Saturday 18th April 2020

“Are you okay?” “Mmhmm” “Do you not feel very well?” “No” “Just need a lot of hugs today?” “Yeah”. I did need a lot of attention today. I was doing a lot of extra thinking. Will this end soon? Who knows. Will I get to go to London to watch Wicked for my birthday as planned? Probably not. When can we go back to Disney? I dunno. I hope relatives of all my kids at work are okay. I see grandparents more than parents picking the kids up as most parents are at work during class time, and I know they’re more vulnerable. I will be relieved to see them all.

There’s a photo of me that has gone viral on Pinterest. It seems very odd to see 105k on a photo. all these saves to photography inspiration boards and pose ideas. I’ll enjoy my five minutes of fame while it lasts.

I’d woken up late by my standards. It was already 8:00 so I obviously needed an extra hour or so. I’ve got all of my alarms turned off, except for my 10am alarm. There is no way that I’ll allow myself to sleep in until past 10. I remember once when I was in my teens, I slept in until about 3pm and I was so annoyed with myself. Why didn’t anybody wake me?! I’d wasted an entire day.

I think that’s what I’m struggling with most about lockdown. Wasting days. Alex has always tried to get me to slow down. Take a day off. Chill out. But I can’t. I hate the idea of sitting on a sofa all day watching TV, I hate the idea of not bettering somehow. I know days don’t last forever and I want to make every single one count. Now that we’re in a sort of routine, it’s like I now need something new on top of the new things I’m doing.

I did my ab workout on the balcony and watched the fluffy clouds float by. They’d puffed out like candy floss in the sky. I’ve always been fascinated by clouds. The shapes and forms that they make. When I was a kid, I used to lay on my back on the trampoline for hours just watching the clouds move. I used to think up and tell myself stories from the clouds. I laid on my back watching the clouds float by and tried to do the same. But I couldn’t. I hate how my storytelling isn’t as good as when I was young. I hate that as adults we generally tend to lose imagination. I’m still pretty good at thinking up stories to tell to kids, and I’m still pretty good to imaginary play with so I’ll take that. I think that’s the thing about lockdown, you start taking more notice and thinking deeper about things you wouldn’t have done before.

Alex has gone to the supermarket so I decided to take Rio out for a walk. It’s the second time I’ve taken him during lockdown. It wasn’t as scary as the first time, but it was still exhilarating. There were more people about than before. Two older men were having a conversation over an apartment block gate, another woman was walking with her supermarket bag and another one looked like he’d been to the chemist. There were quite a few cars too, much more than the last time. I can only guess that people are getting tired of lockdown. The warm air hit me as I walked around. Summer really is coming.

We walked for 10 minutes up and down our own road so Rio could do his business. I let him off his lead in the garden for a bit to have a runaround. He’s not been able to do much exercise in lockdown so a quick 5 minutes would let him burn off some steam. I raced him up and down for a bit. I think I needed to let off some steam too. As we were running, we noticed Alex at the gate. Worked out well to help him carry the shopping up. With 5 bags and Rio I surprised myself. Obviously doing these workouts are helping.

None of us have received our government support yet, but payments are still being taken. I’m not sure what we’d have done if Alex wasn’t still working from home and my extra from managing social media.

“A lad at the kayak club has been told by his work that he’s not going back to work until the end of September”. The end of September! That’s another 5 months away. It will have meant we’d have worked all through last winter waiting for summer to come, for days out, for time in the pool and we might not get them. Instead, it might be winter once again. Dark nights, long working hours and cold weather.

I’d done my languages and I’d made a good dent on my book. By the end of the day I was 90% finished. I’ve really enjoyed the book and am reading it quite quickly. I’ve enjoyed the storyline from both sides of view. It was released the other day so if you’re looking for a book to read, definitely recommend The Switch by Beth O’Leary.

New episodes get added to Disney+ on a Friday, so we tend to catch up on a Saturday. We watched the new High School Musical, the musical the series which is as every bit rubbish as you might expect it to be. But, it’s a real guilty pleasure. We also watched the new episode of The Imagineering Story. I’m loving seeing the process, the barriers and the work that goes into a Disney project. This week was focused on Disney California Adventure Park. It showed the plans to add Pixar and add the light show over Paradise Pier. I seriously loved Paradise Pier and the light show so it was nostalgic to watch it back. I hope we can go after lockdown. Alex knows I love the malteaser rabbits so he got me a few while he was shopping. They went down nicely with a coffee.

We had bacon cobs for breakfast, cheese salad sandwiches for lunch and then pancetta, chips and salad for dinner. I think it’s so easy to forget to eat in lockdown. You get so caught up in doing other bits or not burning a lot of calories it’s easy for the time to just pass by. We’re making a real effort to make sure we do eat three times a week.

Alex watched Avengers: Infinity War whilst I was reading. I did end up watching some of the movie too.

I woke up to the news that Pedro Sanchez has announced that he is working alongside the cabinet to seek an extension of the state of alarm that will allow children to leave home under controlled conditions from April 27th. It brings such a new level of hope. It sounds progressive and forward. Like the first steps of coming out of lockdown. It says there can be a deescalation of the confinement measures from May 11th. It gives me new hope that in May we’ll be able to go outside again, go for walks and sit out and have breakfast. Today (Sunday) is going to be a good day.

Stay safe

L x