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After revealing my lockdown pot belly the other day, today started with a walk BEFORE breakfast. I read recently that if you do some activity before eating then you really, really look forward to breakfast. And since I really, really look forward to breakfast already, I wondered how many 'reallys' I could add.

The other thing is, we're currently in a glorious heatwave – hence the news stories of crowded beaches (FFS!) – so walking early or late is the only cool time of the day to exercise.

So I filled up a water bottle, put on some tunes and did a fast walk around Kings Heath Park.

Not too many people but plenty of activity: dog walkers, joggers, families on bikes, a guy writing in a book on the grass, an elderly person sitting alone on a bench, kids hiding inside giant rhododendron bushes, a smoker pondering life at the pond, a sunbather, walkers, three young women working out in a 2m triangulation, three more playing rounders and a tonne of basketball players. Oh and a celebrity spot – midwife Rumah from Birmingham soap Doctors jogging with a friend. It was all I could do not to shout something about her unfair suspension storyline for kissing a hospital consultant.

I followed a desire line into one corner of the park with blackbirds flitting about and dense foliage all around. I was extra excited to discover a den area – until I turned around and saw toilet paper.

People! Argh! Foul! Getting caught short, fine, but take it with you and bin it. When we did a litter pick in Hazelwell Park just before lockdown, the worst culprit was actually nappy wipes. They get stuck in trees and form the equivalent of an above-ground fatberg. BIN IT! </rant>

What was ace were all new ducklings at the pond, protective parents prowling, and doling out the evil eye. Also, the giant purple ornamental onions (alliums) and oriental poppies growing close to the horticultural school.

Gosh this park walk was an emotional ride of highs and lows.

Back home, I can report that my much-anticipated breakfast indeed was better than a normal breakfast. Really, really, really, really good.

The second high of the day was the cold shower after doing a 50-minute online Shbam class (that's the one where you basically dance around your living room to good tunes). It was like going from a sauna into a plunge pool. Damn that was good. Cold skin on a hot day. The best. The opposite of being snug on a winter day.

Anyway, I'm getting back on the fitness case. Which is good because this summer dress is now lockdown-tight and, yes, uncomfortable.

The third high of the day was a visit to York Road Supplies, everyone's favourite local ironmongers and plant seller, and the place where I get my allotment plant plugs. It's only just opened last week and I filled my boots with herbs and various crops. This summer may see my first ever homegrown cucumber.

Thanks

Thanks to Daz for the reminder that we're aren't out of the woods yet. He posted this earlier and it was like a slap-around-the-cheek wakeup call since just about everyone I know has started making meeting arrangements of some kind. Brought me up short it did.

I can see loads of people on here, understandably, enthusiastically arranging meetups in parks and gardens. 

Please note that our rate of infection, and death, is still considerably greater than it was when we imposed our version of a lockdown.

If you are going to see people please try and limit the number of people you see over a short period of time. If this proves, as many suspect, much too soon to try something like this then you don't want to have been a catalyst for infection moving between groups of friends.

Seeing many small groups of people in quick succession could end up as being as bad as hanging out in a big group.

nb// primarily aimed at Birmingham people because we are still one of the most dangerous places in the country.

Commission/hire me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com

The lockdown continues to ease. From Monday, in England, groups of up to six people from different households will be able to meet outside. So that's pretty much all my local family. I'm sure a picnic will soon be arranged.

Tonight I jumped the gun and met with my elderly friend – who came out of hospital on Tuesday – and his son in their garden, distanced of course, with my spray disinfectant in my bag and BYO drinks. It almost felt like normal life had resumed. We clapped at 8pm for the carers. My friend gave me a tour of his roses which were in full bloom. On Monday we enter the meteorological summer season.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Thomas Gray

The downside of exiting lockdown – apart from the increased risks – is that the roads are already busier, the air that bit more polluted, people a bit more gung-ho, schools set to open for some next week, the shops opening in a couple of weeks after that.

Soon, capitalism will be back in full swing and this strange isolation will fade as if it were but a dream.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

WB Yeats

Speaking of waking up from a dream. I felt my first depressive thought in a while about climate change. All other news has been on hold except for this virus. And what was it that set me off? A car speeding up the road in a 20mph zone.

I wish we could ban cars or find a way for them all to run on green energy. No phasing out in 2030, 40 or 50. Now.

The car has become an article of dress without which we feel uncertain, unclad, and incomplete in the urban compound. 

Marshall McLuhan

There's no going back from automotive technology. But if the lockdown has shown us anything it's that the world is a better place without vehicles choking our air, and emitting noxious fumes and planet-warming carbon emissions.

Yes, I have a car so I'm a hypocrite. But still I'd be happy to give it up and do without cars if society moved that way.

Thanks

The sun setting so late in the evening (9.15pm) means it's light until nearly 10. The lead up to the summer solstice is a special time of the year and gives the feeling of so much extra time. I love seeing the sunset every evening from the front window.

The weather forecast is sunny for days and tonight I had to water the garden to give the plants a drink after a week with no rain. I hope you are enjoying this lovely weather too.

Today I also enjoyed these things:

• Walking Weird Britain by Pete – he really is a lovely writer.
• The Miracle Sudoku – 25 minutes of a guy solving an impossible puzzle.
• This photo, which I'd forgot I'd taken of boats in the Azores.
• Tree Talk tree map – all the trees in London!
• Window-shopping for maybe getting a greenhouse!!!

Watch this space.

Commission/hire me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com

Trigger warning: this is partly about body size and shape. This isn’t about weight gain/loss so much as how lockdown has changed my eating habits and fitness routine, and up-ended efforts to improve my health. The Zoe Covid reporting app has documented lockdown weight gain as a trend here.

The last time I went to the gym was about 10 days before lockdown, nearly three months ago.

Fitness has been a priority in the past three years because I feel good when I feel fit. After a year of walking back to basic fitness, I then joined the pool and swam for the next year – getting up to around 1km each time. Then I upped my membership to inclusive and I've pretty much gone to the University of B'ham Sport & Fitness centre two to three times a week since 2018, trying various things:

• swimming
• tai chi
• walking netball
• barre
• over-50s circuits
• aqua fitness
• pilates
• various yogas
• arms and abs
• gym/weights

On top of this, I took up older adult ballet last year. And I walk. And I have an allotment. It was all going so well for someone in their early 50s trying to reverse years of sedentary computer work.

And then lockdown hit.

Theoretically there's unlimited opportunity to exercise at home or in the garden. But I don't. I've had weights and other kit at home for several years but not formed a habit with them. Home seems to be NOT for fitness. With the habit of going to the gym broken, all I had left was walking. And even one-hour walking a day is now not enough to keep me fit.

Which brings me to my weight.

I don't watch it too much but I did notice that I dropped quite a bit in the past three years after reducing my desk-based work, and also developed a lot more muscle and tone at the gym. That has all been reversed in just 10 weeks.

For a couple of weeks now every time I eat it's been uncomfortable after. Today I felt uncomfortable most of the day. My body shape has filled out in the midriff. Trousers have become uncomfortable. I recently ripped a nice summer skirt at the seam. I feel out of shape and a bit lethargic and also dense and uncomfortable. (Uncomfortable seems to be word.)

This has happened before. The tipping point where I feel it's time to act. Tomorrow I will have a think about how I eat and what. There have been a lot of boredom-related snacks and lots of dunked biscuits.

But in many ways my diet is not so different from before. I don't drink much and I don't eat meat. The two things that have changed are eating too late in the evening thanks to the late walks, and the disappearance of an exercise routine. I feel less fit. I am less fit.

Exercise is a big part of feeling good for me. Both psychologically and physically. I'm going to have to find a new habit that I can do daily and fit around work. One that doesn't cause arthritis or cause RSI flare-ups and doesn't bore me to tears. One that, as my sister always says, I can find my happy thought about.

Wish me luck.

Thanks

Thanks to my body for giving me a heads up to act. Yeah, I know. But this one comes from Alexander Technique years ago when I couldn't work for a year due to work station RSI. My Alexander Technique teacher, Anthony Kingsley used to make me say thank you to the pain. Literally, out loud.

Obviously I thought he was off his rocker. But it's the pain that reminds you to be kind to your body, to listen to what it is saying and to do the things you need to do to help it. And so it is with my lockdown pot.

PS. have just discovered Anthony has a YouTube channel and has put some AT videos online.

Commission/hire me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com

Once again, after a long work day and a modern affliction of scriveners' palsy of the mouse hand, I am thankful for a guest post submission. I have poured myself a painkilling restorative of gifted prosecco – more on which below – as is the scribe's way, and now sit down to enjoy the second part of Sheena of London's diary series… (part one is here).

__

I am a three-year-in Fulham FC season ticket holder. Which is weird cos, essentially, I don’t particularly like football. I do like watching Fulham though, partly because of the walk from the station to the stadium which is either along the river or through a park. Either way there’s always a heron or a parakeet. (Note parakeet theme running through my blog posts.)

I was going to say ‘enjoy’ watching Fulham but that’s not true – they are terrifically inconsistent so it’s like being on a rollercoaster. Which is surely one of the things we should not be doing at the moment. Like having a party or, yes, being closer to other people at the beach than during normal times! (What is that about?)

SO, with increasing fuckwittery about, here are some coping mechanisms…

In head only and just for imaginary fun:

• Push cyclist off bike or, passive-aggressively, wait till very close, turn quickly and make surprising noise or gesture so naturally fall off
• As jogger passes, accidentally turn foot (or elbow) out into their path
• As beach hogger comes near you, shake out towel to cover them in sand.  

Alternatively:

• All together now, arms to the side, palms angled sideways and slightly towards the sky, eyebrows raised, head tilted and …. “REALLY? (I do this one regularly, without risk assessment, which may one day be a mistake.)
• Stay in and write blogs about fuckwits.

Things I am still struggling with:

• The idea that we should ever triage based not on life chances but economic usefulness (see recent DNR stories such as this and this). Public domain examples included care home residents, people with learning disabilities or the disabled (more on this from the British Institute of Human Rights).
• Lockdown protests. And armed (with assault rifles) ones in parts of the US, with a seeming acceptance that it’s ok to shoot people (especially if they’re black). Scary.
• Being an emotional wuss. I have been left far more susceptible to tears in the eyes by an incident two years ago. Kindness in particular sends me over the edge. 

Things I am thankful for:

• NHS and carers, posties etc. 
• Not having to also deal with bodies in the streets (Ecuador) or ebola (DRC)
• Kindness (even though am blubbering mess with red eyes)

Things I am loving:

• Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp – very entertaining these days 
• Rainbow trout in the river
• Writing letters (actual letters, not just complaints)
• Chunky Kitkats – oh yes.

Thanks!

Fiona back again  – today I am very thankful for a friend dropping off an unexpected gift – prosecco and chocolate – on the doorstep. Now that's the kind of friend you need in lockdown, not a courier of rhubarb. Cheers!

Late news bulletin for yesterday (beep beep be-bee-beep): on our daily walk exercise we went in search of access to a patch of green less than 10 minutes walk away that Google had not labelled. It turned out to be a cricket pitch with club (Lyndworth Cricket Club) that was established in 1881.

1881! Possibly with land gifted by Cadbury's – to be confirmed.

Check it out – they have a clubhouse, bar, score board, nice pitch and are looking for new players. Matches take place on weekends in a normal season (suspended currently).

LYNDWORTH CRICKET CLUB
Lyndworth Road
Birmingham
B30 2UG

Who knew! Please support them – if they stop playing cricket, it'll turn into a developer's dream.

Commission/hire me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com

GDPR when it came this day in May two years offered a fantastic declutter. I slowly unclogged my email and moved everything over to take-or-leave RSS feeds on Feedly. I kept only about five excellent email subscriptions. One is Roden from Craig Mod who lives and walks in Japan and writes beautifully and does lots of interesting creative stuff.

This month he wrote about the repetitious detail of our days at the moment. A snippet:

But it’s the singularity of the repeated details that has been a jolt — the way the knife feels coming out of its block each and every morning or the sound of the coffee hitting the grinder gears or the pot of hot water rising up to boil. Of the folding back of my sheets in a fixed way, even the detail of the weight of now — this surreal sense of our shared somnambulant living — as being precise, singular, and a detail that I thought would go away but hasn’t, is still here. There’s a tick-tock synchronicity between the days. And it’s the texture of these repeated hyper-specific particulars that has only heightened the sense of unreality. It’s amazing how so much of what we tend to assume to be recondite or miraculous is there, in minute detail, day after day after day..

Roden 039, April 2020

I really felt this. Without the whirlwind of the outside world, focus has switched to the small components on which our days are built, like a set of David Lynch normal-made-abnormal details running in slow motion in a dystopian world.

As people die in their tens of thousands (actually now over 101,000 worldwide as of today) in a global pandemic beyond the front door, inside there is the daily closing of the bedroom window when local kids start playing/screaming, a watering of seed crops for the allotment, a coffee and three biscuits from the jar mid-morning, a sliding off of the tarp to get the beanbag out in the garden, a sunset walk, an evening TV show over dinner, a book in the bath.

These details are now the fabric of our restricted world. Something we are all sharing. A weight. On dozy repeat.

What are the details of your routine that is keeping reality from entering your front door?

Thanks

Today I enjoying having at least the sense of a bank holiday – not setting the alarm, time out from the deadlines of work and guilt-free lounging in the sunshine. Today feels like a holiday.

I'm also thankful for the karmic delivery of a variety of squash plants from someone who was on my Rhubarb run yesterday. Thank you Anne.

Commission/hire me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com

Today I delivered food to four local households. I say food. It was rhubarb. Enjoy your sour and stringy crumbles, friends. Smother it with custard then kill it with fire.

Thanks

It was nice to say doorstop hellos to various rhubarb-lovers.

It was also quite special to meet up with my brother for the first time since February today. We visited a park I'd never been to before: Malvern and Brueton Park in Solihull, which is half way between our two houses and has a lake and a river.

Wikipedia tells me it is 130 acres of U-shaped parkland joining two parcels of land in 1963. It was very busy and the car park was full but the crowds pretty much stayed in the park area so we had the woodland, wildlife area – the most interesting bit –mostly to ourselves.

Of course, at the first bit of desire line path that disappeared into a hole in the hedge, we veered off and ended up completely outside the designated park on some kind of open ground near a road called Lovelace Avenue! You can't get too lost in a city though and so we did a perimeter walk and ended up (eventually) back in the park.

Lots of catching up on family news and only a small political clash on whether Dominic Cummings should resign or not for breaching lockdown. Obviously I'm right and he should go but he won't as he's the PM's right arm and there is a different set of easier lockdown rules for those in power.

I didn't take a single photo today so here's one left over from Friday when I took a nap in the garden. There have been a lot of naps during lockdown – possibly from all the walking and sunshine, possibly from the brain-frying nature of trying to process what is happening, possibly from the antihistamines for hay fever season. That isn't a blanket by the way – it's a ginormous scarf.

Commission/hire me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com

It's a Saturday night and there's nothing much exciting to tell.

Just maybe know…

…that I've finished Mad Men and revisited The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. So I'm now going backwards in time.

…that I found a tiny oak sapling on my allotment and have brought it home and put it in a pot while I ponder where it can go to grow into a majestic oak.

…that yesterday we went for a short walk that ending up lasting nearly two hours as we explored offshoots from the Lifford Reservoir and River Rea and the two canals, and were brought us within feet of large birds including a magnificent heron and two orange-headed swans. And then Sophie from Sophie's fish n chip n pizza empire in Cotteridge walked by and we talked about our tai chi class and the heron and our daily walks.

…that the weather has been a sunny gusty windbag that has made the reservoir shiver and chop and suppress in all directions. Quite prettily.

…that people are meeting up in our local park all over the mown grass area and that most underestimate the 2m distance and the number of people they are allowed to meet. Tomorrow I will be one of them. There is a feeling that lockdown is over even though it isn't at all. There's going to be a second wave, likely to be much worse than the first; speculation is for another peak in September/October.

The numbers

• 36,675 UK deaths with a confirmed test result (41k including any deaths where C-19 is on the certificate; 54k over and above the usual number of deaths at this time of year)
• 257,000 confirmed UK cases
• the first peak was reached in April and daily deaths are declining but still yesterday 282 people still died – no small number
• 3,393 confirmed cases in Birmingham, out of a local population of 1,141,816
• 990 coronavirus-related deaths in Birmingham up to the 8 May (a third of all deaths since 29 Feb)
• yesterday a neighbour told me her friend who died won't be cremated for six weeks due to 'the backlog' and they don't even know where the body is
• our PM's chief aide Dominic Cummings broke the lockdown rules when he had Covid-19 and now the government is making excuses for him – but surely you either have one rule for all British people or it's a mockery – he's resisting all the calls to resign
• 14-day quarantines are to be introduced for air passengers arriving into the UK from June (why not now?)
• US death toll has passed 90,000 – the highest in the world

We're still no nearer knowing how this thing will play out. Friends are trying to organise summer weddings, or autumn ones, knowing they are likely to be cancelled or massively reduced in number. People are wanting to go on holiday but foreign travel looks unlikely for this summer due to border quarantine restrictions. Airlines are still selling tickets for the unknown future. People in long-term staff jobs are seeing their industries collapse and wondering what will happen when the furlough runs out at the end of July.

Sometimes I feel like to even make forward plans is to tempt fate. I've taken on board the new 'stay alert' rules but seeing so many people act like covidiots makes me depressed and angry. Some say this is what the government wants by not articulating the rules more clearly – any second wave will now be 'the people's fault'. And with spitting offences on the rise, it's not like you can say a thing to anyone.

In the meantime, I'm thinking of my friend stuck in hospital with no visitors and a broken routine that has made his dementia worsen suddenly. Also I'm thinking about family in their various lockdowns and hoping that everyone is ok. Sorry if this post has been a downer.

Thanks

Damn, I really need to think of something positive to say after all that.

Tomorrow I'll get to see my brother for the first time in two months for an outdoor walk. He's been delivering food and supplies twice a week to vulnerable people through Helping Hands and I'm very proud of him for doing this.

I'll also leave you with Pete's magnificent heron photo. I have never got so close to one – this dude is one cool canal towpath customer.

Commission/hire me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com

My lovely sister Chris has submitted a guest 'Pants-Demic' diary post – she has been doing maths battle with the cosmic accountant again while using the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein as a teaching weapon. So happy the 'Mary Poppins of Maths' has logged one of her typical lockdown days. Here's how she is coping in the crisis…

__

10am
Woke up. Still not dead so got up. (Universe 0-Me 1)

10:10am
Played with 3yo grandson, M. Choo Choo!

10:30am
Had breakfast. DIY muesli (1st bowl of new batch. Not bad).

10:35pm
Played with M. Brum Brum!

11am
Drove home. (Childmind at daughter’s home, she is a key worker; teach at my own home, alternating days).
Get a parking space. (Normally impossible since lockdown).
(Universe 0-Me 2)

11:25am
Set up laptop for Zoom teaching.
Change top half into teacher’s uniform. Bottom half stays as cutoffs and flip flops. Lippie. Comb hair. No perfume, no point.
Connect with 1 minute to spare.
(Universe 0 – Me 3)

11:30am
Taught 14yo online. Maths equations.He is sleepy. I sing Raindrops on Roses at him until he wakes up.
(Universe 0 – Me 4)

1pm
Ate.

2pm
Taught 16yo online. Maths proofs. She wouldn’t engage in direct eye contact, so audio only, no video. Still a good session but concerned at increasing reticence as lockdown proceeds. (Mum reports growing tension between siblings under lockdown. Not good).
(Universe 1 – Me 5)

3:15am
Tea and banana sandwich without the bread.
(Universe 1 – Me 6)

3:30pm
Taught 16yo. Prep for A-Level Biology, Maths and Chemistry. (I was preparing the student for GCSE, but exams were obviously cancelled due to Co-bloody-Vid-frogging-19.)
Sleepy student. So, sang Climb Every Mountain until he joined in. (With set task, not singing).
Overall, a good lesson. I enjoyed it anyway.
(Universe 1 – Me 7)

Downsides: student’s get-up time has moved from 1pm (last week) to 3pm (this week). (Universe 2 -Me 5)
And I didn’t get to give him a 16th birthday card and present.
(Universe 3 – Me 7)

5pm
Sat very still. (teaching is quite intense, even online, so slightly word-saturated.)
Watched videos of 2 grandsons. Amazing.
(Universe 3 – Me 8).

6pm
Speak to a close and beautiful friend to wish her happy birthday. Feeling much happier 😃
(Universe 3 – Me 9)

7pm
M FaceTimed me to say goodnight. I think he was kissing the camera, but all I saw was one giant eyeball.
(Universe 3 – Me 10)

7:30pm
Gave up sitting still, ate something, and went to bed. Read government comments on opening schools being in children’s best interests, despite current rates. Got quite angry.
(Universe 4 – Me 10)

Did yoga. Went back to bed. Did not read any more news or FB comments. Slept.
(Universe 4 – Me 11)

11pm
Where is Fi’s Pandemic Diary on Facebook? I can’t go to sleep without Fi’s pandemic diary. (Well, I can, but not happy about it).
Fi informs me it is in production.
(Universe 4 – Me 12)

So, 12 magic moments today. All around people I love or care about. Not bad. Even better if I could see more of my family, but not bad at all.

Thanks

Today I am grateful for having such a supercalifragilistic, ridiculous sister, who puts the Chris AND the sis into crisis. Chris, you're my favourite sis! (Paul, you're my favourite bro.)

A toast! To ridiculous siblings everywhere!

Commission/hire me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com