Tag: Boiled Eggs

The C-19 Diaries. Early morning Morrison’s.

Day 8

Day off today – circumstances have aligned in my favour such that – at least for this week – a return to my normal Tuesday-off schedule has been possible. 

Lying in bed, I resolved to have a shower and shave. On getting up, I decided to skip that and go straight to breakfast.

Nicola calls, on the downhill section of a power-walk. We chat about various things including High School Musical, the misogyny in my early blog entries (she has resolved to start at its beginning, in 2006, and read a year’s worth of entries per day. Please pray for her), Zac Efron and the Backstreet Boys. It may be apparent who was driving the conversational content in this chat.

I think about having a shower, but am determined to experience Morrison’s in the morning, rather than at my usual about-to-cook-dinner-and-realise-I-have-nothing-to-cook slot. So I head there in my jogging bottoms and the t-shirt I slept in, accompanied by a cloud of undefined overnight fragrance.

It proves straightforward to maintain the 2m social-distancing bubble today.

Morrison’s at 11am is a revelation. The shelves full of things, mostly. Chicken is still a little thin on the ground. Are the NHS workers and the elderly scooping up all the chicken early doors? It feels churlish to call them out on this, but I may have just done that.

The Morrison’s DJ, confirming his status as the Best UK Supermarket DJ, throws on some ABBA. I try to listen for the chorus effect masking the overdubbing phase discrepancies, but it makes my head hurt and so I sashay out the doors into a mostly-deserted car park and the spring sunshine.

Back home I make coffee, and sit on the back steps, enjoying the view of a partially-cleared “garden area” complete with half a door lying flat on the ground.

Throughout the morning, the argument for taking a shower has become gradually more compelling. I finally cave in just before lunch.

Lunch includes boiled eggs again – which are excellent again, although I cracked one just trying to get it out of the carton, thus maintaining my average eat-2-use-3 egg consumption. Folks, if there’s a national shortage of eggs anytime soon, you know where to point the finger.

Today I should have had a haircut. Whether I pluck up the courage to don the full black-gospel-choir gown and shave my head today remains to be seen. But it’s been four weeks, and four weeks is a long time in the world of my hair. The time is coming.

The C-19 Diaries. Online church, Jack Daniels, and Haribo.

I apologise for the fallow spell, dear reader. I ran out of inspiration. But hey! Here’s a bumper edition with two days’ “activity”!

Day 6

Online church went well again this morning. We put together a worship set (non-churchgoers: think ‘music video’) which entailed me playing keys in my living room, and Neil playing guitar and singing in his spare room, on the same songs.

The feedback from the church congregation represented the diversity of technical knowledge in any group of people that size, from:

“I literally have no idea how you did that!”

to

“I like how you used a chorus effect to mask phase discrepancies across the overdubbing.”

Apparently ABBA were the first to use this technique to great effect.

I would like to make it clear that any employment of advanced dubbing-masking techniques in our recording process is entirely accidental…

Day 7

Meetings Monday. 

Becoming something of a Zoom Master. Something I really want to nail, though, is to somehow broadcast a looped video of me moving slightly, showing an interested face, while I am in fact in the kitchen making coffee. If anyone has the skills to make this happen, I will pay handsomely.

Today my new gooseneck iPhone-holder arrived. Means that I can ditch the car-airvent-phone-mount-attached-to-drying-rack-arrangement that I’ve been using thus far to record video for our worship music production.

A proper iPhone holder attached to a stepladder is slightly less Heath Robinson than the previous arrangement, and I can now hang my clothes up to dry again. The lack of drying apparatus was causing a blockage in the personal hygiene chain, and the dirty laundry has been backing up. So resolving this situation is a bonus for the whole household.

Tonight I celebrated a friend’s 50th birthday via a Facebook group. I toasted the occasion with Jack Daniels, and some Haribo. I would like you all to think that that’s a combination forced upon me by Lockdown and not one that I would ordinarily sanction.

My sister has been coaching me on the art of the boiled egg. Today’s were probably the best yet. I had no idea it was such a complicated thing. So many opinions to navigate.

Late in the evening, I realise that Monday is the traditional day of the week for having my world turned upside down by Boris.

I check in on the latest Government updates. Nothing big. It’s a relief. For the first time in what feels like several months (but is actually only two weeks), I think this week will look a lot like last week.