How is it For Me? You Ask ...

A few weeks ago someone - I can't remember just who it was - was talking to me about retirement.  "What was it like?" he asked, "Did it feel like one long holiday?"  Despite my almost two year plan of 'phased retirement', when the day came, it was rather like that at first but, as I explained to my friend, soon a structure began to develop.  The lock-down response to the present crisis has proved very similar.

For the first week or so I felt somewhat lost.  I didn't actually 'sit myself down' and plan it but, as with retirement, a structure has grown up into which I now find I comfortably (more or less) fit.  All days are basically the same, of course, and I have to check the computer screen to make sure of the date.  Those who know me, either personally or through the regular reading of this blog, will not be surprised to know that the day begins with prayer which, in a way, is mingled with breakfast but follows its own structure that has been established over the last twenty or so years.

My mornings seem to be devoted to priorities, not all of which are practical in nature.  In the early days my biggest worry was food.  I quickly realised that, if the lock-down in one form or another is likely to last for three or four months, every scrap of foodstuff in my tiny kitchen wouldn't keep me going that long.  Replenishment became the great quest.  On the home front, I took a 'census' of what I have and how long it would last at my normal rate of consumption.  At the same time I quickly discovered that conventional providers of home-delivered groceries either had no available delivery slots or didn't want to take on new customers ... or both.  I spent three consecutive evenings waiting up until midnight to try and snaffle up one of a new day's slots in mid-April as it became available ... and failing spectacularly.

I gave that up as a bad job and decided instead to rely on charitable help when the time came.  I developed my 'census' into a buying plan, and ultimately an automated shopping list compiler using my beloved Excel.  I was just sitting back from this with some degree of satisfaction on Wednesday, when my phone announced the arrival of a text from a friend alongside whom I had been helping at the Ark drop-in  She was doing some shopping and wondered if I would like anything ... dropped in!  Problem solved from both ends on a 'just-in-time' basis ... or an answer to prayer, depending on your point of view.

Food apart, my morning priorities tend to focus on awareness of what's going on in the 'real world' and keeping the flat in reasonable order.  The hoover and washing machine receive the usual amount of attention and the bed is usually made by the time I need to fall into it again.  As to the outside world, social media of one sort or another can oblige in greater or lesser detail according to i) the time available to absorb it; ii) my level of interest and the lure of side-attractions; and iii) the sheer volume of what I find competing for my attention.

E-mails come first in this awareness exercise and the first of these, usually viewed across the cereal bowl, is a follow-up devotional study based on my daily Bible reading.  After filtering out the junk (why am I suddenly getting lots of ads for American car insurance, life assurance, etc.?), much of the remainder gives me my daily news update including from a couple of daily political sources.  Facebook keeps me in touch with specific friends near and far, and with the church family too, and some of my Twitter friends are quite prolific, as well.  One of these graduated in Edinburgh, was living there and loving it but, post-Brexit, is now back in her native Germany.  She memorably drew attention this week to a recent comment by a UK politician in which she perceived a distinctly Nazi trend.  Her comment was (if I can remember it accurately), "Your grandfathers fought and died to release us (i.e. Germans) from this; now you must stamp it out in your own country!"

Another prolific friend on this medium is a professional genealogist in Yorkshire. Like me, she is asthmatic and has recently returned to the tenor horn that she used to play in a band for many years in her youth.  While I never gained competence, let alone proficiency, I've once more picked up my cornet, believing, like Jane, that this will help my breathing.  I have to keep reminding myself that this result will only come from regular attention, however!

If the morning emphasis is priority, then that of the afternoon and evening is pleasure.  There are many media distractions leading to YouTube video items of one sort or another.  Last night from this source I was privileged to watch a complete play from the National Theatre - the first of a series, I believe - entitled One Man, Two Guvnors.  It's still available to watch until next week.

And then there's the family history.  As I've mentioned here and here, in the last few weeks I've picked up a particular line and am steadily filling in the gaps of their coverage down the decades of on-line census records and at the same time expanding their number in my own data base.  I've added eighty new individuals in that branch since the start of March and I know there are more to find.

To end - as did a much more accomplished diarist than I - 'And so to bed ...'  I'm gradually working my way through Ellis Peters' excellent series of medieval whodunit books about a crusader-turned-monk named Cadfael.  His adventures in twelfth century Shrewsbury and north Wales complement well my own Welsh language studies ... so much so that, earlier this week, I had Sheet 126 of the OS 1:50,000 series spread out wide on the dining table!