Quarantine days
Four weeks into social distancing/quarantine/lockdown or whatever we’re calling it and I’ve started to pick up some habits, good, bad and surprising. Here’s some of them, hopefully the good will continue whenever normality resumes….
Breakfast
I’ve started eating it. I know, most important meal of the day yada yada yada and I’ve tried in the past to build it in to my morning with varying degrees of success, there’s been a packet of muesli in the cupboard for months. Normally I’ll have brew rush to work for 5am and maybe – if I’ve remembered to pick one up – have a banana. I get through the morning on coffee, end up absolutely starving by 10 when I’ll head to Greggs or wolf down my lunch at my desk and deal with a caffeine headache. I truly am a picture of health. Now I’m pottering about at home, it’s the first thing I do in the morning and it’s led to much healthier eating habits, like eating lunch at lunch and eating less junk, don’t get me wrong, there’s been a good dose of takeaways and fried chicken too.
Yoga
I don’t think I’ve ever attempted yoga before in my life, it was prompted by an advert for an app on Instagram, I’m a sucker for a social media advert and it seemed preferable to taking up running again. I am terrible at it. Truly awful. If you’re thinking it sounds relaxing, you haven’t seen me attempting yoga, there is no serenity, I’m not flexible in the slightest. I don’t care, I enjoy it and the Shavasana is relaxing. It’s ten minutes of lying while a woman encourages me to chill out – I’d never do that normally. I like to think I’ll keep it up and maybe by the end of all this I’ll be able to touch the floor without bending my knees.
Making PPE
I’d like to take full credit for this, it was Scott’s idea. Expecting to be furloughed he bought a 3D printer to make visors for health workers and carers. There’s a desperate lack of personal protective equipment for NHS staff and care home workers, it’s a disgrace, the problem doesn’t seem to be being dealt with. We have friends and family who are nurses, carers, frontline workers, they are risking their health and lives to care for others, the fact that they aren’t being given equipment is scandalous. Scott wanted to help, so that’s what we’re doing, printing and assembling visors in the kitchen, there’s a whole group doing the same thing, trying to do what they can during this god awful pandemic – check it out here.
Quizzes
All the quizzes. I’ve done more pub quizzes in the last four weeks than I have in the last four years. Actually, I don’t think I’ve done a pub quiz since 2007 when me and my housemates used to head to The Horsforth on a Sunday night for £3.00 pub tea and the music quiz – we NEVER won, even when we cheated. Now though I think I’ve done one every week, my friend Vicky is the queen of organising stuff like this, she’s ended up with well over thirty teams on Sunday night with various rounds , it’s a good crack, we’ve never won and we haven’t tried cheating, she tells us every week “you’ll only be letting yourselves down”.
Saturday is quiz night with my closest friends (pictured), here I have won – twice! The prize for winning the first time was putting the following weeks quiz together – despite having a whole week and nowhere to go, that task was left until two hours before the start time. I have respect for quiz masters, it’s bloody hard to think up different rounds and questions. It’s been fun still being able to be together and catch up.
Thinking about ALL the places I want to go.
To be fair I did this a lot anyway, the more far flung the better, only now I’m drawn to places on the doorstep too, well, in the UK. I don’t think I’ve ever fully appreciated how beautiful it is here and I would like to explore what’s here more in future. I still want to see more of the world, South America’s become really appealing. We went to Colombia and Peru a few years ago, I liked them both but wouldn’t have said there were many other places in that part of the world I really wanted to go to but we’ve been watching ‘Race Across the World’ – 4 teams have to get from Mexico City to Ushuaia without taking a flight and for the cost of a plane ticket. I’ve got my strategy and game plan worked out; it’s meant a few countries have been added to my ever-growing bucket list.
Looking at the sky.
And commenting on the lack of planes and vapour trails. It’s just so peaceful and clear at the moment, I love looking at the stars, I can only point put Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, I’m half tempted to camp in the garden – it’s still a bit cold and I have no idea where the tent is. The night sky is beautiful, it reminds me of how insignificant we are, we probably don’t look up enough, I know I don’t, a slower pace of life means I am.
So that’s what I’ve been doing over the past few weeks, let me know what you’ve been up to or if there’s anything I can try in the comments xxx
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radiosarahc View All
Journalist, writer, traveller, music lover, collector of hats, news addict, bookworm
Sarah Collins Bookworm 
glad some positives are emerging for you –
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