I am very fortunate that Simon and I only work a four day week and although I do have work I could very easily let take over I try to make sure that Monday's are not a work day.
So this morning saw a bit of a tidy around while Simon messed about with technology as we had a couple of 'apps' on the TV that weren't working; all sorted now though. I managed to get another grocery collect shop booked in for a couple of weeks time; during this lockdown one thing I've had to do is get ahead of myself and book shopping way further in advance than I would usually have done. Although I have noticed that a few weeks ago slots would get booked up as soon as they became available but now it has calmed down and is much easier to get a slot pretty much whenever I want.
We took a bit of a longer walk out today managing 3.3 miles in one hour and 14 minutes and despite the grey clouds it stayed dry. This time last week it was shorts and t-shirt weather, sitting on the patio with sweat dripping off me and now it's back to jeans and a hoodie - typical British weather!
I indulged this afternoon with some jigsaw time; rather a lot of jigsaw time! I always find that the time just seems to disappear when I get engrossed doing a jigsaw; it becomes a very therapeutic activity.
In a few weeks time we were due to have a weekend away to attend a food festival called Real Food Rocks. We had attended the event last year in the lake district and had a great time learning more about low carb/keto diets and eating whole foods so we had decided to attend again this year but in Oxford. Before the tickets could be put online for sale the event had been postponed but we had already booked our hotel for a couple of nights. When this virus thing all kicked off we just presumed that the hotel booking was lost; we hadn't taken out any cancellation insurance so had resigned ourselves to not getting any money back. Then today we received a phone call from the hotel who explained that as they were unable to honor the booking we could re-book for another date. We were very pleasantly surprised and having checked online to see that Real Food Rocks has been rescheduled for the same weekend next year we have decided to move the booking till then.
One of the side effects of being in lockdown for almost 12 weeks is that the thought of being able to do things again feels really strange. We have had 12 weeks of stay home, stay alert and only do whatever is 'essential' so the thought that we are starting to ease our way out of lockdown which in turn may mean that we can start to do things again feels really bizarre.
Our own personal circumstances have meant that the last 7 or so years have been tight financially so anything that we decided to do was always done with plenty of forethought and planning. This year we were just getting to the point where we could start doing some of those things that we had been putting off and then this all happens! So can we start doing stuff? Can we start planning? Ordinarily this would mean trips out to weigh up all the options, visiting different shops, searching out the best value for money and enjoying that process of planning something. But now the question is can we do that? Are we okay to just go into a store and 'browse' or is the expectation that we are visiting for the express purpose of buying a specific thing.
Will we ever be in a position when we can just 'shop' because it's something to do and a way to pass time rather than a military operation to visit a particular store to get that one item; where the queuing to get in may take longer than making the purchase!
I am sure that once we get used to how things are going to have to be we will be fine but for the time being thinking about a life that might not be like it used to be is quite unnerving. Getting out into the world again is going to take some getting used to and it may be a while before we feel comfortable doing it. My fear is that the lockdown is easing too soon and too quickly and that we could find ourselves in another strict 'stay at home' order which would then put into question the past 12 weeks. All we can do is hope that the powers that be have some idea about what they are doing...although I am yet to be convinced.
Stay safe, take care
xx
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