I’ve been looking at several lists of ways to pass the time during lockdown and I decided mine was better, so here it is.
(1) Moan about the Government – despite what I have said recently about being positive, it’s important to vent your frustration so feel free to shout at politicians on TV and to mentally compose letters you intend sending after the lockdown. Feel free to include the WP spellcheckers and KFC in your ranting – even if you don’t have anything against them I do.
(2) Write something – blog, diary, poem, book. They all have their charms. Diaries never get seen so you can write what you like and write as badly as you like – it doesn’t matter and it might come in useful later. Blogs aren’t particularly taxing – look at me, I’ve been getting away with writing this tat for years. Poems are easy enough, I write hundreds every year. Sometimes I write a good one. Once in a blue moon an editor agrees. Books are trickier, but you might end up rich and famous
(3) Laze the day away – it’s a bonus holiday. According to what I read on other sites it’s important to have a structure in your day, so I timetable the time 9-10 for breakfast, 10-11 for coffee and biscuits, 12-1 for lunch, 1-2 for digestion, 2-3 for snoozing, 4-7 for quizzes and the rest of the evening for cookery and TV. That leaves an hour in the morning and the same in the afternoon for blogging and poetry. It’s not easy but I’m getting through it.
(4) Cook something new. I did Kensington Rarebit tonight. It was very good, though it isn’t, as Julia pointed out, really rarebit, just potatoes with grated cheese on top. I didn’t take pictures tonight but I will next time we have it.
(5) Read some improving literature. I have a copy of Mrs Dalloway around somewhere. I bought it as part of my attempt to read a selection of the 100 best novels. I looked at various lists, selected a number of books and started reading. My plan lasted about a dozen books. After struggling through Moby Dick, I made the mistake of starting Don Quixote. I wrote about that, several times, a few years ago.
(6) Make inroads into your pile of unread books (not necessarily the same thing as Number 5). I just finished a couple of whodunnits – Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer, which is a middling sort of detective novel given to me by a neighbour. I thought she only wrote regency romances. It was OK, but I am not rushing to buy another. The other was Death of an Honest Man. It was dreadful, and is the last one of the series I will bother with. It’s like a mish-mash of all the Hamish Macbeth cliches thrown into a book and badly edited, if it was edited at all. It’s a sad end to a series, and an author, that I have enjoyed over the years.
I’m now on 1700, a book about London in the year 1700. I’m enjoying it, and it’s full of interesting detail.
(7) Work from home. Julia is doing this. I am definitely not. That is why she has high blood pressure and I don’t. Having said that, her blood pressure is going down as her workload goes up. I can only suggest that the doctor puts her blood pressure up. Last week (while we were theoretically on holiday) she was taking half a dozen calls a day and did three online courses. This week she has taken calls and written an online guide to making flowers from plastic bottles.
(8) Garden. Always a good thing to do. Sadly, we have had quite a lot of cold winds recently, which makes our northward-facing garden an unattractive proposition. You can’t do much apart from weeding anyway, as all the Garden Centres are shut.
(9) Talk to people (or text and email people). I am emailing and texting various people to keep in touch. I’m not very sociable, but it’s good to know that people are keeping well. You never know, I might even become a more sociable person at the end of all this.
(10) I’m leaving this one for you to fill in. What ideas do you have?
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I am working from home, but what I’m really doing is staying home, trying to work. Similar, but different. It’s pretty intense and because of technical difficulties, vastly slowed. I bake. I’ve been reading and writing. I garden. I may pull out the violin, but…it’s freaking loud and all my neighbors are home, too…I’ve been exploring all my music and rediscovering some gems. Talking with friends on various picture formats so it’s like being with them, sort of.
You seem to be keeping yourself busy. Someone once told me the violin was the worst instrument to learn because it’s so close to your ear. 🙂
Well, no closer than any wind instrument. But you know when the note is wrong. And it really is LOUD. I do have a mute for it, but then it sounds like something a small animal might play.
🙂
Flute practice for number 10…..in fact for numbers two to ten in my case would be very beneficial. I have been playing for years without getting to be any good. This might be my opportunity.
Yes, it would be a fine opportunity. However, you are already much better than I am at playing the flute, so maybe you don’t need all the numbers from 2-10.
I think you have summed up what I would put in my own list. For 10, I should add that I intend to finally finish decorating the living room.i think I already have enough paint and it would be good to get the subsequently empty tins out of the kitchen.
That sounds like a good use of the 10th slot. Some good will come of these troubled times. 🙂
I hope so!
🙂
10. If I get desperate I could go back to The Crown. Don Quixote was definitely a mistake – I made it, too.
Good plan. My grandfather read Don Quixote to me when I was five or six. I found it very exciting. However, I have now identified this as the 1922 edition for children – it cuts all the dull bits out, 🙂
I think it’s time for me to read Mrs. Dalloway. Just saw the movie The Hours, and it only seems fitting to read the novel that inspired the movie. As for suggestions…seems to me that you pretty much have everything under control.
Now, I am watching Perry Mason. After lunch I will start the improving literature. After lunch and a nap. No need to rush.
None at all. 😉
I think we have at least 10 days left so I don’t want to peak too soon.
I try to enjoy the day as it comes, from dawn’s first light to dusk. Nature puts on a wonderful show. 🙂
I should start looking harder. 🙂
Excellent list. I can understand Julia’s high blood pressure, why is working from home so bloody complicated and intrusive. I think I got to slack off at work more than I do now that I am working from home.
Government, KFC and work also a good list of things to complain about. We all have to have something to complain about, it is what keeps us sane at the moment, although in my case sanity is probably debatable.
Yes, it is high stress – particularly when the clients start ringing at 7am and carry on ringing into the evening.
When I used to work from home I always felt under pressure to prove I was working hard.