Lockdown - Day 19

I'm losing track of the days.  

When all this kicked off, I saw it as an opportunity to drink more water, to fast, to meditate more, do more yoga but that didn't happen.  I am still eating my way through three birthday cakes and there are now four tubs of ice-cream in the freezer.  

Last night, we watched the movie Mean Girls.  I assumed it was about girls being wholesale evil but it turned out to be funnier and kinder than that.  Kadie, new to North Shore High School, is being introduced to the dining hall politics.  There's the Plastics table - pretty girls but fake, the Sports Jocks, the Asian Nerds, the Cool Asians, the Geeks, and then there's the table that eat their emotions.  I nearly choked on my carrot cake with Phish Food ice-cream.  This morning, with the consent of my family, I threw out the last of the carrot cake.  Wasteful I know but as a dieting magazine once said, 'better wasted in the bin, than wasted in you'.

The upside of this new 2km rule is that it forces us to explore the area in which we live.    Yesterday morning, as Hubbie and I headed out for a walk, Son (22) told us to try the Mangala Wood.  It's a place I always avoided as it is wooded - I'm afraid of trees - and it's secluded, dark and muddy.  It's also full of drunk teenagers according to my mother who being part of Tidy Towns spends her Saturday mornings picking up their discarded beer cans.  With Hubbie beside me, I dared to explore.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The paths are paved with tarmacadam and wide enough for both cyclist and walker to stay two metres apart.  Street lamps have since been installed and there were plenty others out walking / jogging.  We bumped into my cousin Frank who was heading to the Maxol garage to get carrots and milk.  He usually cycles everywhere but he said it was too dangerous these days.  There are so few cars on the roads that drivers are driving faster than usual and as a result the rate of bicycle deaths have gone up.  

There's an App available to calculate 2km from your home; it's surprising how wide an area it actually is.  It includes my mother's house which is a good half hour walk and extends all the way out to Ballinlough.  It unfortunately, does not include the 'Fat Arse Mile', more recently renamed as the Greenway, between the Rochestown Road and Blackrock Castle.    

My hands are raw from washing and hand sanitiser and no amount of moisturiser seems to bring them back to normal.

With the hour going forward I was late for work.   My heart swelled with joy when I saw 43 new emails sitting in my inbox.  I'm pacing myself by taking more breaks and treating each query like a royal visitor.  

Son (22) gave me a bottle of Fire Tonic for my birthday.  You take a 15ml shot at a time.  It contains horseradish sauce, turmeric, apple cider vinegar and other vile substances. It smells like a rotting nappy but being sensitive to my son's feelings, I knocked back a shot glass of it after lunch on Saturday.  It's supposed to energise you but it sits in the back of your throat for ages.  I tried chasing it down with a cup of tea but it kept repeating on me all afternoon.   I didn't feel particularly energetic immediately but after yesterday's dose, I vacuumed the entire downstairs.  It's so long since I last used the hoover it took me a while to remember where we store it.  

All this sunshine lately as highlighted the dust in my kitchen and the cobwebs on the paper stars hanging from the sunroom ceiling.  With new found energy, I dusted the ceiling, swiped at the cobwebs dangling enticingly from the paper stars, gently cleaned the crystals fixed to the overhead lights in the kitchen and removed the layers of grease soaked dust from my two Van Goghs.   

Today's lunch will be baked beans on toast.  Back to basics.

The house is neat after yesterday's frenzied clean up.  I'm nearly out of Grace & Frankie, what will I do?!???!!!    Everything else seems to be about crime and violence which offends my sensitive aura.....

Time to put on more hand moisturiser.  

The trouble with the ironing board as my desk is that while it clarifies the brain, it's hard on the lower back.  Time to switch back to the kitchen table and alternate.
  

I'll get so used to this slower pace of life, I know I'll struggle to adjust to 'normal' life again. 

The Sunday papers quoted Blaise Pascal, 'I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.'  That was my only take-away as there was very little in them otherwise; since life has come to a halt there is nothing to write about except the damn virus.  

The Irish Times on Saturday asked eight Irish writers for their recommendations on funny books.  Don Quixote came up four times and Just William and PJ Wodehouse five times each.  I like Just William and PJ Wodehouse but Don Quixote???   What about Stephen Fry's The Liar, Graham Norton's first autobiography, So Me and Billy Connolly's autobiography, Billy.   Roddy Doyle's The Snapper got a mention but the entire trilogy had me crying with laughter. Joseph O'Connor's, The Secret World of the Irish Male is genius especially his description of the Irish fans celebrating their victory over Italy in New York, during World Cup USA 1994.  Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt deserves a mention.  Admittedly in some parts it is unbearably sad, and beyond bewildering is his description of the uncharitable meanness of his neighbours.  However, the part with his brother Malachy and himself playing catch with one of their baby siblings in a pram, on a hill, and the reactions of the drinkers when the runaway pram comes bursting through the doors of their pub....   

Taste is personal of course but I remember a very hot July evening in London during rush hour and being jammed into a Piccadilly tube train heading home.    It was so cramped I couldn't stand up straight but I did manage to hold my copy of The Liar an inch from my nose.  I don't know what noises I was making but eventually an exasperated fellow commuter broke the golden rule of no eye contact when she said, "Please tell me what you're reading." I couldn't bring myself to speak but I managed to twist the book around so she could see the cover.    

Maybe I should try Don Quixote again...