Lockdown Diary - Wednesday 15th April 2020
An energetic start to the day. Up at 6am, ready to do Pranayama yoga at 6:55am. Thirty minutes Pranayama (breathing exercises) and - surprise for today - the teacher added 15 minutes of Surya Namaskar (salute to the sun) on to the end, making a 45-minute session! If you've done Surya Namaskar you'll know it's a fairly energetic sequence of 12 linked poses / asanas. Just the thing to wake me and get me ready to go...
...food shopping at around 8:15am. As mentioned somewhere back in these diary entries, I've found food shopping a challenge in these lockdown days. Today was my second day shopping with a phone app called 'AnyList' and I'm beginning to find it really useful. I create a list and share it with my sons (they have to have the app as well) and they can read the list and add to it. This means they are responsible for making sure things they need aren't forgotten. This is working rather well. The other essential feature is you can duplicate lists to save on typing. As you go around the store you cross things off as you buy them and there's even a filter so you can hide what you've already bought, so the list shrinks as you get things. Obviously this is deeply sad. I shouldn't be this pleased about it, but it has made my life a whole lot easier. I shall not mention it again. Ever. I promise. My lips are sealed.
Anyway, food shopping was a reasonable success - I got most of the things I was after, give or take. Best thing of all, I don't have to do it again until the weekend and next week I have a delivery slot.
Read a fair bit of 'The Queue' and am now over two-thirds of the way through it. I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow or, worst case, on Friday, in plenty of time for book club on Monday.
Watched the fourth lesson in the Borges course, the subject being Identities this time. This was as fascinating as the previous three lessons, made even more so by the discovery that Borges was very interested in the philosophy and writings of George Berkeley aka Bishop Berkeley. Why so? Berkeley is also a key figure of interest to James Joyce and Berkeley's thinking, and indeed his name, crop up repeatedly in 'Finnegans Wake'. Clearly these books are telling me to read about Berkeley and his thinking. I recalled that I have a small book on Berkeley in my 'James Joyce bookcase' and sure enough, when I just looked, there it was. A short book (54 pages) in a series titled 'The Great Philosophers': Borges and Joyce are clearly intent on getting me to read it, so read it, I shall.
Mid-afternoon I phoned my 'big' ('big' as in older, not in any other way, for the avoidance of doubt) sister in Yorkshire, just to check how she and her husband are doing and also just to speak to another person in these times of enforced isolation.
Tough decision for tomorrow evening: do I do another yoga session (3rd this week) or attend The Idler's drinks with Guy Singh-Watson (of Riverford fame) over Zoom? Unfortunately 'Drinks with The Idler' requires you to supply your own drinks, but I'm sure if I put my mind to it I could solve that problem. I have a suspicion I know what I'll choose to do tomorrow...
Stevie Wonder; Dinner; 'Wisting'; poem of the week (William Blake's 'Infant Joy' (not really my cup of tea)); bed; novel; BBC6Music (Gideon Coe); sleep.
This came up on my random playlist when I was washing up / loading the dishwasher this morning and I decided there and then this had to be the next tune. Janelle Monae is just soooo good and 'Dirty Computer' is a great album. From it, 'Don't Judge Me'
...food shopping at around 8:15am. As mentioned somewhere back in these diary entries, I've found food shopping a challenge in these lockdown days. Today was my second day shopping with a phone app called 'AnyList' and I'm beginning to find it really useful. I create a list and share it with my sons (they have to have the app as well) and they can read the list and add to it. This means they are responsible for making sure things they need aren't forgotten. This is working rather well. The other essential feature is you can duplicate lists to save on typing. As you go around the store you cross things off as you buy them and there's even a filter so you can hide what you've already bought, so the list shrinks as you get things. Obviously this is deeply sad. I shouldn't be this pleased about it, but it has made my life a whole lot easier. I shall not mention it again. Ever. I promise. My lips are sealed.
Anyway, food shopping was a reasonable success - I got most of the things I was after, give or take. Best thing of all, I don't have to do it again until the weekend and next week I have a delivery slot.
Read a fair bit of 'The Queue' and am now over two-thirds of the way through it. I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow or, worst case, on Friday, in plenty of time for book club on Monday.
Watched the fourth lesson in the Borges course, the subject being Identities this time. This was as fascinating as the previous three lessons, made even more so by the discovery that Borges was very interested in the philosophy and writings of George Berkeley aka Bishop Berkeley. Why so? Berkeley is also a key figure of interest to James Joyce and Berkeley's thinking, and indeed his name, crop up repeatedly in 'Finnegans Wake'. Clearly these books are telling me to read about Berkeley and his thinking. I recalled that I have a small book on Berkeley in my 'James Joyce bookcase' and sure enough, when I just looked, there it was. A short book (54 pages) in a series titled 'The Great Philosophers': Borges and Joyce are clearly intent on getting me to read it, so read it, I shall.
Mid-afternoon I phoned my 'big' ('big' as in older, not in any other way, for the avoidance of doubt) sister in Yorkshire, just to check how she and her husband are doing and also just to speak to another person in these times of enforced isolation.
Tough decision for tomorrow evening: do I do another yoga session (3rd this week) or attend The Idler's drinks with Guy Singh-Watson (of Riverford fame) over Zoom? Unfortunately 'Drinks with The Idler' requires you to supply your own drinks, but I'm sure if I put my mind to it I could solve that problem. I have a suspicion I know what I'll choose to do tomorrow...
Stevie Wonder; Dinner; 'Wisting'; poem of the week (William Blake's 'Infant Joy' (not really my cup of tea)); bed; novel; BBC6Music (Gideon Coe); sleep.
This came up on my random playlist when I was washing up / loading the dishwasher this morning and I decided there and then this had to be the next tune. Janelle Monae is just soooo good and 'Dirty Computer' is a great album. From it, 'Don't Judge Me'
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