My goal for last week was to set up a home gym. And here it is – filmed and edited. With puns and buns and fancy titles and strange weights. Plus new moves including: Disinfectant Lifts, Shelf Isolation and Jumping Over Clem Bun Who Won't Get Out of The Way.
Truth is, I've been sitting at a computer pretty much since 1987 and I'm suffering for it now. Three years ago I started trying to get a bit fitter before hitting the big 5-0. Until March 2020 my usual regime involved tai chi, walking netball, swimming, over-50s circuits and art walks (see Walkspace.uk). But then the gym/pool closed two weeks ago and I'm already feeling stiff. Work has been crazy with coronavirus comms work so this was my first attempt to get back into it.
Out of interest during these stressful times, I took my blood pressure. It was borderline high a few years ago and my pulse up to 81 bpm. But since taking up exercise it has come down. Yesterday it was 117/79 with a pulse rate of 67 – despite all this pandemic worry. Which goes to show it is never too late to start a gentle exercise regime.
Lockdown life continues.
Today I am thankful for A Dog Named Stella who loves jumping into piles of leaves. Sometimes (a lot) I wish I were a dog.
Stirchley around 6.55am after the clocks went forwards
I've swapped out the bunnies today for a photo of sunrise on the first day of British Summer Time.
It's been a strange day, which is saying something in these strange times. Getting up at 5am (6 if you count the clocks going forward, which no-one does on the first day) was always going to be tough but a quick curtain twitch told me the sunrise would be worth it.
I'd said to Andy (of Video Strolls and Walkspace) that I'd meet him on the bridge on Mary Vale Road. This and Hunts Road were the two local options for sunrise-road alignment, according to the lovely Photographer's Ephemeris app, which shows sunrise, sunset and moon rise alignments. Here is this morning's map:
While making takeaway coffee and toast, I popped into the garden to hear the dawn chorus. Not too many birds were awake but it was pretty chirpful in the dusk before dawn.
At 6.30am I had Stirchley High St to myself. I walked on the white lines in the middle of the road, snapped the Stirchley Gorilla and took some 360 video of the closed down emptiness. This was isolation from the isolation. I walked around the school block and up the hill to the bridge for sunrise at 6.48am. Of course, it's a bit later in a hilly city, clearing the horizon about 10 minutes later.
A lone figure was standing on the Mary Vale Rd canal/rail bridge – Andy. We chatted briefly about Blake Morris and Desmond Morris (no relation) at a safe distance while watching the sun rise over Stirchley.
The sky lit up pink and orange briefly before the sun rose over the horizon and we could look at it no more – a proper sunrise.
Andy headed off to the canal towpath on his walk and I drove to Raddlebarn Park for a second sunrise and breakfast.
For the first time in a few weeks I felt I was living life rather than being suppressed by it. There is something transcendent about these moments in nature and something powerful about experiencing it alone with your thoughts, uninterrupted by human chatter. I felt free and uncaged. Soon I would return to my home 'prison' but not before seeing a second sunrise over the park and kneeling down next to a long line of spring daffodils in full bloom along Warwards Lane.
One last strange thing… in the park I was transported back in time to 2001 by the view and location. I realised I had been looking at the last view my Mum had. She had a garden room in St Mary's Hospice which sits inside but at the edge of Raddlebarn Park. After a long night when we had kept watch over her, she had opened her eyes that chill November morning, the winter sun shone in on her and she slipped away, changing our world for ever. I miss her. Especially now.
Later: Perhaps it is tiredness or the stress coming out but the past few days I've had a low tinnitus hum in my ears and a pressure in my head. My hearing feels dulled and I can pop my ears but it doesn't clear anything. Today I started getting that dizzy-woozy unbalanced feeling. I'm really hoping this doesn't trip into vertigo. Now is really not the time to be ill.
Today I am thankful for British Summer Time and some short-lived freedom. For the privilege of being able to be with my Mum at the end. And for snuggling my boo, Bunminster, who is too slow to run away.
Spring is here and it's bunny grooming season – here is a Fat Fluffs fluffball from last year.
Bunnies, bloggings, blessings… that's the drill.
Three notes for today:
Sleeping. I got up at 10am after a long sleep. Medicated and breakfasted the bunnies, watched a Mad Men over toast and tea and then went back to bed from 12-3pm. It's been hard to mentally relax with coronavirus as a constant in the background. And I'm tired.
Pandemic catharsis. Some people are using their skills to entertain others in Instagrams and watch parties (see dancers and actors in yesterday's end bit). But writers gonna write. Many writers around the world are logging the lockdown, giving the thoughts a way to escape and our brains a way to process this. After I did my own brief history of COVID-19, I was glad to see the BBC have done a roundup of the past few weeks, too: Coronavirus: The month everything changed. Meanwhile, this post –A letter to the UK from Italy: this is what we know about your future – echoes why I'm doing this. I'm writing a letter to my future self in the same way this writer is posting a letter to the UK's future. We're looking back and forward at the same time.
Dead badger. I saw a dead badger up close today. It is a large one that someone has placed under a tree at the roadside. It is beautiful and looks in perfect condition, as if it is sleeping. It's probably been hit by a car. With few vehicles about, wild animals are venturing further afield but with empty roads wild humans are speeding. (This was in a 20mph zone.) I've reported it to the council for collection. Death in black and white stripes.
Blessings!
Before the dead badger, a local corner shop was open and empty. I may have bought several bars of chocolate and a bottle of red to add to my Mad Men TV viewing lockdown strategies.
Also, I got to have a lovely video call with my youngest niece who is in Coventry. We haven't met up for about two years because life always gets in the way. And now here we are, talking about rabbit welfare tactics during a global lockdown. Strange days indeed.
A bunny, a blog bit and a blessing, that's how this goes.
Yesterday it was Prince Charles. Today it's Boris Johnson who has coronavirus, the first world leader to be infected. We knew the UK death toll would start to jump and today it has by 181 people – to 759. Birmingham Airport is to become a mass mortuary. The NEC, a mass hospital. Stories of people dying are starting to come out. The people behind the numbers. I knew they were coming and now here they are.
On a West Midlands radio station, a Walsall man called in to report his brother (54, sporty, no underlying health conditions) had caught Covid-19 at a hospital checkup and died a week later. This is me. This made me scared.
In my local greengrocer's I had to tell a middle-aged couple to stand back, twice. They were so busy shopping for their Sunday dinner like it was important. Such a lack of awareness. This made me angry.
My great nephew, 3, hid behind his mother when I dropped off the supplies (they are self-isolating). He's gone shy and sort of forgotten me for the first time since he was born – three weeks is a long time to a youngster. Or maybe he's scared of me and people and the danger they now represent. This made me sad.
Announcements of financial support for the self-employed came out today. The UK, US and others are throwing money at this – and they need to. This made me feel a bit more secure.
But then I read my second cousin Jessica's blog post about the lockdown in Rwanda where she works as a maths/science tutor, and I realised how lucky we are.
"Rwanda is taking the situation very seriously, which is quite reassuring, if a little cumbersome to daily life. On the downside, they have about 39 ICU beds. Not per million. Altogether.
At some point lockdown will be unsustainable, and the country will have to allow some non-essential businesses to run. And that point is not very far away. Rwanda doesn’t have a social welfare system or a government who can borrow billions to keep it afloat while they contain the virus.
But so far they’ve been sensible and quick to act, and I hope they will continue to be sensible and quick to act."
Last weekend someone from France was ranting on a Facebook community forum that we in the UK were stupid idiots for going out for exercise (even though it is officially sanctioned, if restricted). They were being abusive because they thought we were all taking the threat too lightly. Now, seeing the US on the back foot, I can understand the insults were born of desperation. The US now has more confirmed coronavirus cases than China and Italy. We knew about this outbreak in early January. We knew it was potentially coming, after SARS and MERS, years ago. Why didn't our governments act more quickly? Why weren't they ready?
We're in the rising phase. It remains to be seen how much we have been able to flatten the curve. But we are late – how much flatter could it have been had we all acted sooner?
Thanks for the dance
Today I am thankful for the Birmingham Royal Ballet dancers I've been stalking on Instagram. Seeing principal Tzu-Chao Chou dancing around his garden patio made my day. See it here. (He also does amazing Christmas videos each year.) Or how about principal Yasuo Atsuji doing 100 press up leap things. See that here. Or principal Cesar Morales and his lawn mower ballet. Here.
Actor Sam Neill is also being entertaining, playing ukes and reading stories and poems. Today he read a Hairy Maclary children's book, interspersed with 'stay at home' messages, and it was great. Hear it here.
Diaries are for logging the craziness now so you can process it sometime in the future. Bunnies are for soothing frayed nerves. And the ending is always upbeat.
I checked back in my proper diary and the first mention of coronavirus was on 3 March 2020, three weeks ago. (I keep a proper old-school written diary, as well as a secret digital diary, as well as this blog).
But back to 3/3/20. I noted it as an anxious day 'that will potentially overwhelm the NHS' and 'endanger hundreds of thousands of lives'. Panic buying of toilet roll had started and no one knew why. Then I wrote about property repairs and financial ball juggling and a pleasant session helping old folk get on the internet at the Stirchley Baths community centre.
On 6/3/20, I was joking about a Dexy's Midnight Runners ear worm of Covid-19 to Come On Eileen. Birmingham had just had its first case and radio talk shows were spending hours talking about hand sanitiser and people's hand washing hygiene. I wrote: 'People panic about this and not climate change? Humans are a strange species in their perception of threats and their responses.'
On 12/3/20, we moved from containment to delay with 600 confirmed cases in the country (today, the UK death toll has hit 578). 'No hugs, no handshakes' I noted. A friend messaged to say they had cancelled their wedding next month. The local care home shut its doors to visitors. Loaf community bakery posted its coronavirus plan. Pete cancelled all his PhotoSchool Birmingham courses. Our family started planning who will visit who and how. And the government is lagging behind the actions of its people.
On 18/3/20, things were escalating quickly. I was 'feeling down, anxious, fearful, panicky – and the only comfort is that this is a normal human response to a pandemic situation'.
Social spaces started closing, schools were closing at the end of the week. The panic buying was ramping up. Volunteer initiatives using new technology and social media were springing up to help each other in the community. It felt as if we were teetering on the brink; we are all interconnected and dependent on each other after all, not only within my own family and local community but right up to the macroeconomic and social level.
And on top of all this is the virus itself. Countries are closing their borders and Europe is in lockdown. The UK is probably next but the government is being slow. We are all trying to 'flatten the curve' of deaths that will occur if we continue to mix. Even a 1% mortality rate doesn't bear thinking about. I asked my diary: if you don't trust the government or the health system, what can you do?
By 22/3/20, the country is going crazy, and so am I, to get things done before a predicted lockdown (the MOT and pet vaccinations are due, we need shopping basics). Bars, cafes and restaurants have closed. Livelihoods are being impacted. People are not keeping to the 2m social distancing rule. I held back in a Coop queue and an elderly woman stepped into the gap.
My family has now broken down into sealed off units and I wonder when I will see them again. One is already in self-isolation with mild symptoms. There is a new baby who none of us can visit. News of a pregnancy is announced, and then another – happy news but now also fearful. Everything and everyone I care about is under threat.
On 24/3/20, I started a pandemic diary when I couldn't keep track of all the thoughts flying around my head. (It's easier to type than write.) There was a domestic over the road the day after the lockdown was announced on the 23rd (was that only two days ago?!). Then I wrote about being germ-phobic long before any of this pandemic shit hit the fan. And now here we are. Hello!
Today I am thankful for people on our road coming out onto their doorsteps at 8pm and clapping the NHS workers. I had no idea it was a national thing happening but it was heartwarming, even if we were giving the NHS the clap. (Sorry, bad joke, unavoidable.)
I'm also thankful for the empty streets. Animals are coming back into cities. There are dolphins in the Venice canals. Stirchley B30 has its pigeons and was isolating like a boss! I start to wonder if I actually like people.
Finally, if anyone reads this far, I highly recommend keeping a diary for stress relief – just get all these thoughts out of your head and then forget about them.
I'm blogging this because it helps me. And because I want to write a post to the future. Because everything feels like it is changing for everyone and may never be the same again.
The diary template is forming – photos of fluffy bunnies, because who needs a pic of a coronavirus germ? Things I've been thinking about or need to download. And something to be thankful for to end. BUNNIES, BLOGGING, BLESSINGS!
Anxiety, what anxiety?
I'm still enjoying – if that is the word – the feeling of numbness I mentioned yesterday. Anxiety, what anxiety? I feel frazzled with a short attention span but not consciously anxious. Perhaps it is the feeling of home, the safety it offers now that we have been ordered to stay behind closed doors and not go out unless for emergencies, food, medicine, one exercise a day or to help a vulnerable or isolated person.
I'm lucky not to be a key worker. I'm not on the frontline of the NHS, a health service that has been cut back for years and is now short of enough masks, visors, kits and supplies to keep staff safe. I'm also not being forced to go to a workplace like many others, key workers or not.
Remote working and bug avoidance
My risk profile has changed over the years. As a digital worker, I've been working from home for a number of years. And although I mostly love it, I've become kind of germ-phobic over the years.
With no office bugs to give me immunity I have developed a heightened awareness of crowded environments and germ spreading. Especially during cold and flu season. Especially just before Christmas or summer holidays. A couple of years ago I started avoiding some pub meetings just to avoid the chance of getting ill. It sounds reductive – it was, it is.
A walk with an old friend
On the positive side, it means I'm probably less of a risk to an older family friend. He is 84, has vascular dementia and can't necessarily remember the government rules. He needs to walk everyday for his physical and mental health and he also needs to socialise and have conversations to keep the dementia at bay. He lives alone and if he self-isolates for 12 weeks, he will see no one. His sister is 90 and he visited her every day in a care home – until three weeks ago when they closed their doors to visitors. He is a bit lost.
Today I met him in person. I drove him to his podiatry appointment so he didn't have to take the bus (or remember not to take the bus). It was like chauffeuring royalty, opening the doors so he didn't have to touch anything. Being another gorgeous sunny day, we drove with the windows down. I wore a scarf as a mask for an extra barrier.
The appointment was cancelled so we walked, 2m apart, around the park and chatted. How much has changed in a few days! People were now actively avoiding each other to keep a physical separation – oddly called 'social distancing' – veering off paths and pavements to protect themselves and others.
Empty roads
The roads were pleasantly empty – we might be living without pubs and cafés but we are also living without noise and noxious pollution. It has taken coronavirus to achieve what few would do voluntarily to help the planet – give up car journeys. This could be what the world looked like if the remote-working revolution continued.
Thanks
Today, I'm thankful… that my friend got to his appointment safely and enjoyed some sunshine and company. People are organising via Google docs, WhatsApp group chats and Facebook groups to help care for others in similar situations in their communities. Phone calls, prescription collections, food drops.
But the thing that really brought a lump to my throat, and made me feel something other than numb, was that 500,000 people signed up to become NHS volunteers overnight after a call out for help. Half a million people! That was proper emotional. The kind of thing that unites a divided, broken country.
As humans we tend to look for patterns and perhaps see shapes in clouds or faces in objects. I'm definitely a human who likes to organise and categorise and edit.
Back in January I had that fresh, free, new year reset feeling and kind of went a bit mad on the New Year Resolutions. A lot of this list was about developing habits because a habit is less draining and more sustainable in the long run.
So one of the 'creative' goals was to run a little photo challenge. Each month I'd photograph things of a certain colour and then mash them into a little video diary using the 1SE phone app (1 Second Everyday).
The spectrum started with the seven basic rainbow colours, beginning with blue just because it was an unusually clear and sunny New Year break in Wales:
Jan – blue
Feb – indigo
March – violet
April – red
May – orange
June –yellow
July – green
After July, I started looking for white, black, silver/grey and other shades.
The seven shades of the rainbow turned out to be a blunt tool for colour and the project has since morphed into one featuring many, many, many more colour variations. The chronology has also had to be rewritten in favour of the colours blending and slowly shifting.
So here's my 2019 visual diary sorted into colour order, roughly: turquoise, cyan blue, sky blue, indigo, violet, pink, magenta, red, brown, gold, vermillion, orange, saffron, yellow, apple green, leaf green, grey, white, beige, silver and black. (Video below, or the flattened version is here.)
Some of my favourite things that happened in 2019 and are worth looking out for with some context are:
the other-worldly reflections of the Cregennan Lakes, south Snowdonia – a lovely kickoff to the year
investing in proper ballet shoes – spot the Birmingham Royal Ballet studio for a public workshop later in the year
a Christmas gift of Speedo swimming aids – these have made the pool a lot more fun
four collages including a rat singing 'I will always love you' at sunset – Birmingham Collage Collective has been a big thing this year
Pete building a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome in the garden and introducing Bunminster Fuller the rabbit to his namesake (sort of)
many bunnies, sunrises, sunsets and four visits to the UK seaside.
Can I say I'm an artist who works with multimedia and autobiography now?
I've just discarded my initial 600 words on why it was such a challenge to get on a plane on my own and fly to Fuerteventura this winter. The less angsty, need-to-know summary is that I've been pretty conflicted about travelling in recent years. I was a frequent backpacker when I was younger, seeking out the cheapest huts, sleeping on one-inch mattresses, overlanding entire subcontinents for a fiver, etc, etc. I even turned my travel passion into something of a travel writing career.
But now I hate the flying, the research, the anxiety of going somewhere new and the suspicion that no one will talk to me if I do, being 50 and all that. Where did all this crippling angst come from? I don't think it is age; I think it is the lack of risk-taking once you settle down. (I never thought I'd settle down.)
And so it was quite the emotional challenge to book a week in Fuerteventura at the end of November – one I'd spent nine months procrastinating over.
In the end, I booked two days before flying (in case I changed my mind) and snagged the last dorm bed in the only available cheap accommodation left in Corralejo – a surf lodge on the deserted edge of town for about £14 a night. I tried not to think about who I'd be sharing with but the thought that the mixed dorm might be all-male did freak me out. It'll never happen I told myself.
SurfinTrip – turned out to be a really nice share house.
At least I'd been to Fuerteventura before (for a birthday surf and bodyboard) so I didn't have to stress about going somewhere totally new. And my friend Kerry was flying out a few days later on her own trip so I would have someone to talk to for half the week.
Here are some snippets from my diary of what it was like, ending on the question: 'Would I do it again..?'
++
Saturday
I'm in a surf house that sleeps 10 people at the edge of town where the signpost says you are now leaving Corralejo. It's actually pretty nice. It has a pool and a terrace and a large kitchen, albeit no space in the fridge.
I'm in a mixed dorm but in reality I'm sharing a stifling, slightly smelly room with three men: Jon, a surfer from the Basque Country; Alex, a 50-year-old Italian boat captain and kite surfer who looks a bit like George Clooney, and another guy who didn't come home last night but is now sleeping and snoring his way through the daytime.
I'm here for the chance to walk, swim, exercise and generally get outdoors in the sunshine. The first frost has landed back home. Here, the light here is beautiful; there's a soft warmth in the blue sky, even if the sea requires a brave plunge.
The wild West coast of 'Europe's Hawaii'.
Over the past 10-15 years I realise I've been gradually upgrading my travel choices. I've paid ever higher amounts for comfort, privacy and location.
A dorm bed in a share house has brought me back down the earth. There was no door-to-door airport transfer, either: I had to walk down a dark, deserted street behind a walled-off hotel complex and use a torch to find SurfinTrip Academy and Camp house.
It's been a thrill already, even if it is the thrill of risk. I want to still love all this; me, a middle-aged woman with a rather large comfort zone. It's good that I did this by myself and see what it's like to drop out of my life for a few days.
++
Sunday
It's Mum's 17th anniversary and I'm taking some time to remember her today. She would say 'Go for it!' – she always did.
I spend breakfast with the chainsmokers on the patio and the rest of the morning doing the chores of the self-catering budget backpacker: shopping at Hyperdinos and walking the long sweaty road home loaded down with heavy water and basic foodstuffs in the midday heat. Then I walk another hour to get to sunset, before realising I have my easts and wests mixed up and it's on the other side of the island. So. Much. Walking.
Sunset shadow selfie.
It's a pleasant evening at 'home', talking with a French Canadian surfergirl who's become addicted to surfing and is 18-months into a backpacking trip with no return ticket, and a 27-year-old bubbly lady from Leeds who's fresh off the plane. Later Captain Clooney points out Cassiopeia and other constellations in broken English like a scene from a John Cusack movie. I get no sense that he is going to make a move, though, thankfully; this is just a friendly 'let's look at the stars' thing because the clouds have cleared away and a starry night sky remains one of the best things ever.
These people are my temporary family, made up of random strangers from around the world who are not so different from me, or at least who I used to be.
++
Monday
Today a classic 'dirty old man' at the beach made eye contact with my unfocused, unspectacled eyes while I was drying off from a swim, and took it as an invitation to lurk. No, no. no. I thought I'd be too old for this particular joy of lone female travel.
After dinner (Kerry has arrived!) we walk along the seafront for a nightcap tea and Tia Maria coffee at Waikiki Bar. I was dreading the long walk home and sure enough the busy road was now dark and deserted but for the occasional car.
I don't mind the dark or the emptiness, it's when there are potential opportunistic humans around that I get uptight. I pull out my Swiss army knife and thread the corkscrew through my fist. The massive closed Aqua Park is the worst, with its broken chainlink fences and large car parks and Scoobydoo-like giant galleon rearing out of the ground with lion leaping off it. I try not to picture being jumped and dragged in there to die in a deserted fairground.
'It's all about risk-reward' – this line from the young trainer at the UoB gym kept going through my brain. The risk in that walk back didn't seem worth the reward.
++
From this point on I moved to Kerry's accomm. Although this has ended on a bit of a downer, I had a fantastic week's break and I did get a lot from going back to budget backpacking if only for a few days.
It was fun, a bit uncomfortable but a good way to meet new likeminded people. I wasn't the oldest person there, to my surprise, and no one was ageist in the slightest. In fact, I found myself remembering how open and considerate and up-for-life the average backpacker is.
As for my travel fears, the public bus to the airport was also way faster and cooler than the rammed and rambling airport shuttle – and it was cheaper. I didn't take Valium on either plane journey for my fear of flying, and I was surprised at how little I fretted about these flights – an advantage of short-haul daytime flights and of booking last minute.
Would I do it again? I surely would.
Would I spend 11 months arguing with myself about booking it? Probably, but I'm working on it.
