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.

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.

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.

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.