Tag: Working From Home

The C-19 Diaries. Exercise and putting one’s feet up.

Day 11

Morrison’s was shut. Closes at 8pm now. So still no limoncello.

Missed another Big Clap last night, apparently. Not doing very well with the community spirit.

I exercised this morning, in the Dining Room-Gym. Managed 35 press-ups, and 100 sit-ups (not all at once, obviously, I was taking on sustenance throughout in the form of First and Second Breakfast).

Immediately afterwards I felt quite faint and considered taking the rest of the day off to recover. I opened the Dining Room-Gym window in case my flatmate found the combination of the Overnight Fragrance and the Indoor Exercise Aroma overwhelming. The feelings of faintness subsided.

Just before my shower I hopped on the bathroom scales. Not good. In the space of 48hrs I’ve gone from 90.5 to 199.2. 

I then realised my flatmate had switched us back to Imperial units. Turns out that 199.2 lb is 90.4 kg. So that’s a win. A whole 100g lighter! 

I contemplate putting my feet up for a bit and celebrating with a Caramel Wafer. Although that’s actually my working posture now – lounging in an armchair, feet up on a stool, laptop on my lap keeping me warm, eating Caramel Wafers.

I settled in the Multipurpose Facility, ready to do some work. I could murder an Empire Biscuit right now.

Later, my flatmate comes through from the Dining Room-Office, where he has been working. He is breathlessly excited.

“I’ve been given permission to go into the office to get some keys!”

“No way”

“Yes!”

He’s quite beside himself. Minutes later he runs out the front door.

Minutes later, he comes back through the front door. I fear that he has been thwarted by a new Police Anti-Movement barricade or something. But it turns out he has just forgotten his phone.

Hair Update: voluminous
Limoncello Update: no change

The C-19 Diaries. Video-editing and Cheese.

Day 9

Today was a quiet day, spent submerged in headphones, engrossed in a dual-screen world of video-editing.  I realised that my practice of working with my laptop on top of my actual lap is saving a lot of heating bills here in the bunker. One of the silver linings that come with the current arrangement’s cloud.

Decided to have a lighter lunch today. No boiled eggs. No eggs at all in fact. 

This proved to be a false economy. Was starving by 3:30pm. Snacked on raw carrot and nuts. That’s right. Read that bit again, mum. 

On discovering La Favorita has closed (non-silver lining), the flatmate and I ordered Dominos online and watched the first Jack Reacher.

Hair status: bushy
Limoncello status: dry

Day 10

Woke up in a cold sweat from a dream that I had began the much-anticipated haircut and the clippers’ battery ran out of charge halfway through the process. 

More video-editing. Got very hungry at 10:53. Looked around at what was within easy reach, and found myself momentarily considering dipping a Vitamin C tablet in the left-over BBQ sauce from last night’s Dominos. But I came to my senses and made the trip all the way through to the kitchen for a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer. It was worth it.

Had a Zoom chat with Disco Dave. He is doing ok. He enquired after my haircut status, and I explained that things were getting bushier up there. It turns out Disco is an experienced home-hair-cutter. He has moved on from an all-over number 2 headshave to a GRADED cut, what you might call a 4-3-2. I am in awe at his skills. He gives me some tips on what to watch out for.

“The crown’s really tricky – make sure you go over that a few times.”
“That’s not going to be a problem, mate.”
“Ah.”

Recently I discovered the most amazing cheese in our fridge. West Country Farmhouse Mature Cheddar. This cheese is so good that I have almost singlehandedly eaten two whole blocks of it. Regrettably it belonged to my flatmate. And so I must make reparation for my theft.

It’s only available from Sainsbury’s. There are two problems with this: Sainsbury’s is fractionally further away than Morrisons, and so can it be considered an essential journey to drive there? And secondly, the Sainsbury’s DJ just isn’t in the same league.

But it’s probably wise to give the car a bit of a run, after days of inactivity, even though that will inevitably mean losing a coveted parking spot on the street. As I’m fastening my seatbelt, I imagine myself getting pulled over by the police.

“Is this an essential journey, sir?”
“I mean… this cheese is unbelievable, officer”

I made it to Sainsbury’s without incident. Seemed like the Sainsbury’s DJ was working from home.  There were no tunes at all, not even bad ones.

The other thing on my list of “essentials” (there really were only two things) was Lurpak. But all the Lurpak had been panic-bought apart from the Lurpak-with-added-garlic. I didn’t feel that this would work all that well sitting between my toast and marmalade of a morning, so I passed and picked up Another Brand.

Completely forgot to get some more Limoncello. And I lost the parking spot.

Hair status: slightly bushier
Limoncello status: hold the phone. The flatmate’s gone to Morrison’s.

The C-19 Diaries. Day Off.

Day 4

I had a day off today. I sashayed all the way through to the dining room for a bit, but the seats were too hard, so I returned to the comfort of the office-studio-living room.

Did a light workout in the morning. I say light, it was pathetic really. But ten press-ups is better than no press-ups, surely.

Daily exercise duly accomplished, I set about replacing all those burnt calories. Having failed to master the Eat-10-Traybakes-in-a-Day Challenge yesterday, I set about it with renewed vigour today, but still failed. 

And with that, it was time for lunch. 

Yesterday, I boiled the first egg of my egg-boiling career. It didn’t go all that well, but the second one was better.

Today I thought I had nailed both of them, until some tell-tale egg-white leakage betrayed the fact that I had cracked the first one with a slightly over-enthusiastic egg-drop. 

Given that boiling an egg was one of the culinary feats my dad claimed to have been able to manage (I think heating up a can of baked beans was the other, although I am not sure I ever saw either happen in practice), I am confident that I can master it. I shall press on.

Last night there was a clapping tribute to NHS workers, and people came to their doorways and clapped solidly for a minute or something. 

I had no idea this was happening! Did I miss a memo? Can we do it again? NHS legends – forgive me for not taking part – thank you for being amazing (all the time) and incredible just now. We love you.

This afternoon I read the instructions for my new hair clippers and put it on charge in preparation for the Big Hair Event. My next scheduled haircut would have been this coming Tuesday. Not sure I will hold out until then, it’s getting bushy up there.

Under the Guide Comb Function section of the instructions, I read this:

  1. Determine the hair length of your pet that needs to be shaved.

My sister has bought me dog-hair clippers. Splendid. I’ll keep you posted on how this works out.

The C-19 Diaries. Birthday in Lockdown.

Day 2

First thing this morning, Disco Dave sent me a video birthday message on WhatsApp. Disco, being the father of 3 young girls, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of videos that YouTube would never consider adding to my “Up Next” list. This one involves a silly song (they always involve a silly song) about a cat licking my birthday cake.

He goes on to assert that Baileys (of which he has been known to partake) is widely-known to improve video-editing skills by 13%.

I myself am fairly sure that one’s video-editing skills improve by a percentage roughly equal to the ABV of the drink you’re currently having. So I went straight to the limoncello this morning.

Shortly afterwards I remembered that I wasn’t going to be doing any video-editing today. 

Managed to leave the house today. I made a trip to the supermarket (two supermarkets, a local grocery store and a corner shop, actually) and got some shopping for mum. Which therefore entitled me to legitimate house-leaving on two distinct grounds: “shopping for essentials” and “providing care to the elderly” (no offence mum).

Technically I got some exercise too, since my car was parked at the top of the hill.

So, the only cakes I got today were cake-emojis. Although in a furtive doorstep-shopping-bag-exchange with my mum I got a couple of birthday cards and a beef roast. She got a couple of cans of condensed milk and some small-headed broccoli. I am still unsure as to what recipe requires this combination. 

I’m only joking about the limoncello, dear reader. I didn’t start on it until after dinner.

Stay healthy everyone!

The C-19 Diaries. Lockdown.

Day 1

Approximately two hours after I write a blog post entitled “Not in Lockdown yet…” the PM – wilfully ignoring my blog activity – broadcasts to the nation that we’re now Locked Down. 

Of course he doesn’t use that phrase. But we’re not allowed to leave the house, mostly. There is no definite time given as to when the new restrictions come into force, apart from a vague “from tonight”, so I drive through eerily-deserted streets to make an emergency visit to the office, where I forage for some equipment that will make video-production from home more achievable. 

Along with some decent headphones, I find coffee beans, pasta, and PINE NUTS. Glory be, as my granny would have said under similar circumstances. I also rescue a half-full packet of Tunnocks Caramel Wafers. All of the above are known ways to improve video production.

Then, as an afterthought, I retrieve my Nerf Gun from my desk. You just don’t know when you’re going to need a personal firearm at times like these. Disco Dave has been self-isolating for days, and we are fearing a rampage sometime soon.

Today, I spend the morning reorganising my “office” space, aka the living room, which I will now be sharing with my flatmate. I spend so much time on the reorganising and tidying that I don’t get any actual work done before it’s time to stop for lunch. It’s a nostalgic throwback to the days when I would find any manner of domestic tasks to do rather than sit down and revise for exams.

Myself and the ops team work on a new plan for how to produce an online church service, without access to our church building, and working remotely from home. The main problem we foresee is that some of our content-providers – who will record themselves on video – reside in the Sticks, where the broadband is so slow it would make you crave the good ol’ days of dial-up.

We speculate on ways that we could more efficiently receive the video files from them. Suggestions include training up a carrier pigeon. Or taking the SD card containing the video recording, strapping it to a nearby sheep and hope that it wanders into one of our gardens sometime soon.

We’re a resourceful team.

Yesterday I ordered a few things from Amazon. This morning I get a text message:

Your driver will deliver your parcel today between 17:18-18:18, you do have options if you’re not going to be in.

Oh, it’s ok. I think I’ll be in.

I have another delivery earlier in the day. On opening the front door, the driver jumps back, sort of like a startled rabbit, so as to maintain the 2m distancing. I think she overdid it and it was more like 3m. I am trying not to take that personally. 

My delivery included a birthday present from my sister. I had originally requested a new pair of ski poles, having snapped one in an unfortunate chair-lift incident during this year’s ski trip.

However, on account of the PM’s announcement last night, and the sudden-dawning realisation that my hairdresser would now be closing, I felt that hair clippers would make a more pragmatic gift. So I am now quite excited to try these out. I am also nervous about the results.

No photos will be posted here, don’t even ask. But anyone with a Zoom meeting lined up with me anytime soon (there are a few) is in for a real treat.