Lockdown Activities

As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the world, social distancing measures have gradually been reinforced to the state we are in today, the 3rd of April 2020, where it is only acceptable to leave your own home if absolutely necessary, ie essential shopping, medical needs and solitary exercise once a day.

It became clear that coronavirus was going to become a very real problem at the start of March but nothing changed immediately. Extra hand sanitisers and signs reminding you to wash your hands went up, emails were sent round advising on the covid-19 situation as it increasingly dominated the news headlines. On the 13th of March the University suspended

face-to-face teaching, the student union banned events of over 500 people and strongly discouraged meetings and events of less than 500 people. On the 16th of March the RSCDS cancelled the Aberdeen Scottish Country Dance Festival, on the 17th Hillhead announced the closure of the community centre. Finally, on the 20th of March, the gym closed and by the 23rd the UK had gone into lockdown. One by one each part of my social life was removed until there was nothing to do but stay at home.

As the days go by with no routine, no events and no change, it is easy to lose track of what day it is. Without the kind of weekly structure that I am used to I try to stay aware of how I am spending my time. Whilst I don't have a daily plan or a regular timetable, there are some things that I aim to do every day and other activities that I aim to minimise.

1. Getting up: I make sure to get up by 8:30am Monday-Friday to try and avoid wasting too much of the day.

2. Exercise: it's not easy to maintain fitness levels now that gyms are closed, group activities are banned and leaving the house is restricted, but I am trying to keep active during this time. I still aim for at least 10,000 steps a day which hasn't been easy recently. I try to play table tennis every day. I go for walks/runs around the local woods or down into the village. I play tennis and lacrosse against the barn wall. I do virtual fitness classes from Youtube or Facebook live streams. I follow along with dance fitness videos and learn Scottish Country dances by myself. Between all these and walking around the house and garden I can get to 10,000 steps with a bit of effort.

On top of the steps, I've also been building on some other areas of fitness. I've been working on press ups and pull ups, aiming for 25 full press ups and 1 pull up. I have made some progress already, going from 3 press ups to 21 and from zero pull ups to maybe about a quarter of a pull up. It's slow progress but nice to see the results and I've got the time to focus on it now.

3. Study: Now that university lectures are over for the year and there's no need to revise for exams, it would be very easy to simply forget everything I've learnt this year. It's almost 6 months until classes start again so I've been trying to work some economics and French into my schedule to keep it going.

Economics work has involved going over the chapters of my textbook that our lecturer didn't get round to covering, reading economics-related books and researching the economies of different countries. I started with the economy of North Korea which was actually very interesting.

French includes watching French YouTube videos and films, reading novels in French (starting with Harry Potter), listening to French music and doing online French courses.

It's not a lot (on average about an hour each day) but I think it's better than nothing.

4. Cooking/baking: As I usually do when I'm at home, I've been cooking once a week. I've also been doing some baking. Some of the things I've made so far: chocolate and pecan cookies, coconut and oat biscuits, soda bread, shepherds pie, lentil pilaf. All have been vegan as I have given up animal products for lent so that adds to the challenge. It's been interesting to see how easy it is to make a vegan version of the things I want to bake.

5. Arts: I've been doing quite a bit of cross stitching. I like to do small designs that don't take too long and can be used for greetings cards. I've done a few bits of sewing that I've been meaning to do for a while such as replacing a zip and sewing up a couple of holes in clothing.

I've been playing the piano again, trying to remember old music as well as learning some new ones. I haven't got round to it yet but I'm also planning on learning a few more tunes on the recorder and, if I get really bored, there's always the cornet, the tin whistle and the harmonica.

The Open Library has a great selection of ebooks available to borrow so I've been making use of that to do some reading. I'm currently reading Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright & Bradley Hope and I'm really enjoying it so far. It's about Jho Low, the Malaysian businessman who allegedly stole billions of dollars from an investment fund to pull off one of the greatest financial heists in history.

6. Clearance: I've taken this opportunity to clear out some of my old things and there's still plenty of cupboards and shelves waiting to be sorted. So far I've been through the games cupboard, the DVDs, my book shelves and my wardrobe. I've already got two big boxes of things to go to the charity shops once they open again.

7. TV: I try not to spend too much time watching things but recently I've been enjoying Grey's Anatomy, The 100 and New Girl on Amazon Prime. I've also watched a few films and some YouTube videos. It's been interesting to watch the vlogs of other people's lives during this time to see how people round the world are dealing with this situation.

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