Day 4 of UK lockdown

I am fed up today. I slept really badly so I ended up staying in my PJs to work. Work was frustrating and unproductive and I didn't bother going for a walk.

Day 3 of UK lockdown

Today was annoying. There are far, far too many people out and about up here. I am thinking about investing in some pitchforks and torches to stop them all at the pass...

I did venture out for a walk this afternoon as I had to post something for work so I walked to the post office in the next village because ours shuts on a Wednesday afternoon. I had planned to go up to the woods again but I thought it made more sense to kill two birds with one stone and it was quite nice to get out in the middle of the day.

Work was fine - it is surprisingly more productive being at home than in the office and considerably less stressful but I feel weirdly unsettled; like this is the only the beginning. And I still think it might be the Apocalypse...

Day 2 of UK lockdown

So day 2 happened... it was quiet which was good although I observed far too many people going to and fro along my road. They are all taking advantage of the woods, I suppose and only time will tell if people are actually taking the PM's new rules seriously. I suspect they are not; I happen to know that some factories which manufacture non-essential items such as windows have not closed yet... rude. Don't these people care about their staff...? No. Of course they don't... It's hard to imagine the government genuinely cares since they were still letting people off planes from Spain and Italy which were already suffering from major outbreaks only a couple of weeks ago. This could all have been prevented had the PM refused to let anyone off a plane at all from an infected area without putting them into quarantine...

In any case, back to day 2. It feels like being in a film - oddly disconnected from any sense of reality but it would be some weird director like Ken Loach or Mike Leigh... Guillermo Del Toro or Wes Anderson, perhaps... someone who does disjointed dystopian stuff.

I ate jaffa cakes for my tea and didn't go for a walk. Anarchist. In your face, society! Maybe tomorrow!

I have settled into village life quite nicely although the neighbours on one side are becoming problematic as they have their grandchildren round all the time and instead of having fun, family times with them, just end up yelling at each other all the time. They also seems to allow them to stay up really late by which I mean long past midnight which cannot be good for them. I suppose that if things get particularly untenable, there is always Social Services...

Aside from that, it's a nice place to live and being surrounded by trees and being able to hear owls and such is really rather wonderful. I do not like having to take my car almost everywhere I go since even the nearest supermarket is nearly 4 miles but it's a relatively small price to pay for the good points.

The reason for this update is the outbreak of COVID19 which is a strain of coronavirus. As of today, I started working from home full time as did the rest of my office but we would have had to anyway since the Prime Minister announced today that since people have not been taking government advice seriously, the entire country is basically on lockdown. We are no longer allowed to leave our houses except to buy essential supplies -by which I understand, he does not mean alcohol(!)- get medical help or work if you absolutely cannot work from home. We are permitted to leave home twice a day - once to exercise and once to buy food. I find this hilarious since those two activities could easily be combined which would lead to far fewer people out and about which is clearly the point of the new rules.

In any case, even I went for a walk today and shall do every day since I have the woods at the back of my house. I feel very fortunate about that right now. I intend to go out for a short walk up the hill at least after work when the weather permits because I will need some separation between work and not-work. Since my office is now my craft room, it would be far, far too easy to simply stay in there and keep working which would not be good for me.

So... today was day 1 of lockdown and it was weird. Work felt quietly satisfying but somehow disconnected from reality.

I shall make the effort to keep this updated - I am living through something which feels historic and important...