COVID-19 Diary: Get A Structure

For many one of the biggest issues to address with the COVID-19 imposed self isolating and social distancing will be the lack of structure.

This is common when people retire as well, and for many you only need to think back to a holiday – the initial joy at the “change is as good as a rest” followed by the nagging “what do I do now”.

The fact is that for many the majority of our lives are driven by a dictated structure: school, work, children, social interaction so left to our own devices filling time can be a challenge.

I have written before that our lifestyle for many years (best part of twenty) has required that we create our own daily structure so a) this is not a new challenge for us, and b) our current structure is really just a mild tinkering with our existing structure:

(Hopefully) wake up and go through the COVID-19 necessitated task of checking if have any symptoms. To be honest, not a strenuous task as can be done for the comfort of the bed!

Catch up on the overnight situation via Sky, BBC, Twitter and Facebook. Think it is important to get a balance of inputs from the corporately structured (BBC and Sky) and Social Media which primarily means from people that I actually know or have interacted with i.e. I trust their opinions and updates. Will touch base with parents at this time via WhatsApp to check in that we all OK and send them links to anything they may be interested in, and to be fair vice versa as father does love to send me links to articles in The Times.

By this time I can’t really justify staying in bed any longer although the cats and dogs that tend to be snuggled with me would be happy if I did, so I creak my way from under the duvet and set about my first task of the day: cat litter trays, cat food (they have access to dry food 24/7 so a topping up), water (cats and dogs), flick round with a duster, wander round with the hoover and put any rubbish out.

Cup of coffee (weather permitting in the Garden or the Summer House) and a spot of reading: papers online or one of my magazines (Guardian Weekly, New Statesman or Wisden Monthly). Feed the dogs!!!

Normally we walk the dogs together late morning, but at the moment we are taking it in turns so if it’s my turn I …….. walk the dogs, if not I head into the Office and spend some time online. The theory is I am meant to be ‘working’ on our business (Marshall Innovations) as we take it all online, or getting back into writing via this blog and our rehoming and transport project ALStrays.

We are still very much on Spanish Time (for those that don’t know we lived in Spain for 15 years returning to the UK in March 2019) so for me it is time for breakfast!

I tend to have a few books on the go at any one time (current list in Sidebar), rather lazily doted around the house so I probably pick one of these up for an hour or so, before switching on the TV to listen to the daily press conference. This is obviously a new addition to the Schedule, although to be fair I would probably spend half an hour catching up on the day around this time anyway.

Certainly a new addition to the daily schedule is a video chat with my parents, which they project onto their 65inch TV!!! Again, we have used this technology to keep in touch for years as they used to split their time between the UK and America, and as I said, we lived in Spain for 15 years.

Probably true to say that we are drinking a little more these days, although I am not so sure!!! We certainly drink more often i.e. a beer before dinner, a whisky watching TV for example, but we are no longer drinking socially i.e. 6 bottles of wine at lunch!!!

Anyway post chat with parents we tend to have a drink while preparing dinner (and feeding the dogs) before settling on the sofa for the evening to watch TV.

Couple of key areas I would point out: first, it is important to have a balance throughout the day, not to be fixated on one thing, and it certainly is not healthy to fixate on the news as that just divorces you from the reality. It is bad, yes, but the world has not ended and if we all think sensibly and act responsibility a reasonable lifestyle can be maintained. Second, I strongly recommend moving around as mush as you can – not for the exercise but for the mind. If you have to read all day for example, it helps if you can read in different parts of the house/garden as this creates a slightly different pattern of behaviour for the mind.

And so to bed where cats permitting I tend to read a bit of the Wisden Almanack – not exactly rock and roll but nothing like Cricket Stats to help you sleep!

You will more from the above that we have no children to homeschool, but for those of you do this advice picked up on Social Media (so apologies as I do not know who initiated it) may help, but should make you smile.

Keep Safe. Be Nice.