All tagged coronavirus in france
14h08 - I receive an email from a colleague (I have colleagues now - more on this later) in which she says, ominously, “Happy Wednesday before lockdown!”
When I receive this missive I am draped over my armchair, legs over armrest, cup of tea to my right hand - an attitude in which I currently spend approximately 15 hours a day. My laptop is perched - appropriately - in my lap. I raise an eyebrow. I probably raised an eyebrow. Let’s say for the sake of cinematographic imagining that I raised an eyebrow.
At best it’s one of those see-saw devices you see in silent movies, operated by two hapless ruffians with four teeth between them. In this case the Two Hapless Ruffians will be played by me and Leonie of Leek, because in a wave of pro-active can-do-ness she shared with me her online gym membership as we whipped ourselves up into a fervent state of YEAH LET’S DO IT!!! which, as everyone knows, is Stage One of any renewed attempt at fitness / dieting / changing your entire personality. It’s just so much better when you know someone is out there kicking with the wrong leg while you both attempt something diabolical called Body Combat.
10h15 : I got up with no illusions about what would be achieved today. My brain is setting a very low bar at the minute - if I manage to get dressed at some point or open the curtain (most people would have the luxury of a plural there, but I have no use for such an abundance of drapery) then I’m winning. I think there has been a psychological shift since Macron announced that we might be let out to see humans on May 11th, because now there’s a goal. Now you just have to sit and wait for May 11th to arrive and see what happens next. It makes entertaining yourself in edifying ways even more negotiable than it was before. After all, if I have not yet lost my marbles, how likely is it that I will lose them now, with one week to go? Which brings me neatly to my closing argument: why not watch the entire Marvel back catalogue? Why would you not? The defence rests.
9h15 : Don’t watch Medici Don’t watch Medici Don’t watch Medici Don’t watch Medici Don’t watch Medici Don’t watch Medici. I think one of the most unpleasant mundanities in life is having to taste warm milk to see if it’s gone off. It was definitely on its way out - it didn’t taste right - but it hadn’t yet fully committed to being off, so into the tea it went and I made porridge with it because it’s basically on its way to being cream, right? Wrong. But whatever. The mini fridge has been despatched!! So that’s something. As have my German Gap Lederhosen, and the new screening for the balcony. Who knows where all of these things will end up in the great lottery of the French postal system. The game is on.
Me at 9h20 : So much to do today. Monday is a new week and all things are going to be better. I have got to do some yoga because the other day I walked to the shop and put my hip out. Then I’ve got that work to do, and I really want to get back to ancient Rome for a bit, and do some French - yes - such a good learning day ahead! Must also wash up and tidy up because that would be good. Then on any “breaks” from wholesome reading and learning things I can watch that documentary on the Nazis I started at the weekend on Netflix. Yes. Today is going to be a good lockdown day.
9h10 : Yesterday, I read. For the day entire, I read or I worked, folded up into an origami human shape on my balcony. Not only did I finish Cider House, I read a whole other book - Curtain Call by someone-or-other - which amounted to about a chapter-and-a-half of John Irving so by 9pm I found I’d read the whole thing. I thought of it as a palette cleanser, whatever one of those is - I don’t think I’ve eaten at enough Michelin Star restaurants to know. I’m not sure I’ve eaten in any, now I come to think of it.
9h25 : I have been terribly inconstant this last week, shamefully inconsistent, and I have naught to plead but insanity, which I think is a pretty strong opener as far as excuses go. We’ve just entered our sixth week of confinement and the cracks are starting to show. They’re more crevasses actually, into which I fall headlong for the length of a day or more. The hours slide by and by, and that’s really all there is to say for them, so I would venture that not posting on these shapeless, thoughtless days is really for your own good. Nobody wants to read a blog that just says, “I read for five hours and then drank a bottle of Prosecco.”
9h20 : Woke up excited about eating porridge, which is a sentence I never thought I’d hear myself type.
6h40: For the record, I did not get up at 6h40. Uncharacteristically though, I was awake. What I really wanted to do was sleep in, because at 1.45am I was still watching YouTube videos about people renovating Chateaux. Monday was rough. Apparently my eyeballs just didn’t belong to me yesterday - they went along with my soul to YouTube, lock and stock. So at 6h40 I wanted to be sleeping but instead my brain decided now would be a really good time to get really mad about the last season of Game of Thrones again.
8h25 : Earlier and earlier! I do enjoy the sunny peace of the mornings but it’s weird how clueless I am as to what to do with them. I just sit in my chair drinking a cup of tea feeling bizarrely awkward. What do people do, when there’s nothing to get ready for? My brain isn’t awake enough to read, I’m not ready for breakfast, I’m offended by the idea of sound or moving pictures, and so here I am, just sitting here, looking confused.
8h25 : Got up at a time with an eight at the beginning!! I am very proud. Nothing on my agenda today except read and sit on the balcony - not that there’s much else clamouring for my attention.
8h54 : Finally managed to wake up (and more importantly, get up) before 9am. Obviously once up had absolutely no idea what to do with myself, so ate porridge and watched a documentary on YouTube and felt like somehow I had missed the point of getting up early - still can’t tell you what the point would be though. This doesn’t bode well for tomorrow morning.
9h45 : Well here it is, we’re three weeks in. I’ve decided to celebrate this milestone by doing exactly what I’ve been doing every day for the last twenty days.
9h : My cantankerous brain continues its tradition of waking me up early after quiz night so I can really fully appreciate the white-wine headache. Did not win the quiz. But at least now know that Waterloo happened in 1815, it’s more humid at the equator than at the poles, and Verlaine shot Rimbaud. I’ve forgotten everything else I didn’t know because frankly it was a lot.
10h:30 My brain didn’t wake me up at ten past the hour because it knows I’m on to it. Such a contrary device isn’t it, a brain. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out it wakes you up at 10h25.
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.
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.
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.
10am : Woke up to my alarm, which at the moment is the woman next door who likes to make very shout-y calls around the time I should be getting up.
8h10 : Of course it would be today, after a late night and too much wine, that I wake up bright and early just after eight.
