Typically, I try to avoid this sort of thing on my blog – I try to keep it to topics connected to writing, but maybe it’s time for a bit of a break from my just writing about writing, and to talk about myself a little. If anything here strikes a chord, and/or inspires you to write about your lockdown, please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.
First off, for someone who’s self-employed and typically works on their own, even if it is for other people, a lockdown isn’t that much of a change. I can usually start work when I like, and finish when I like, and there is no reason to change that way of working.
Even so, there are changes to our lifestyle and the way we are living our lives, so here are a few things that have affected us (my wife Yoshiko and me).
Life generally
In many ways, the combination of staying in and good weather has helped produce a sort of timeless feeling. Someone described this lockdown status as being like a permanent time between Christmas and New Year – everything is in suspended animation, and time really is almost irrelevant. What day is it? Hardly matters, except that my sister and I are working a rota to visit my mother for a few days each week, and we participate in the cathedral’s Sunday services.
Facebook has been a great way to keep in touch with people, and the Internet generally is my way of keeping in touch with the world – TV news is slow and repetitive. I can make my way through the main stories of the “qualities” in much less time than I can tolerate sitting listening to talking heads repeating platitudinous lies.
In common with quite a number of people, it seems, I have also started having some very vivid dreams recently. Not nightmares, but not unpleasant, either. Last night I opened a bottle of champagne and presented a glass to Yoshiko together with a bowl of cashew nuts (in my dream, anyway).
City Council meetings are due to start again in Zoom format, starting next month. I look forward to seeing how this will work out – it won’t be the same as the “real” meetings, of course, but I am glad we can do something to keep going.
Out and about
There are sometimes days when I will speak to no-one except Yoshiko face to face, but when we go out together for our daily ration of exercise, we are almost guaranteed to meet someone we know, and we can stop and have our two-metre distanced chat with them.
These are the really good things about living in this little city – it’s small enough for us to be able to walk from side to side in much less than an hour, and meet people we know who are out doing the same thing, but it’s big enough for us to be able to find lots of different places for us to walk and discover somewhere or something that we haven’t seen before.
Church
In normal times, we are regular worshippers at the cathedral – and the services and sense of community there are things that we are missing. However, the clergy and team at the cathedral have risen magnificently to the challenge, with services being put out on Facebook and YouTube three times a day.
Although it is not possible to receive the Sacrament physically, the Church of England prayer book does allow for Spiritual Communion, and indeed, even when watching the live-streamed services on YouTube, celebrated by one of the priests in his or her home, there is still a sense of communion.
Shopping
We live only a few minutes’ walk away from a very large Tesco. We used to go every day, doing a daily shop of necessities (there’s also an Aldi close by which we prefer for several things). We’ve changed – not that we ever went in for filling up a trolley with three packets of 24 toilet rolls and all the tinned tomatoes off the shelves. However, we shop only once every two or three days now, rather than every day, and I think we are buying slightly more expensive foods (the price has gone up as well) than before, maybe as a compensation for not going out.
The supermarkets have responded to the lockdowns quite professionally, after a shaky start. Though Tesco is trying to enforce a one-way system around its aisles, people don’t seem to notice the one-way arrows on the floor, but they do manage to keep to the two-metre rule. The “discount corner” where food close to its sell-by date is sold at a reduced price often resembles a good-natured non-violent rugger scrum, but now people are keeping a respectful distance from each other.
There are a few restaurants in the city operating home delivery/takeaway services (Italian, Thai, Indian) but we haven’t used them yet.
Making bread
Like the supermarket shelves in so much of the rest of the country, our supermarket shelves are flour-free. However, Our local baker is taking orders for 1.5kg bags of strong bread flour (white and wholemeal), though it is expensive. Just before lockdown started, I learned how to make sourdough bread (coincidence in timing, really) – and very happy I am that I did. Bread making is therapeutic as well – there’s a sense that you are actually doing something, and with sourdough there’s a sense of magic that s1omething that is only flour, water, and salt can produce something that ends up being so wonderful.
My basic recipe is based around this page – but I use less water than suggested here, and I’ve started kneading for ten minutes, rather than the no-knead folding she suggests. On a good day, this works out really well. On a bad day, it sticks to the banneton and I end up with a semi-risen very flat loaf.
I’ve also done a fair bit of other cooking (I don’t eat meat, which ends up being a bit of a challenge at times) which I enjoy. Sometimes it works out well, sometimes not.
Reading
I got a stack of books out of the local library before lockdown (they generously allowed us to take out as many books as we wanted, and no overdue fines) and I am still making my way through them. The last one of these I finished was a biography of Cranmer, and I am still in Tudor England with a Shardlake clone.
TV
Yes, I’ve watched a bit Even started King Tiger, but got bored after about three episodes. Didn’t see where it was going, even though I like true crime stories. Enjoyed Quiz and Hatton Garden, though. And we have been watching Mastermind (for obvious reasons) and University Challenge, among others.
Building model aircraft
Well, I haven’t actually started yet, but I have ordered a kit (a Revell DH Vampire MkIII if you’re interested) and some of the paints, tools, varnishes, primers, etc. that one needs to make these things to at least a decent standard.
It seems that these kits have become much more complex than the last one I built, getting on for fifty years ago (and the prices also reflect this!). Looking forward to getting all the stuff together and starting, but I feel that a level 4 may be too much for me. We will see.
Music
I’m also trying to improve my Hammond organ technique (using a Studiologic Compact Numa 2X as my keyboard) and continuing to doodle using hardware synths for the first time ever. Unfortunately, something on my computer means that the automatic fan speed system is bypassed with a 3rd-party hard disk, and the software meant to cure the problem seems to freeze the computer. Not too happy about the noise from the fans at full speed – rather like trying to concentrate while standing on a runway at Heathrow. Maybe I will put some music here in the future. Or maybe not.
…and writing
I have already produced one novella in lockdown, written a large part of the next, based around the characters from E.F.Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels. As well as it being available as a paperback and ebook from all the usual places, I have recorded the book, and it is available as a (paid) download from this site.
I am also about to start editing a friend’s book, due out soon. Jim McGrath (check him out on Amazon) has written the fourth book in his Collins and Clark series – what he calls “police non-procedurals”, featuring two Birmingham policemen solving crimes in the 1960s. The books tend to be a little violent and explicit at times, and the characters have a good line in Black Country repartee.
The covers for all of these books have been painted by Dave Brown, a local artist and former police officer.
And so that’s me for the moment…