UKC

Lockdown - How are you passing the time?

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 Frankie boy 08 Jan 2021

Was just wondering what people on here are doing to pass any extra time the may find they have due to lockdown.

I quickly get bored of reading and TV so mostly find myself bouncing off the walls looking for little DIY projects to do. 

I've even given up reading guidebooks and dreaming of future trips.

 veteye 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

I'm working stupidly long hours, partly due to fellow worker off ill, but who got back a negative test yesterday.

If I were you I would consider having with a longer engagement, such as learning a musical instrument, or how to program with C+++, or one of those small computers(whose name I've forgotten), or go and look in a book of poems, and try to learn some shorter ones off by heart.

I'm lucky that when I have free time( very infrequently) I can go and either work on a particular piece of piano music, or just extemporise a piece of my own from scratch. The latter works well, when I am pissed off with something, as I can start off very loudly and somewhat discordantly, but then find that I get interested in certain intervals, chords and possible tunes, that have arisen in my anger, and by the end it is becoming the peace after the storm, both audibly, and in the internal mental environment. So a calmer end result..

 greg_may_ 08 Jan 2021
In reply to veteye:

Teaching remotely. Running. Cooking. Preparing lessons. Supporting my wife who’s going back on wards. And a 3 year old.

So yeah, busy. Have watched very little TV. Have yet to read a book.

Andy Gamisou 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Pull ups mostly.

In reply to Frankie boy:

> Was just wondering what people on here are doing to pass any extra time the may find they have due to lockdown.

> I quickly get bored of reading and TV so mostly find myself bouncing off the walls looking for little DIY projects to do. 

> I've even given up reading guidebooks and dreaming of future trips.

I work in education and apart from the odd days planned going into work to set up some demo experiments for videoing , I'm off untill they open back up properly. Could be 6 weeks or more who knows.  Mid Feb , March has been banded about by the Government.

So I've brought a new 3d printer kit for a steal, to supplement my older model.  I've been assembling that and getting to grips with it since new years eve.  Printing a few things for work as well as mainly printing out a parkjet .  

It taken ages to print however I'm on the final 2 pieces before assembling it.  

I'm going to then print models of the SpaceX starship prototypes while also looking for other suitable projects. 

I had though about building a prosthetic hand but the linear actuators are very expensive unless I can find suitable cheeper substitutes.

CT

Post edited at 08:13

 angry pirate 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Teaching remotely, which seems to take huge amounts of prep time compared to normal teaching. Currently on 14 hour days though I suspect that will calm down eventually. It's like being an NQT again.

In reply to Frankie boy:

Working from home, walking the dog, training on the wall in the garage. Otherwise, bought a couple of semi acoustics and another valve amp and teaching myself jazz fusion playing which is a completely new thing for me.

 artif 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Get yourself a copy of Ashley's book of Knots and put your ropes to some use.

 Phil1919 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Get inventive with local exercise. Longer, places you haven't been to before, at quiet times of the day, all within your local area. Slow creative cooking using real ingredients. Soup? Put some thoughts down onto paper. Phone a friend each day. Choose a radio 4 programme to listen to. Get up early.

Ok, I'm running out of ideas now.

Post edited at 09:26
In reply to Frankie boy:

I wake up

I go to work

I go to bed

Repeat

 Babika 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Jigsaw.

Online bridge

Fairly pointless but it suits my current depressed frame of mind

 J101 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Normally I'd take the dog for some long walks but he's just had an operation and is banned from walks until his stitches come out.

Too cold or wet to do some of the fence painting I want to get on with as well.

Tax return, accounts, reading books and eating too much for the next few days I think.

In reply to : all interested 

For anyone interested.  I can thoroughly recommend the following app game.  

Pythagorea only on Android 

A geometry puzzle game .  

It's ace . I've learnt or at least solidified some more geometry ideas in my head. I need to find something similar after I complete it .  Im not really a gamer unless it's educational.

No adverts or crap like that , just pure education and fun.  If not slightly annoying at times.  

CT

 Offwidth 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Made me think..

Probably too much time on the internet recently, especially on UKC and on covid info. I've been retired nine months now from a job that was always nearly two jobs (from the performance bean counting), so pretty intensive and by neccesity ruthlessly organised. I used to spend a lot of free time climbing or related to climbing on top of that. 

It's just nice to 'relax' for the first time in four decades. I'm still always doing something and think I could easily fill two lives without being bored in pandemic times but maybe I do need some specific sizable socially constructive projects. Currently I am helping my partner who is now back full time in the NHS and juggling a big volunteer role on top of that; plus helping some friends with problems; and slowly sorting through and selecting the small minority of what's worth keeping from a huge mass of information from decades of work (that I could only access from September thanks to covid regs). Yet it's been a genuine positive in lockdowns to have unconstrained time to chat to friends and family and to walk for over an hour a day and read more books and watch a film a day.

 Lankyman 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Charity or volunteer work? Hunger, homelessness and human misery haven't gone away. Grab a litter pick and bin bag and tidy up your local roads?

1
 Dax H 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Francescaparratt:

> I wake up

> I go to work

> I go to bed

> Repeat

Snap but with a bit of TV between bed and work. 

 Ciro 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

I've regressed to childhood and started playing computer games again.

Turns out they're quite a bit more advanced than when I used to play them 😁

I've just ordered a VR headset, so when that arrives I might disappear online never to be seen again.

 jkarran 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Work, childcare, board gaming with my wife and a little with friends online, learning sudoku variants, plastering, bit of TV. Not much different from a normal January but with added baby since I always have a month off the beer and January flat-land gliding is usually pretty crap.

jk

 Wingnut 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Mostly work - would be our busiest time of the year even without Br*xit and Covid, but both of those have added a fair bit extra too.

Other than that, working through piles of geocache puzzles (big new geo-art in central Brum), learning to write wherigos, doing some courses on Udemy, redesigning the rifle club website, and chucking away yet more of the rubbish that has accumulated in my flat in an effort to make it look more like it's occupied by an actual functioning adult.

Oh, and making cheese scones.

In reply to Dax H:

The transition between the couch to the bed takes effort.

Save yourself energy by watching TV in bed.

I eat all my meals there too.

Post edited at 12:19
In reply to Francescaparratt:

I hope you're managing to find time to eat.

I seem to have gone into winter torpor, spending lots of time in bed.

In reply to captain paranoia:

For sure, diet is important.

I have a slice of various cake for breakfast (in bed)

A can of monster to wake me up on the way to work.

Maybe a cup of tea at work followed by an afternoon Red Bull.

Dinner is then served in bed followed by binge eating whatever left over Christmas candy I can find.

Muscle loss still counts as weight loss right!?

In reply to Lankyman:

👍...can vouch for charity work.

A couple of years back l registered to be a Red Cross Volunteer.

They rang me out of the blue before Xmas...would I help out doing door step Covid testing.

I have done 2 days per week since,they still need volunteers.

PS. I might just get through those pearly gates at this rate 😉

 Wingnut 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Francescaparratt:

>>I eat all my meals there too.

One of the nice things about being (theoretically) adult and having left home is that you can eat pizza in bed without getting shouted at. (o::

baron 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Duolingo - Welsh and German.

Welsh because despite being a regular visitor and living within sight of the country I hardly know a word, disgraceful.

German because it’s been 40 years since I lived there and it’s a relearning process, at a very basic level.

 Blue Straggler 08 Jan 2021
In reply to captain paranoia:

> I seem to have gone into winter torpor, spending lots of time in bed.

Similar here. I need to keep an eye on this. It's easy to get into the mindset of "well I don't need to get out of bed for anything in particular so I'll just have a really long lie-in". I am aware that that can be a symptom of depression, and this is absolutely NOT the case for me, but you do wonder which comes first. 
Tuesday of last week I didn't get up until 4pm, a personal record for me in good health and not jet-lagged! Then all I did was have a bath, go back to bed for a couple hours, get up and heat and eat a tin of soup, back to bed again, then at about 10pm I was so bored I had another bath! And went back to bed. 

And you know what?
It was blissful! Clearly it was required and I was simply listening to my body. 

 Blue Straggler 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

I am working my normal hours (40 hour week, pretty Mon-Fri 9-5:30 but with flexibility). 

Still obviously lots of time in the evenings and weekends, where usually I'd be out and about. 
Little DIY tasks (and mammoth procrastination periods) are good; my house is an ongoing project - no major works, just making things neat, rearranging belongings(*) and clearing out stuff along the way. 
Playing the piano.
Preparing/cooking food with a bit more imagination and effort than previously. 
I plan to sort through a large backlog of digital photographs, once I've decided on a software package. 

* this is unearthing long-neglected books, music and movies, which in turn gets me to devour those, although admittedly I am not reading as much as I hoped I would be....although finally properly arranging my books last weekend did help me focus and plan what to read over the next few months. 

 Lankyman 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Francescaparratt:

> The transition between the couch to the bed takes effort.

> Save yourself energy by watching TV in bed.

> I eat all my meals there too.


A bedpan will save those bothersome trips to the little room. Don't forget the wet wipes on your bedside table. If your beds by a window - chocks away!

Removed User 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

> A bedpan will save those bothersome trips to the little room. Don't forget the wet wipes on your bedside table. If your beds by a window - chocks away!

I was just about to suggest drugs and pornography. The conversation seemed a bit too wholesome to be entirely accurate.

 WaterMonkey 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Working during the day, The first lockdown the company was great and allowed us all to work from home, this time they don't want us to.

We flooded at home in August so we're currently living in another house which rules out any DIY jobs! 

Stressing and arguing with the council about why we've flooded for the 2nd time in 2 years.

Indoor rowing in my shed. I had a lovely gym at home before the flood now I have to make do with a shed!

Fortunately this house is in a quiet, rural, coastal area so lots of walks and I can walk from my house with my kayak and launch in the creek. I can do about 3-4 hours paddling provided I'm back before the tide goes out too much! My normal regular hobbies are windsurfing, sailing and spending time on my boat, neither of which I'm doing because it would mean driving for about 40 minutes.

Just downloaded The Shining Mountain to read.

 peppermill 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Picked up a 26" MTB bargain on eBay (Some of the deals are outrageous and would have been beyond my wildest dreams as a MTB-mad teenager circa 2006)

Good nick overall but will benefit from an overhaul and a couple of bits and bobs upgrading, so that will keep me occupied on days off.

In reply to Removed User:

I was thinking about taking up meth; I think at this point it would probably be better for my mental, physical and emotional health than any more lockdowns...

I think I’d really be able to pull of that toothless grin as well!

In reply to Lankyman:

Plastic sheets?

 BusyLizzie 08 Jan 2021
In reply to veteye:

> I'm lucky that when I have free time( very infrequently) I can go and either work on a particular piece of piano music, or just extemporise a piece of my own from scratch. The latter works well, when I am pissed off with something, as I can start off very loudly and somewhat discordantly, but then find that I get interested in certain intervals, chords and possible tunes, that have arisen in my anger, and by the end it is becoming the peace after the storm, both audibly, and in the internal mental environment. So a calmer end result..

Yes yes yes. Isn't it wonderful.

I am also trying to memorise piano music, which I find incredibly hard - I can memorise words wothout effort, maybe it's done with a different chunk of the brain.

 wintertree 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

A lot of time sat at my laptop on the pitching table doing WFH.   I often have 30-second downtimes whilst a piece of code is crunching a graph.  Hello, UKC...

Home schooling and toddler watching.

Today I put on my microspikes and climbing harness, clipped a long sling to the never-before-used haul loop, cows-tailed another long sling to that, clipped that to the polypropylene rope on our sledge and went for a run with about 30 kg of screaming monsters in the back.  Best exercise I've had in months.

I anticipate a lot more WFH, home schooling, cooking/cleaning (feeding a whole family in-house for 3 meals a day is a massive increasing in workload), and generally not getting much proper down time for the next 6 weeks.  work; 

In reply to Wingnut:

> is that you can eat pizza in bed without getting shouted at. (o::

How old was the slice of pizza you found in your bed.. ?

 Wingnut 08 Jan 2021
In reply to captain paranoia:

Pizza doesn't stay un-devoured long enough to get cold, never mind old, round here!

 Andrew Wells 08 Jan 2021

A lot of working out. Hangboarding. Yoga. Painting tiny little soldiers. Reading. I try to avoid lots of screen time tbh.

 Blue Straggler 08 Jan 2021
In reply to BusyLizzie:

> I am also trying to memorise piano music, which I find incredibly hard - I can memorise words wothout effort, maybe it's done with a different chunk of the brain.

That’s interesting. Not even easier pieces ? I assumed that everyone virtually picks up “finger memory” just from the amount of practice.

I’ve surprised myself in the past year with my piano (a new purchase; I’d barely touched a piano in 30 years and only reluctantly took a few years of lessons as a child, and never really got very far even back then). I am playing basic stuff, probably around grade 3 level but all a bit “hacky” / plinky plonky. All short two page pieces. By the time I feel that I’ve “nailed” them, I don’t need the sheet music. 

 wercat 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

I've been driving all Round Cumbria to check whether people are out in the hills or otherwise enjoying themselves.  This seems to me to to be permitted and public spirited.

My routine also includes going round the village listening at doors and peering through windows to check that no one is having visitors or going out more than once a day or walking more than 5 minutes from their house, or daring to carry a hot drink while they are out.

I have to go out again each day to walk around the Center Parc woods to check no-one is staying there.

Keeps me so busy I'm tired at night and don't have much time to spend listening to cordless and mobile phones to keep tabs on people's adherence to the lockdown.

Post edited at 17:05
1
 neilh 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Building aircraft etc model kits. Scale  model of Apollo 13 completed before Christmas. 
 

However my “ work bench” is being currently relocated to another room. 

 RobAJones 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Yesterday, found I had a hidden talent, ladies hairdressing, at least it has put me in Mrs J's good books. Today started with a couple of inches of fresh snow, so out with shovel and grit to help those who still need to work get out of the village. Just about to go back for breakfast around 8 when one of the retirees makes a right hash of trying to get up this hill. More shovelling and gritting and an enquiry as to  what was an essential journey? I was thinking, who is going to run out of food before the roads thaw a bit this afternoon? Turns out she was popping round a friends house for coffee, unbelievable !? Especially when you add in, that according to Mr J's village wattapp group there has been a positive case of the new variant in the village. Rest of the morning was spent preparing a 6k loipe track, by the river, for Mrs J.

More generally, another one for duolingo (German), 20 to 30 minutes a day since March has resulted in most of our conversations, at home, since Christmas being in German. Mrs J is fluent so that helps. Fingerboarding during the three lock downs has resulted in really pleasing max. hang progress, so looking forward to the summer.

Mrs J's face covering production is tailing off now, but she has branched out into other areas (doggie bandanas??) so the sewing machine is still getting a lot of use. 

  

 wercat 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

serious reply, doing stuff with germanium

 Fat Bumbly2 08 Jan 2021
In reply to wercat: I’m bored. No snow for a snowball fight, just sit looking out to sea with a mug of coffee 

 SAF 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Mostly sledging, throwing snowballs and building snowmen.

I will be very sad when it all thaws.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

> That’s interesting. Not even easier pieces ? I assumed that everyone virtually picks up “finger memory” just from the amount of practice.

> I’ve surprised myself in the past year with my piano (a new purchase; I’d barely touched a piano in 30 years and only reluctantly took a few years of lessons as a child, and never really got very far even back then). I am playing basic stuff, probably around grade 3 level but all a bit “hacky” / plinky plonky. All short two page pieces. By the time I feel that I’ve “nailed” them, I don’t need the sheet music. 

That's amazing. I got up to about competent grade 4 (and some harder pieces) but always had to have the sheet music in right in front of me - I never looked at my hands. My eyes always had to be glued on the music. No way could I memorise something as generally complex as a typical grade 4 piece. I could just about play Bach's first prelude in C Major (from the Well-Tempered Clavier) by heart, I suppose, having played it c.1000 times! And I suppose that's about Grade 2. But that would have been about it. I became obsessed with trying to play the 2nd movement (the Arietta) from Beethoven's incredible last sonata, Op.111. I must have driven my neighbours nearly mad. I could play most of it passably well in the end, EXCEPT for the manic third? variation where LVB goes completely bananas with this incredible, crazy piece of Scott Joplin stuff that's years ahead of its time. 

 Stichtplate 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

I've got two weeks off and had all sorts of plans for head clearing solo romps in the Lakes and Snowdonia. Sadly not happening now so instead I've been catching up on box sets, reading and hammering Borderlands 3 and Beavertown Gamma Ray. I have absolutely not been doing anything self improving or in the least meritorious.

However. On Monday we take custody of an eight week old puppy and I've not experienced such a happy fug of trepidation and excitement since the birth of our youngest 11 years ago!

Post edited at 20:03
In reply to Frankie boy:

Lots and lots of fell running, road cycling and walking the dog. Also doing a bit of shopping for neighbours who are unable to do it for themselves. I'm also working through my stash of wool and knitting loads of baby clothes.

 BusyLizzie 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Blue Straggler:

I've played since I was 7 and am OLD so just had more time at it. I suppose I read music easily so my brain is too lazy to remember it?

Anyway, in whatever form, the piano is a great delight especially now. Glad you're enjoying it.

In reply to BusyLizzie:

My 9 year old son is astonishing at memorising piano music. He can't remember what he had for lunch yesterday but stave after stave of piano music no problem!

 Blue Straggler 08 Jan 2021
In reply to BusyLizzie:

Thanks! And of course why should it matter to anyone whether you have the music in front of you or not?  

OP Frankie boy 08 Jan 2021
In reply to BusyLizzie:

Well, I've done a bit of work on the boat today, and my 3 possible pass times I've come up with are:

Learning to play that banjo the wife bought me 3 Christmas's ago (never even tried it)

Trying to teach the dog to play chess

Slowly chipping away the ice on the canal around the boat.

All this should hopefully fill the gaps between dog walking, reading and inventing jobs to do on said boat. 

In reply to Frankie boy:

I bought myself an electric guitar and invested in some hardware to make running a flight simulator more realistic and fun.

Al

 Blue Straggler 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I have a feeling the grading of the music books I have as about as consistent as some climbing grades and I am picking the "low hanging fruit"  
I have one exam book that says "Grade 4" (I have been "panic buying" sheet music in charity shops when possible, and have a ridiculous amount, 70% of which is definitely beyond me), and one of its pieces is a Sonatina in C by Clementi, and there is NO WAY it can be Grade 4, compared to (say) Fur Elise which should be benchmark Grade 3 AFAIK. The Clementi piece feels more Grade 2. However I am sticking to a plan I made, to not get hung up on grades and just find pieces that I like the sound of and want to play vaguely competently. 
On a boring side note, I have a vastly shortened (just a single page, about 40 seconds of playing) arrangement of the beginning of The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) by John Williams which I initially thought was incredibly hard work not least because the editor didn't put any fingering suggestions on, and there are a few "leaps" that are not intuitive. I spent a long day working out just my fingering (it's the only piece so far where I had to pencil in finger positions on the sheet music) and it still felt like a hard piece to play, and I expected that I would NEVER be able to play it without my annotated sheet music in front of me. 

I now play it without my annotated sheet music in front of me. It is still clumsy and "plinky plonky" but not because I don't know which notes come next. 

I am not sure there is anything particularly special about this. I did have a nice "Damascene" moment in the summer practising an easy Minuet in G by Bach (you'll know the one, I don't think anyone that has ever had piano lessons won't have been made to play it); this was a stage where I was wondering where the line is between HAVING to look at the music and HAVING to look at your fingers and keys. Something distracted me outside the window, and I found myself still playing the thing reasonably well! 

 Reach>Talent 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Lockdown hasn't reduced my workload, in practice time I would have been commuting and more now gets spent at my desk at home. The rest goes onto the turbo trainer or DIY jobs, I have managed to work on my CAD skills a bit (YouTube and the turbo trainer are a good combination for learning). Climbing strength has floundered I suspect because the view from the fingerboard is the loo rather than something more Inspirational. 

OP Frankie boy 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Reach>Talent:

Stick a palm tree or such in your loo, that would improve the view. May cause a bit of chaos if you've just had a bad curry though.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I agree with you about the grades being all over the place. I always found getting the fingering right in the more difficult pieces the most difficult thing. Often not doing what the fingering on the music said, getting entrenched in the wrong fingering, and then realising too late why they'd done it that way. I'm speaking in the past tense because I gave up playing the piano about 2 years ago - it was simply taking up too much time while engaged on a major writing project. I've given my piano on a kind of permanent loan to my local Ritz Cinema in Belper, and it's a joy to see other people playing it now in the foyer.

 Blue Straggler 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Fingering on the music is the choice of the editor, not the composer, and might not suit you. I am , as I keep saying, a bit "basic" but I don't think it is arrogant of me to go against what an editor has put down, if it suits me better. A bit like doing a technical climbing move differently to how others do it (and for a real analogy, consider an route in an artificial wall, specifically designed to be "done" a certain way!) 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Well, I think there are some climbs, particularly the very best routes, where the crux can only be done one way (the Ochre Slab on Vector, for example.)

 Rich L 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

I wish I was as motivated as most of you to do anything other than watch copious amounts of TV on my days off. 

Our latest computer modelling shows that my hospital will reach peak COVID capacity in 10 days. Unbelievably, it is actually going to get worse, so I've convinced myself that I need to spend my days off practically comotose, saving myself, mind and body, for the impending s*itstorm. 

And yet I had such an active summer, climbing threes days a week and cycling every other day, even when working. And I absolutely loved it.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I'd love to know what strategies people are adopting to keep active and just getting out there.

 Blue Straggler 08 Jan 2021
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Yes there are some climbs like that and some of them are the best. 

 Misha 09 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Working and UKC...

 BusyLizzie 09 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Banjo is awesome! Do it!

 BusyLizzie 09 Jan 2021
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Easier to communicate when one's eyes are not glued to the music.

 BusyLizzie 09 Jan 2021
In reply to blackmountainbiker:

> My 9 year old son is astonishing at memorising piano music. He can't remember what he had for lunch yesterday but stave after stave of piano music no problem!


I think he's got his priorities right.

 BusyLizzie 09 Jan 2021
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Much better to work out your own fingering - the editor's ideas may not suit your hands.

It will in any event not be what the composer intended if you are playing JS Bach and his chums or anything earlier. They used fingers mostly and didn't pass the thumb behind - so a scale goes 1234234 etc. 

Do what works.

 fammer 09 Jan 2021
In reply to Archmagos_Dominus:

Try euclidea

 Blue Straggler 09 Jan 2021
In reply to BusyLizzie:

> Do what works.

What works best is reporting on social media that “I have spent the whole day fingering John Williams”, and confusing all your friends who don’t know the context 😃

 9 oclockboy 09 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Still climbing because I actually think for myself and im very selfish. 

9
 AllanMac 09 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Learning a new skill that can be practiced at home. For me, painting landscapes in oils has been a bit of a saviour, helping to prevent a descent into boredom and depression. I already paint in watercolour, but found that for certain scenes it lacks the 'heft' of an oil painting. Oils are slower drying, more meditative, and forgiving. To prevent smelling the house out with turps, I use low-odour solvents and mediums. Some are fast-drying like alkyd or slow drying like linseed oil, so the drying time of paint layers can vary from overnight to 2 weeks. Having 2-3 paintings on the go at the same time prevents finger-twiddling downtimes.

Painting allows me to get somewhat closer to the kind of landscapes I rely on for maintaining my own sanity, but which are currently closed off.

I also deliver prescriptions for our surgery one day a week to people who are vulnerable and are forced to isolate. A (usually) thankful voice from behind a door makes it worthwhile. Living rurally, these people are scattered across a wide area, and in kind weather I use my bike+rucksack, so I get exercise.

In reply to Frankie boy:

As someone living on their own, I find the key to maintaining my sanity is keeping myself very busy. Almost every day in the last ten months of isolation has been filled with:

  • Admin for three houses on two continents, including moving houses
  • Working on original geoscience
  • Computer programming for this geoscience.
  • Playing the piano, usually several sessions per day
  • Building radio-controlled scale models from scratch; 3D drafting for these
  • Walking, duration dependent on the weather; sometimes combined with geological field work
  • Communicating with my family in three different countries, usually on Skype (which has been a Godsend during this whole period)
  • Reading.
  • (re-discovering cooking!)
Post edited at 23:38
 Fozzy 10 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

Working in the daytime, teaching live from Teams. 
In the evenings, I walk the dogs & do jobs at home. The only difference in the week is I can’t visit the local wall. 
 

Weekends have been spent on the farm (1/2 mike away, I’m on their books as an employee...), thinning out the tree plantations for next year’s firewood & replenish the venison supplies in the freezer. No different to normal really, apart from no beating on Saturdays & obviously I can’t go out for a hill walk on Sundays with the wife. 

 Hutson 11 Jan 2021
In reply to Frankie boy:

For any dog lovers I can really recommend volunteering for The Cinnamon Trust which connects volunteer dog walkers with the elderly or terminally ill. 

I do a socially-distanced pickup (owner opens door, dog joyfully bounds a few metres over to me because she knows what's coming) and use my own lead/bags to minimise any risks (charity will reimburse you for anything you need). Good way of getting your steps in when you don't live in a particularly inspiring area for walking. The dog's owner is super grateful and it gives her a few minutes of chat with someone too as she's alone.

Now I am WFH all the time I can do this in my lunch break. They only ask you to commit an hour a week (for me it's more like two because I walk across town and back but that's ok). It's not all that altruistic of me because I'm a big fan of dogs but can't have my own again just yet.


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