Friday 24 April 2020

Every single year I forget about Día de Sant Jordi. I always forget that on Saint George’s Day in the U.K., Catalan and the Valencia region also celebrate Sant Jordi (which is pretty much the same name). Only here, tradition states the women receive a red rose and the men receive a book. It’s supposed to be a combination of Valentine’s Day and World Book Day. It’s celebrated on April 23rd, and of course, I only thought about it the day after, like every other year.

I opened the window and let the morning sun hit my face. The cool air being a contrast to the already burning sun. It’s been a long time since the morning sun has had some heat in it, but today it did. I watched the sky come to life and the buildings start to create shadows on the ground below. The world was just waking up.

I’d woken up relatively early, but couldn’t concentrate. Alex was using my yoga mat and chose to do it right in front of where I was writing. It’s hard to concentrate when a voice you’ve been tuned to not tune out of is blaring away right in front of you. I was upset for a good portion of the day after that.

We don’t have a lot of stuff that isn’t ours. Every thing we buy is just to share. Alex has his phone, I have mine. Alex has his laptop, I have my iPad. Then the last thing is our workout stuff. I have my yoga mat and yoga blocks and Alex has his own workout mat. There’s this whole practise in yoga where you have to build up trust with your yoga mat, it’s supposed to be seen as a safe place where you can go and leave any emotions or stresses behind that you don’t want to carry around with you anymore. Seeing Alex just use my mat without asking and stepping all over it was unbelievably upsetting and I guess ridiculous. I surprised myself how upset about it I was. It felt like every emotion I’d left on there had just been opened back up.

It’s fair to say we had our first argument in lockdown.

Alex’s reasoning was that he’d always use other people’s sports equipment when they weren’t using it, and vice versa. It wasn’t until I’d calmed down and was able to articulate that it’s not just sports equipment. It’s much more symbolic in yoga. And he saw some yoga stuff that he understood and apologised. The workout mat that he uses was a travel yoga mat that I bought so I could do yoga on trips or down the beach and stuff, so I’m not sure why he didn’t just use his own mat to begin with.

Anyway, all is forgotten and tomorrow is a new day. But that was the majority of the day. Sitting on the balcony upset. That was the real life reality of it. Lockdown clearly got to me by Day 35. And what’s a diary if you don’t share the good and the bad?

I found the new yoga mat that I do want, but it’s still out of stock. It’s a company that make yoga mats out of rubber trees, and every time one is bought, they plant a new rubber tree. Apparently, they’ve planted 2 million more trees than they’d used to make their mats. It’s quite an expensive mat, but now I’m into yoga I thought it would be worth splashing out now. I just bought a cheap one to begin with in case I didn’t keep it up. Nearly 5 months down the line and I’m still doing it every day so it’s safe to say I’ll get my use out it.

Mid afternoon I started researching some more about book writing. Apparently I should aim to write about 1000 words a day, which would get me a book written in 3-4 months. My blogs are usually more than a 1000 so I’m thinking it’s totally doable. I’ve also been told to just write and write and not edit until I’ve read it back. Apparently it breaks the creative flow. Also, if I have two ideas for the same scene to write them both and then see which one goes better. I also got a lovely message saying they don’t think I would be able to write a book, and writing a blog and writing a book or completely different and the skills are different so I shouldn’t bother. In true Lauren style, that makes me want to write one even more to prove them wrong.

Somebody else messaged to say that I shouldn’t write a book as a get rich quick scheme and “not being funny but you probably won’t make any money from it because you probably won’t get many sales”. Now, this one kinda offends me. There are many times I could’ve monetised my blog but chose not to. I’ve turned down sponsors who wanted to pay lump sums to have huge banners going across my blogs. But I don’t. I turn down things all the time. I turn down news interviews, I turned down a movie audition that came from somebody reading my blog, I even refuse to use affiliate links (the links that when you click them to buy something the blogger gets paid. This is how price comparison sites work, like Skyscanner and hotels booking pages. It’s also how majority of bloggers make money by directing traffic to amazon or clothes sites etc). So to say that I’d do it just to make money is quite irritating.

Somebody else also messaged to say now I’ve said I’m writing a book I should stop writing blogs as people don’t want to read my blogs now, they want to read my book. I personally don’t think that’s the case? I think most of you still want me to write my daily lockdown blogs? Maybe I’m wrong. As you can see, it’s not been the best lockdown day.

The day started to pick up though later on. I took Rio for a walk up and down the street and took him round the side garden which I’ve never been to before. There was nice plants and rockery out which looked lovely. I did find out that we don’t have a key to the side gate though, so we had to walk back around to the front, which was fine by me!

I’d played some Brawl Stars for the most of the day and lounged around. I did my languages and put myself back to Duolingo pro. I have found out though that I’ve got another 7 days trial free. I literally just had a 7 day free trial so I don’t know why it’s given me another one, but I’m going with it!

At 8pm (Spain time), we watched Asa’s show on TV. It’s always a good laugh. We had our dinner, chicken nuggets, chips and garlic bread. What a Friday night dinner. Before I headed off to the bedroom to do my ab workout and my yoga flow. I can’t believe there’s space in there now to do exercise. We used to have the tiniest bit of floor space between the bed and the door and the bed and the other door and now there’s heaps of room. Rio loves running through the bedroom and laying out in different places on the floor. It’s made the room much cooler and airier too which is good for us all.

Whenever I do yoga, Rio lays at the end of my mat and tends to fall asleep. I’d done a nighttime 20 minute sleep inducing yoga with all the lights off and my eyes closed the whole time. By the time I opened my eyes when it was done, Rio was snoring at the end of the mat.

I got into bed and dreamt I was in California. Heading to Disneyland. Only somebody had got in our car and said it was their car. I guess it was my brain telling me I’m restricted from going out at the moment.

The promenade will open on Sunday for the children and their parents to be able to walk along the front. Beaches, parks and public areas will still all be closed but at least they will have somewhere nice to walk. They’re allowed to use their own toys too. According to El País, when this lockdown period ends we will start loosening lockdown across the country. It says in some areas it will be a lot quicker than others and the country will determine different rules for different autonomous regions. It makes sense as some of these towns have been locked down and have never had a case of coronavirus. I’m hoping things will be semi normal by June. I don’t think I’ll be heading to London now for my birthday that’s for sure but if I can get out to Javea or Moraira for a walk and sit in a bar (with spread out tables) I’ll be happy.

They reported the lowest amount of deaths in Spain since the COVID19 pandemic so it’s all starting to look positive. Let’s hope it continues in this direction.

Keep safe

L x