Catching up on lockdown
"Cut back on things that get in the way and find space for the nice things. Rather than trying to satisfy everyone, find an hour for coffee with the person you really like."
When I wrote those words in my last blog entry on January 11 this year as a sop to the idea of New Year resolutions, I little realised just how they would be implemented.
Life has changed beyond our comprehension. Yet looking at those words, I find that there is space for the enjoyable things. And the great joys of my day are a Zoom chat or a FaceTime coffee with a friend or two. A definite appointment making a definite amount of time free to look eye to eye and chat.
The site of forty also my loveliest friends and acquaintances all in little boxes on my screen on a Thursday night doing quiz night together bring me untold joy.
I'm still having difficulty finding space. The amount of work done having to do seems to have spread among the virtual days in the office, but more than ever now I'm clinging onto it and appreciating how worthwhile it is. Whether it's doing a voice-over recording from our walk-in wardrobe, or planning a virtual gala for the children's charity of which I'm patron, it's great to have stuff to do and I realise I'm lucky, very lucky.
We have a large flat, seven rooms in total if you count an absurdly long hallway and it's great that my partner and I can both spend the day working, he running his company, and me working through my to-do list, and see little of each other so that we still appreciate getting together to eat at the end of the working day.
I need a deadline. I work best to deadlines. I need to know when the show opens. I need to know what time the plane leaves. The only deadline I have at the moment is one that I have set myself to complete the first draft of my second novel by the end of August and as I'm skimming along at 850 words a day, I'm well on course. It may be a pile of lockdown induced bilge, but once that first draft is out of the way, then there is point and purpose to getting it ready to share.
There was a brilliant piece in The Guardian by Marina Hyde about the misuse of words and how people aren't battling coronavirus or losing their fight to it, because they're not fighting it. There should be no implication that anybody is not trying to recover.
The constant exhortations to kindness, I'm forced to class as a little patronising. I'd like to think I'm a kind person. I'd like to think I do the right thing. I‘d like to think that it's intrinsic to my nature and that I don’t need reminding to do it at the end of every local news programme or in every other Facebook post.
We've all seen our share of arsewipes, prats, tossers and twats over the last few weeks, thinking that the rules aren't for them, but the acts of kindness seem to be in predominance.
But the thing I think we most have to focus on is changing our thinking. There will be no back to normal. We will not return to what we had before. Something new like to head and at the moment we don't know what it is. "People keep saying "I hope something will come out of all this" and some glib overall desire for a better world.
We have only to look at what we are seeing now to know that that is not the case. We will not go back to normal, we will go on and whatever we go on will also include the arsewipes, the prats, the tossers and the twats. We will not find ourselves in a world of competence and though I, along with many others, send every good wish to our Prime Minister for a full recovery, I don't for one minute think that he has had some damascene experience which will fill him with compassion and an ability to care. I don't think the New World will give Matt Hancock the ability to answer a straight question with a direct answer. We will still have Michael Gove.
The New World will have a lot of disappointment. We will have a lot of what’s given away taken back. The best we can hope for is that it's just financial and that many of us are back in jobs and can help those who are still suffering.
We are not heading to Utopia after this. Today's newspapers say that social distancing may stay indefinitely. Take a moment to think what that means and how long before you can hug all your friends. But you can talk to them. Face-to-face, and share your thoughts and your love with them.
I've just sent out five messages to people for chats during the first part of this week and every single one of them has responded and said yes.
The technology we have has helped us through this crisis. Imagine how we would have coped in lockdown 10 years ago? It would have been a much lonelier experience. And even though the government forgot to order the right amount of testing kits on Amazon, and still think it's a better deal to spend 5.8 million sending everybody a letter, the technology has been a vital organ for many others.
For whatever solution lies ahead, let us find a place for it and use it with compassion and with care. Let's continue to talk. More. Let's keep the space we have found in our lives and in our hearts.
When I wrote those words in my last blog entry on January 11 this year as a sop to the idea of New Year resolutions, I little realised just how they would be implemented.
Life has changed beyond our comprehension. Yet looking at those words, I find that there is space for the enjoyable things. And the great joys of my day are a Zoom chat or a FaceTime coffee with a friend or two. A definite appointment making a definite amount of time free to look eye to eye and chat.
The site of forty also my loveliest friends and acquaintances all in little boxes on my screen on a Thursday night doing quiz night together bring me untold joy.
I'm still having difficulty finding space. The amount of work done having to do seems to have spread among the virtual days in the office, but more than ever now I'm clinging onto it and appreciating how worthwhile it is. Whether it's doing a voice-over recording from our walk-in wardrobe, or planning a virtual gala for the children's charity of which I'm patron, it's great to have stuff to do and I realise I'm lucky, very lucky.
We have a large flat, seven rooms in total if you count an absurdly long hallway and it's great that my partner and I can both spend the day working, he running his company, and me working through my to-do list, and see little of each other so that we still appreciate getting together to eat at the end of the working day.
I need a deadline. I work best to deadlines. I need to know when the show opens. I need to know what time the plane leaves. The only deadline I have at the moment is one that I have set myself to complete the first draft of my second novel by the end of August and as I'm skimming along at 850 words a day, I'm well on course. It may be a pile of lockdown induced bilge, but once that first draft is out of the way, then there is point and purpose to getting it ready to share.
There was a brilliant piece in The Guardian by Marina Hyde about the misuse of words and how people aren't battling coronavirus or losing their fight to it, because they're not fighting it. There should be no implication that anybody is not trying to recover.
The constant exhortations to kindness, I'm forced to class as a little patronising. I'd like to think I'm a kind person. I'd like to think I do the right thing. I‘d like to think that it's intrinsic to my nature and that I don’t need reminding to do it at the end of every local news programme or in every other Facebook post.
We've all seen our share of arsewipes, prats, tossers and twats over the last few weeks, thinking that the rules aren't for them, but the acts of kindness seem to be in predominance.
But the thing I think we most have to focus on is changing our thinking. There will be no back to normal. We will not return to what we had before. Something new like to head and at the moment we don't know what it is. "People keep saying "I hope something will come out of all this" and some glib overall desire for a better world.
We have only to look at what we are seeing now to know that that is not the case. We will not go back to normal, we will go on and whatever we go on will also include the arsewipes, the prats, the tossers and the twats. We will not find ourselves in a world of competence and though I, along with many others, send every good wish to our Prime Minister for a full recovery, I don't for one minute think that he has had some damascene experience which will fill him with compassion and an ability to care. I don't think the New World will give Matt Hancock the ability to answer a straight question with a direct answer. We will still have Michael Gove.
The New World will have a lot of disappointment. We will have a lot of what’s given away taken back. The best we can hope for is that it's just financial and that many of us are back in jobs and can help those who are still suffering.
We are not heading to Utopia after this. Today's newspapers say that social distancing may stay indefinitely. Take a moment to think what that means and how long before you can hug all your friends. But you can talk to them. Face-to-face, and share your thoughts and your love with them.
I've just sent out five messages to people for chats during the first part of this week and every single one of them has responded and said yes.
The technology we have has helped us through this crisis. Imagine how we would have coped in lockdown 10 years ago? It would have been a much lonelier experience. And even though the government forgot to order the right amount of testing kits on Amazon, and still think it's a better deal to spend 5.8 million sending everybody a letter, the technology has been a vital organ for many others.
For whatever solution lies ahead, let us find a place for it and use it with compassion and with care. Let's continue to talk. More. Let's keep the space we have found in our lives and in our hearts.
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| Lockdown Quiz night in action |
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