All in diary

Lockdown in Paris : Day Seventeen

Lockdown in Paris : Day Seventeen

Steph
diary

10h10 : I don’t know why, but I always seem to wake up at ten past the hour. It doesn’t seem to matter which hour, just that it’s 10 minutes past it. What’s that about? Today I set my alarm for 9am and barely remember telling it NO. Then of course I woke up at 10h10. Bodies are weird. Brains are weirder. I used to be able to do that thing where you just told your brain when you wanted it to wake up and it did. On the nose. Basically that must mean that our brains ALWAYS know the exact time down to the minute, and that they’re just being coy about it. How vexing.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Sixteen

Lockdown in Paris : Day Sixteen

Steph
diary

10h10 : Watched Ragnarok over porridge and coffee, because I felt like the Marvel universe just has a bit more going for it at the moment. Decided to go for Ragnarok because the whole Thanos-disappearing-a-whole-bunch-of-people just seemed a bit bloody close to the bone at the minute.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Fifteen

Lockdown in Paris : Day Fifteen

Steph
diary

9h45 : Woke up and got sucked into Buzzfeed quizzes because obviously I couldn’t start April without knowing if they can accurately guess my age based on the pizza I build. Off now to see which Disney princess I am according to the brunch foods I enjoy.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Eleven

Lockdown in Paris : Day Eleven

Steph
diary

10h15 : Right. The egg hunt is on. I also need wine - it’s pub quiz night again tonight. Reckon I’ll go for a longer walk than usual, see if my legs still work when I ask more than three steps of them. It’s another beautiful day - spring is fan-faring all over the shop, pretty much unseen. Blossom is going tadaaaa!! And we can’t even ooooh at it. I thought about the cherry blossoms over by Notre Dame and whether they’ve sprung yet, then remembered that the whole park around the cathedral is closed off because of the fire anyway. It’s been a marvellous few years full of rare treats hasn’t it - just tip top. While everyone’s busy fending off Coronavirus a gigantic asteroid is probably hurtling this way unnoticed just in time for 2021.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Ten

Lockdown in Paris : Day Ten

Steph
diary

10h43 : Celebrated the 10th day of lockdown by doing ten push-ups. That doesn’t mean I’ll be doing 11 tomorrow and so-on, don’t get any crazy ideas. Most of you will have gathered that fitness is not my forte. Ironically, before lockdown I was doing better on that score than ever before in my life. I was a Classpass addict: three cardio classes a week, a pink water bottle with a built-in straw, an almost shudderless side-plank. One night I went to two consecutive classes in two different studios: that was my peak. You now find me in a very, very comfortable trough. I know now that for me, exercising in a group is the only way I exercise. I need to be surrounded by fellow sufferers and make awkward eye contact with the instructor to stop me from giving up. Giving up is my default setting, so a grinning leotard on YouTube just isn’t going to cut it. There’s nothing to stop me just lying on the floor breathing while she says, “Great work guys!” She doesn’t know I’m giving her a thumbs up from the carpet.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Nine

Lockdown in Paris : Day Nine

Steph
diary

10h15 : Got up at 9h and made porridge, then ate it in the sun on the balcony with my book. It’s so quiet in the mornings - all you can hear is the occasional buzz of an insect or the flapping of wings as a bird bobs by. And someone whistling. I’ve heard this mystery whistler before and he’s ever so determined about it. I finished my porridge, read two chapters of my book and was just thinking about coffee and he was still whistling. I put the book down to listen - I mean given the effort that was going into it it seemed only right. Now and again he would hit upon something and I’d think “Oh, yes, I know that, that’s….” but there’s no time to figure it out because he’s off again on his meandering whistle mission. When he embarked on a particularly ambitious Second Movement I started laughing and couldn’t stop. So thank you, mystery whistler.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Eight

Lockdown in Paris : Day Eight

Steph
diary

y 24th March

9h39 : Amazingly, I find myself showered, dressed, and at my hobbit desk, on which sits coffee and orange juice. Those who joined us yesterday might well note the absence of a bowl of porridge in that list of achievements. Haven’t quite gotten around to making it yet. To all of you joining us in lockdown from the UK, Welcome to the party. The worst party you’ve ever been to in your life.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Seven

Lockdown in Paris : Day Seven

Steph
diary

9h : Wake to up to my alarm and am struck for the first time by a dangerous thought. Oh what difference does it make? Hearing this, an alarm bell rings in my mind. This thought used to occur to me daily when I was a full-time freelancer and getting up at a decent hour was a daily battle I often lost. (Always lost.) I just love sleeping. I love it. For me, going to sleep never gets old. In fact, upon laying my head down I regularly say, “I love you, Bed” and never am I ever more sincere. People talk about a bad night’s sleep, of hours of tedious wakefulness, and I nod sympathetically, utterly uncomprehending. When I go to bed, I sleep for as long as I possibly can and then I wake up. The hours in between are a contented Nothing. Wherever I am when sleeping, I clearly like it there very, very much.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Five

Lockdown in Paris : Day Five

Steph
diary

10h45 : Woke up. Well it is Saturday. It’s so quiet I can hear that whistling in your ears you get when you’re trying to hear something but there’s nothing to hear. It’s actually a bit of a relief when the buzz of the fridge kicks in. The sky is big and white. My dad would say, “It’s that low-level white cloud again in Paris,” because he likes to check the weather in Paris every day from home and then tell me what it is, even though I’m under it, a habit I find so lovely I almost can’t bear it.

Lockdown in Paris : Day Four

Lockdown in Paris : Day Four

Steph
diary

8h42 : Woke up and knew immediately from the quality of the light that it was raining. That and I heard it on the roof which is about a foot away from my face. I have one of those massive bunk beds that would be amazingly cool and totally wicked if I were 12, which I’m not. Given that lots of people live in tiny, tiny studios in Paris, these bunkbeds are quite common for space-saving purposes. Of course, in that space saved under the bed you feel like Gandalf at Bilbo’s. Adults with bunkbeds try and call them mezzanines. They know as well as I do that the platform in question has to be attached to the walls and not have four orange-pine legs and a child-rail to be legitimately called a mezzanine, but I do understand the impulse. They don’t want to contemplate the life choices that have led them to be climbing a ladder to a bunk bed aged 30+. I certainly don’t. 

Coronavirus Lockdown in Paris : Day Two

Coronavirus Lockdown in Paris : Day Two

Steph
diary

Wednesday 18th March

8h01 : Don’t know what’s happening but I woke up an hour before my alarm ready to get up. This never happens in real life.

8h05 : Draw the curtains and spot the rotting chicken in a bag outside. We stare at each other for a long moment. The chicken is accusatory, I’m confused and then ashamed. I have to take it down to the bins today. I know that if I fail I will be a truly revolting human being. I also won’t be able to read on the balcony and the sun’s due out, so.

Coronavirus Lockdown in Paris : Day One

Coronavirus Lockdown in Paris : Day One

Steph
diary

Tuesday 17th March

8.50am - Woke up ten minutes before my alarm, which I’d set for 9am because I’m absolutely determined to be a functional human being for the duration of the lockdown. I know what I’m like. If I’m not careful, three weeks from now I’ll be in food-stained pyjamas with nothing but an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Netflix offering. Must be strict with myself (this has never, ever worked). Have to get up no later than 9am and be doing something productive by 10am.

10am - Watching Eddie Izzard clips on YouTube.