Belated beginning

On my first day of Covid19 lockdown, my sister-in-law said to me "You should write a lockdown diary", apparently believing that this would make entertaining reading. I am not convinced that I can be entertaining on the subject of staying at home and doing nothing. But she threw in quite a lot of flattery, and I do like a challenge. Also, this lockdown business is likely to get boring.

I started my lockdown more than a week after most other people. What I mean is, I work in an 'essential service' industry. So for the past week or so, while others have been going stir-crazy at home, I have been getting up and going to work much as usual.

The thing about supplying only essential services is that the usual workload is reduced. There's not really much for me to do, so I took a couple of weeks off and thus find myself in a self-imposed lockdown.

It's obvious that the first thing I'm going to do when I get to stay at home is sleep in. I'm usually dragging myself blearily out of bed at 6.30am. Now, at least for the time being, I get to wake naturally (around 8ish) and mooch in bed until I can be bothered climbing out and doing something productive. Or something, anyway.

As is my usual weekend habit, I got up and made a coffee, then climbed back into bed to read. This activity tends to last until I finish whatever book I'm reading. In this case, it was a Georgette Heyer mystery novel - readable, but not nearly as amusing as her Regency books, which are old favourites of mine.

When I finished the book (the murderer was obvious from the beginning, though not the method) I returned it to the library and got out a couple more. I'm sure you all realise you can get ebooks and audiobooks for free from the library - you just need to download their app. It's very handy to borrow and return books without leaving the house (or the bed, as the case may be). I noticed today they also have an app for free movie streaming, so I downloaded that as well. I'm sure there'll be things on there worth watching.

When I finally climbed out of bed, it was nearly noon. I showered, dressed and went to the kitchen to do the dishes I never got around to doing last night. I chose a 'housework' selection on Spotify, which provided enough motivation to get the dishes done and one or two things tidied up around the place. I briefly toyed with making some muffins, but lost interest and got a jigsaw out instead.

Tip: when you pack up a completed jigsaw, store the edge pieces in a separate bag from the rest of the pieces. It gives you a head start next time you go to do the puzzle. (It was my mother who passed on this excellent idea. Thanks Mum). I sat at the table, 'housework hits' still inaptly playing in the background, piecing together a picture of a cluttered bookshop, which has lots of convenient detail and no inconvenient blue sky.

The afternoon was wearing on when I realised I hadn't really eaten much yet today. My stomach was communicating this quite clearly, but it was a while before I could drag myself away from placing just one more piece.

I got out the toaster, put some bread in it, then changed my mind, deciding on cheese toasties instead. I made these in the benchtop oven, not omitting to drop one of them while putting it in, because getting a cheesy mustard smear on the glass door was absolutely part of the plan.

It was around this time that my dear sister-in-law, via Facebook comment, made her suggestion about a lockdown blog (which I laughed at at first, but as it turns out, I didn't really need much persuading). I turned on my hated laptop, which initially showed plenty of battery and then immediately died. It revived when plugged in, only to commence a tiresome series of updates. Yet I persevered, and can now offer this riveting account of a day in lockdown. Exciting, wasn't it?

Now I guess it's back to the jigsaw..