Lockdown Diary - Sunday 21st June 2020

Out of bed well before 8am on a Sunday - unheard of!  Downstairs before the first carer arrived and setting up the living room for yoga.

It's the carer's birthday today, so I surprised her with a card (not literally - I didn't jump out of a cupboard screaming 'CAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDD!', obviously (mind you that's a thought for next year, it's a big birthday for her then)) and wished her a 'Happy Birthday'.  I hope she finds the card funny - I had a devil of a job finding a card that I thought was funny whilst at the same time not overstepping the mark on obscenity or rudeness. Many cards made me laugh but you could only send them to someone you were very, very close to. We'll leave that thought dangling.

Yoga this morning was an additional session to celebrate the Summer Solstice.  We did 108 sun salutes (Surya Namaskar), a fairly energetic sequence of poses. The number 108 is significant, however I'll let you find out why for yourself, if you're interested.  It took just shy of 50 minutes to do all 108.  I wasn't sure I would manage to complete it as I'd only achieved a maximum of 60 before today, however I did, and boy did I feel good! The sun even came out part way through!

Today is also Father's Day. It's always close to my birthday, occasionally on the same day. I have mixed feelings about the day. My father is no longer with us, he died in 2008, so quite a few years ago now. I've seen lots of people post fond words about their departed fathers, but sadly I do not feel that way about mine. I can't honestly say I miss him, because I don't. We were rarely, if ever, close and, at times, as distant as the furthest points in the Galaxy. I don't hate him, not even dislike him. I just feel sad he could not change. In his final years I tried to find a way to build a bridge between us, but it never happened. He could never accept or acknowledge what he'd done wrong. I shall not dwell on details or rake over things best left where they belong.  Thus today is tinged with a faint hint of sadness for me, but not enough to spoil the day. I only hope my children don't ever have cause to feel that way about me.

Enough bullshit. I must get on with enjoying the day.

The boys are summoning me into living room, I think they may have something for me. 

Indeed they did.  I have been spoilt this year: more music and books with a trio of humorous cards, and some especially touching words from son #1. It's getting to the stage where I will have to give up work in order to have time to read all the books and listen to all the music I have.

Not long after that son #3 told me he was bored and so had decided to vacuum the stairs. Fantastic! I hope he gets bored again soon. This did have one consequence for me, though, as it made me decide I ought to vacuum downstairs to complete the job.  All jobs expand when you start them so I then found myself cleaning and polishing the wooden tables in the living room, cleaning the table mats and slate coasters (I do love slate) and then doing the same in the kitchen. The trouble with housework is there's always more.  Good job it's one area I am happy not be a perfectionist in: thankfully I have inherited my Mum's view that a house should be a home not a showroom.  Though also to be fair to Mum, she was better at housework and did more housework than me.  What I'm happy to live with isn't what she'd have been happy to live with.  (Please can our cleaner come back soon?)

We've had lunch - the boys insisted I shouldn't help make it, though I was happy to do so.  I ought to read the papers now and also my allotted slice of 'Ulysses' from 'Nestor'.

Managed to get most of the way through The Observer, apart from one long article in the review section I want to read. Read some more of 'Ulysses', still trying to read at least 2 pages a day, not too difficult at the moment as the first few chapters are an easy read.

As always seems to happen, the time to start making dinner came round all too soon, and son #3 and I set about making it.  As we gathered together to eat, we watched another episode of 'Altered Carbon', the penultimate in series 1. I am coming to the conclusion that this is one of those series I can tolerate, but it's really not hitting the spot for me.  Apart from the odd character, I struggle to care about any of them.

I heard some sad news in the evening.  An old school friend has died.  She used to travel to school on the coach with us and her mum and mine were friends. She'd been at the reunion back in 2016 and we'd spoken quite a lot, catching up on what had happened since the previous reunion. She had found out she was ill not long after that and sadly has lost her battle. Sad. Damn. No one knows what lies just around the corner. Time should not be wasted. 

Until Friday I'd never heard of A.A. Williams.  Listened to bunch of the cover versions she's produced during lockdown and was hooked.  Her debut album is due out in early July, and this is a single from it, titled 'All I Asked For (Was To End It All)'. There is an unsettling video to go with this, but I've gone for the album cover image version.  The album is called 'Forever Blue'.


[['When a man has lost all happiness, he's not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.' (Sophocles)]]

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