday was brightened immeasurably by a socially distant visit from Rebecca, Tom and Freddie. They were out on their daily walk and spent a little while sat at the end of our front path whilst Freddie played with the fine collection of stones in our front garden. Having only seen him via video recently, of course, as children of his age do, he had seemingly grown up relatively speaking, with new words in his expanding speech repertoire. It was lovely to engage with him at least visually and from a safe distance and get the chance to make him laugh and him us. We miss him a lot.
So we stumble to the end of a blog post seemingly without theme or point, and nothing is new there, right? I suppose the best I can rescue from the wreckage of the previous few paragraphs is that it’s probably OK to feel a bit odd, low, lonely, worried, angry or lost. For those of you like me, who thrive on certainty, plans, structure and order, having very little of all of that is not an easy adjustment to make.
My response seems to be that unlike 99% of the internet, I’m not exercising for 23 hours a day, cooking, learning a language or crafting an extension on the back of the house out of spit and cat hair. I’m just sitting around, trying to remember what it’s like to wear a pair of jeans and wondering if my car will start whenever I drive it again. I hope you are finding ways to get through this as best you can.
Stay safe, stay at home and see you next week.
Till the next time…….
Mkingdon's Blog 
BT Sport 1800hrs tonight. You can thank me later
Loved it 👍