Tag: diary

Four years ago today this happened:

Disaster means many things. Until today I didn't realise it is also a beanbag busting open on a windy day and sending thousands of tiny static-charged white balls around your garden where rabbits roam and eat so you have to catch them all. Enjoy the schadenfreude my friends.

Facebook update

The changing meaning of disaster, eh? The downside of looking back to a past when the worst thing was a polystyrene snowstorm in the backyard. So many social media updates are going to come back to bite me in the arse over this.

And yet…

I started this diary to document things that were changing too fast to keep up with, but also as a letter to the future. I wonder how it will read in a year. And there have been some morbid times when I've wondered: will these be the last words I write? Best make them good, eh?

I write also because I wonder if we won't forget what it was like to shake hands, hug and hang out together in pubs and cafés. Maybe those fundamental things from 'before' will slide into the past for a long time to come – long after lockdown ends. Will we be too traumatised by this virus to return to our pasts and, if so, what will we do instead for our social contact?

Yesterday, a person who shall be nameless (Paul) posted a few 2019 reactions to 2020 things, eg:

1) Can someone go to the supermarket for me and buy all my shopping?

– Fuck off!!!!

I asked for the 2020 reactions to 2019 things, such as Moselele's long-running uke sessions in the pub:

Join me and 40 others in a tight stuffy bothy every two weeks…

– Fuck Off!!!!!!

It was a chill moment when someone said:

It’s never going to happen ever again, is it?

The future is being rewritten. Which reminds me of some amazing manager-speak that came across my desk this week, advising that we need to do some "horizon scanning using hindsight lenses placed on decisions taken now".

That's past, present and future all in one shark-jumping phrase, baby.

Today I am thankful for… my mum's camellia, flowering late this year, but now in vigorous bloom.

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Facebook is annoying in so many ways but it's got enough witty/smutty banter with friends and a few useful groups to ensure that I stick with it. And I have to use it for work – so there is no escape.

Fake news is rife on the platform, so always check sources. This video was shared by a friend and seemed useful info on how to help improve your chances with some breathing techniques. But is it correct?

Instructions

1. SIT UPRIGHT

• Deep breath + hold for 5 sec– do this five times.
• Deep breath + cough into cloth – once
• Repeat above steps a second time.

2. LIE ON STOMACH

• Breathe slightly deeper than normal for 10 minutes.

3. REPEAT REGULARLY.

As a sub-editor, I've spent a career fact-checking supplied information. This doctor does exist but the YouTube channel isn't official so it's probably not official info. The technique was publicly recommended by author JK Rowling as helping her (unconfirmed Covid-19) symptoms, so that's why it has gone viral.

Fact check

But is the info correct? Answer: it can help but it's certainly not for everyone – it needs context and individual assessment.

There are some key instructions missing, like breathing in through the nose not the mouth. And, according to the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care (ACPRC), you should only do 3-4 in-breaths/holds to avoid dizziness.

Full Fact has done the full sub-editor's copy check – read it here.

For me, doing this technique is more to do with mental strength and having something to do that makes you feel you are helping. I've often got through turbulence-driven panics on planes, for example, by doing a 10-count Buddhist breathing meditation I learnt years ago. Having a coping mechanism is important for anyone prone to anxiety or panic attacks.

In summary, this video may not be factually correct but I still think it will help a lot of people.

Today I am thankful for… warm sunshine and an Easter holiday (albeit without chocolate).

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Everyone's lockdown experience will be different. This is mine. Welcome to a curtain-twitching, TMI rundown of the weird and mundane minutiae of Wednesday 8 April.

Morning 8.30am: Woke up before the alarm, which I have been doing since the sun started shining in through the curtains just before the equinox. Kettle on. Toast in. Steep Earl Grey tea leaves. Grab Metacam and go give Bunminster his daily pain meds and both buns their breakfast. Each knows exactly where to go to get their pellets. It runs like clockwork as we are all creatures of habit and I'm back as the toast pops up. Breakfast while watching 20 mins of Mad Men: everyone is sleeping with someone else and extra sweaty because it is August in New York.

Work 9.30am: check Facebook as it's no longer on my phone, check emails, log into content management platform, fix some things, tickle the optimisation algorithm to improve my score, research and write 1000-word feature on Covid-19 impacts on independent schools. Get two work requests for next week and accept both even though it's my week off because that's freelance life. At some point the C-19 location app sends a push notification for me to register whether I've had a COVID-19 test yet and how I'm feeling today.

Lunch 1.45pm: Everything stops for 'Doctors', the BBC soap set in a fictional place called Letherbridge, which is really Birmingham, so there is an extra bonus of spotting the locations. I really can't recommend it enough – it's quite funny once you're hooked. Eat toast and a salted boiled egg. Pete kindly sets up wifi and parasol so we can work in the garden. Make him a cuppa and sit for five minutes in the garden watching the rabbits and enjoying the sunshine.

Work 2.3opm: Get into giant acid green beanbag with laptop and do a bit of SEO legwork on article. Edit/proofread three or four more coronavirus-related articles. Deal with neighbour's five-year-old who keeps trying to talk to us out of boredom: where you going, what you doing, why is that hula hoop in the tree, where is the other rabbit, why is that grass there, etc. 'Quiet time!' announces Pete like a proper parent and our young stalker shouts bye and runs off. Another neighbour starts up with the hedge trimmer. Ask for some black market advice on Facebook Messenger about a lump we found in Bunminster's ear, arrange immediate vet visit, Pete returns with a traumatised bun who has had an abscess lanced. He runs home and stress-flops. We are given instructions to squeeze the pus out frequently in the next 48 hours then revisit the vet. A Facebook contact drops off some seeds she has to spare so I can grow things at the allotment this year after all.

Evening: Finish work 6.20pm and clear away work tech. Leave Pete, who has been furloughed and is now looking for projects, building a large 2m square wood frame which is going to be a portable sun screen for working in the garden. Go for my state-sanctioned local walk, cross paths with Stirchley pal P-Bantz on his way home from his 'one exercise a day', check on a vulnerable friend, walk through Muntz Park to Selly Park Rec for sunset. Discover a fulsome cherry tree in bloom, take photos. Avoid others by veering off the path or crossing the road. Follow a blackbird hopping, foraging, under a quince tree. Listen to music all the way around my 45-minute circuit and wonder if I can learn 'Lady With the Braid' by Dory Previn on the guitar. It's got a great narrative about a woman who asks a man to stay the night but proceeds to scare him off the more she talks and asks him questions.

Dinner and TV: Pete peels the spuds for mash and I get on board with Linda McCartney veg sausages, gravy and peas. We split a large bottle of Tiger beer and I flash back to Asia and miss it vividly but briefly. When all this over maybe… We watch an episode of Giri/Haji, a "soulful thriller set in Tokyo and London" according to BBC iPlayer. At 9.30pm we go squeeze Bunminster's abscess together. I look up at the stars. Every day ends with a bath and a book – currently Cheryl Strayed's 'Tiny Beautiful Things', which is only slightly more upbeat than Tig Notaro's cancer memoir "I'm Just A Person' which I finished yesterday. I hear the squawk of a goose or duck or something – it's the third night running and shouldn't birds be asleep?

Bedtime: I go to wish Pete goodnight and spot through the front door that the street is extra dark. I'm wrapped in a towel but I pop out to check if the world still has power. Yes, it's only one streetlight that is out. Pete comes to look and then shuts the door on me like we're in the plot of a Hollywood comedy. I say bedtime but really it's blogtime – I'm now more than two weeks into daily blogging this daily diary. It's now 00.27. Goodnight. I must go play my game of Threes so I can sleep.

Today I am thankful for getting this little gem via my Stirchley mafia/Eurovision WhatsApp group – a man playing the drum intro to Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight on his kitchen cupboard doors:

https://www.tiktok.com/@frankandtracy/video/6809735157789052166

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Lying?

Friend:
How’s things? X
Sorry wrong Fiona again but how are things?? 😘
Me:
Super, never better. You?
Friend:
Tickety Boo 😫

The emoticon really sells it, I think. Say what you mean – or don't and be facetious, sarcastic or antiphrastic (yes, that is a word!) I'm reminded in this exchange today of John Mostyn's 'lovely lovely' response to all things, good or bad. Or Jonathan Van Ness's catch-all catchphrase and defence mechanism: 'Gawjus!' I'm imagining JVN talking about how 'gawjus' this all is.

Language

Remember when we only knew this thing as coronavirus? Then COVID-19. Now it's called Covid-19. Let's review in a month, maybe a week.

I'm working on a lot of coronavirus copy at the moment so I'm cycling through various terms of reference: outbreak, pandemic, crisis, disruption, situation. I found myself wondering if Covid-19 has become the preferred media choice because it's shorter for headlines.

Update (via technical writer/editor Julia @Catnip):

At the start there was a lot of talk about a “novel” coronavirus (there are a few different types of coronavirus). COVID-19 is short for COrona VIrus Disease (first reported in 2019). There are other coronaviruses (e.g. SARS). So technically it’s more correct to specify which one. Although at the moment it should be obvious. I suspect the average person prefers the term coronavirus.

I’m following a few grime kids on Twitter and they’re calling it “the rona”.

Handwriting

Is there a word for a word that has no dangly or sticky-uppy letters? Like coronavirus? It's such a neat set of letters, far better than the ugly Covid-19.

Pronunciation

Covid-19 makes me wonder about Covid-18 and Covid-20. Inside my head I pronounce it Cough Fit 19.

Earworm

Current virus ear worm is 'You're A Germ' by Wolf Alice. I wish someone could make it stop. And the earworm.

Style guide

I was given a 10-page Powerpoint by a client this week on how to talk about Covid-19. I thought 'how ridiculous' but then read it and it made sense. Things are changing so fast it is very easy to get the tone wrong. Remember when we were so concerned about toilet paper and now people we know are dying. Facebook time-hop is going to be a bitch in a year.

Thanks

Today I am grateful for still having work. If you are reading this, thank you clients! I'll work harder, I promise.

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Why am I so disconcerted and suddenly anxious about PM Boris Johnson going into intensive care with coronavirus?

Is it because he is the PM?

Is it the sense of there really being no safety net for any of us if someone with such wealth and power has to go into the ICU?

I have no love for Boris but I wouldn't wish Covid-19 on anyone.

In totally contrasting news, today I am thankful for the fragment of joy I felt when I saw nine of the stars of Dance Academy all on a video call together to celebrate 10 years since DA. This series got me into ballet. It's very well acted and danced, and is on Netflix UK. I may have become an Insta-stalker fan. Gotta love an Australian teen dance drama.

"Do you know anyone with coronavirus?" I've been asked that question for the first time this week. Both times I was asked, it was because the person knew someone with Covid-19.

So the conversation has changed. The wave is coming closer. At some point most of us will get this thing. The whole point of the lockdown is to stop the spread but also to spread out the rate of infection over a longer term. Personally I'm happy to completely avoid it.

While I know people who are self-isolating with symptoms, they are not sure if those symptoms are 'it'. Some people can be asymptomatic. Some have a mild version. But for some, it's obvious I guess.

On the BBC News front page today every story is about this story. Except for one story: the election of a new Labour leader in Keir Starmer. What has happened to all the other news? It's like nothing else is happening in the world. As if all crime has ceased and this is now our only concern. Am I now petty to be thinking of all the single use plastic?

Today I am thankful for the music of Bill Withers, who died today from heart complications aged 81. Top 3 faves: Use Me, Lovely Day, Ain't No Sunshine. Apparently that long note in Lovely Daaaaaaaaay is 18 seconds long. Who hasn't tried to sing along with that?

Also, for young friend Baschti's amazing isolation videos. Baschti is 10 and made this with the help of his mum, dad and a few friends. (Sadly I missed the chance to join in due to pre-spud allotment prep today.) Got any ketchup?

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I realised I'm making daily shit sandwiches out of this situation: a fluffy bunny and reasons to be grateful wrap around thoughts about life under a scary global pandemic.

I nearly didn't write a post today – I am so tired. But then things went quiet, and of course I started thinking about it all again. There are no conversations right now that aren't related to coronavirus in some way. There are few thoughts that aren't affected by it. It's kind of like going through a breakup with the normal world but you're the one who has been dumped and left to pick up the pieces of your life. It's doable but it's going to be hard for a while, maybe a long while.

Anyway, some quick notes. Because I'm tired and it's midnight. And now today is tomorrow. It was all I could to do remember what I was thinking about as I powered up the lap pie. My memory mantra was: "Hands books marks totes Friday nights loss."

Hands – things must be normalising because my hands which were red and stingy with all the hand washing are now back to normal.

Books – I had a flashback to before all this, when things were 'normal' (as in not so crazy you couldn't have a life). For some reason the memory that popped up was of Simpsons of Piccadilly, which was a department store turned vast bookshop in London. It had concave glass windows along the front, so you could almost lean into the store, endless floors of books and a café in the basement. My favourite bit was the travel section at the back of the store with its own frontage on to Jermyn St. I used to sit for hours on weekends reading and choosing a book to buy.

Marks – the sudden appearance floor markings everywhere as if to underline the social distancing rules, like chevrons on a motorway spacing us part. Sainsbury's had pavement marks for queuing outside but also in every aisle and right up to the tills. They didn't really work inside the store, only for queues. Marks were also spray-painted marks on the pavement outside cashpoints, banks and building societies in Kings Heath. Queueing is a very British thing and we take it very seriously. But it's the 2m thing we can't seem to measure. I want to photograph all the markings but I can't.

Totes – somewhere in the supermarket, 10 years' worth of tote bags fell of my trolley hook. Conferences, tech brand swag, crowdfunder rewards… there was history in those bags. I only spotted they were missing when I was in the till queue. I felt I had lost the equivalent of my iPhone. I panicked. I felt gutted. I left all my shopping and ran around looking for the lost and found. A kind, kind person had handed them in. I was so happy.

Friday nights – going out and socialising is a function of a hard working week. The past two weeks I've worked harder than usual – thanks to a bigger comms workload, longer hours, last-minute requests – but there is no Friday night outlet. I finished work at 7.50pm, brought the laundry in, did some bunny healthcare and – that's it. The reward system is changing. What is the new reward, the new outlet to expunge the stress? We need to let it out somehow. I worry that this lack will bottle up into something.

Loss – I can't even remember what this was. Memory loss? Ah, I think it was about the fact that Pete and I were finally maybe going to go to Berlin. I would so love to be on holiday right now, away from all this. It feels offensive to even think about these things when the real losses are stacking up in numbers every day – 39,000 UK cases, 3605 UK deaths, 684 yesterday. The numbers are still rising exponentially. There is a time lag and the effect of the (too late?) lockdown has not yet made a difference.

Today I am thankful for my bed. That I found some flour in the supermarket. And that someone handed my totes in. Small things.

Oh and yesterday's Virtual Moselele was quite amazing.

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I feel a bit zonked. Today was my first day off in a few weeks and I didn't know what to do with it. There is still a backlog of 'stuff', mostly chores. But they could wait another day. I've cut myself off from daily coronavirus news because I know what to do to stay safe and filling up on more news isn't helping.

So I got to not set the alarm. I watched a full episode of Mad Men over breakfast. I had a video call with family and a chat with an old friend ("Oi, less of the old" – Ray). Got called a bitch for suggesting he was in the risky age group.

I made up a story for my three-year-old nephew over FaceTime using props from around the home office. It turned out that a magic blue flying camel went to the zoo, then the park, then somewhere else and along the way picked up a cat, a digital mouse and a monkey to ride on its back. Only they all fell off his slidey hump when he did his magic flying trick. The end.

Then… a dose of BBC Doctors at lunch, which has been one of my regular shows since I started working from home 10 years ago. I groomed a bunny butt to help Old Man Bunminster with his hygiene.

I did watch a time lapse of the new Nightingale hospital being built at the ExCel centre in London, which is set to house 4,000 coronavirus patients and two mortuaries. Watch it here.

I talked to two friends at the allotment and it felt like a treat to see them. I miss my Stirchley people – it truly is a unique community in my experience. In the evening, we went back to the allotment and had a bonfire and a beer, and felt some kind of normal.

This whole thing feels like a reset. People are talking about the good stuff – the clean air, the car-free roads, the allotmenteering, goats coming into deserted towns and cities, the home-working and getting home DIY done, no costly commute. When this is all over… what will we take with us?

Of course, there is the bad. It's coming. A friend of a friend on Facebook has lost his wife. It's coming. Stay home. Stay home. Stay home. And yet tomorrow I am going to a supermarket. My 84-year-old friend with dementia lives alone and can't get on the vulnerable list for online deliveries. Worse, he can't remember not to take the bus or go to the supermarket.

But I learnt a lot from going on a dementia course with him and that is to set weekly goals, weekly rewards and look for things that you are grateful for every day.

Today I am thankful for… nature, dead or alive. It is very grounding. Here are three things I photographed today: a large bumblebee burrowing into the lawn, a delicately decaying filigreed leaf and the fluffy flowerhead of a defunct globe artichoke. I'm also grateful for having a decent camera on my phone. We forget but modern technology is astounding.

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