Lockdown Diary - Sunday 11th October 2020

Woke up with a crazy urge to run today.  It certainly looks bright enough but before that I want to have breakfast and get some washing done and hung out. The question is: can I keep this motivation going until I can actually run (for starters I'll need to digest my breakfast!)

Reading yesterday's papers whilst digesting breakfast - still seem to be up for running, though. Highlights of today's reading have been Philip Pullman on Lyra's journey through the 'His Dark Materials' and 'Book of Dust' trilogies; brief interview with Viv Albertine; and an interview with Sayaka Murata (author, amongst other things, of the excellent novel 'Convenience Store Woman') talking about her freaky sounding new novel 'Earthlings'.

Time to run.  Need to get changed and warm up a bit: I haven't run for ages, so my goal is a small one - I want to run for 10 minutes, without a break and at a reasonable pace.

Did it! I'm not running as fast as I used to, though perhaps I can get faster as I do longer distances, or perhaps that ship has sailed?  Time will tell.  I think I'll try and do 30 minutes of brisk walking as well today. Might as well go for it.

First meditation then lunch.  One thing I find with the colder weather is that when I run it catches the back of my throat so that I'm coughing for a while afterwards.

Son #2 and I make lunch together then eat and chat about all sorts: the film 'Memento'; the Conservative parties letting of contracts to their mates without tender or even evidence they can deliver - pigs at the trough; Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper graphic novel 'From Hell'; Japanese detective stories by Seishi Yokomizo, especially the great locked room murder mystery 'The Honjin Murders'; the types of novels and non-fiction I read and the different types of novel that there are. At times like these I realise how much I enjoy the breadth of my sons interests and knowledge.

Back to the papers before the phone rang and it was my father- and stepmother-in-law.  Usual chit-chat: I reckon I could provide a script for the questions I'm asked each week - it never changes, at least not by much. I guess all communication is good in these times of enforced isolation.

Next up is walking, but before I do that I'm gonna get the washing, then everything's done: no more excuses.

Back from walking, just about ahead of the sun going down. Managed 35 minutes of brisk walking and have thus achieved my exercise target for the day!

Knocked up a mix CD for a friend then it's time to start dinner: tonight we have some haddock from the fresh fish counter, just have to work out what veg to have with it.  I am almost immediately joined by son #2, his arrival being heralded by some of his choons emerging from the speakers in the kitchen: then he appears!  Son #2 took over vegetable duties whilst I prepared the fish.

This evening it's a return to 'Lovecraft Country', and the second episode. Stranger than the first but perhaps not quite so good, I think it's still finding its feet, though there was one big surprise, but I'll say no more - too much of a spoiler.

The rest is history.

Today's tune is the Afrodeutsche remix of Marie Davidson's 'Day Dreaming' which was from an EP with a similar name...

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