I think we can all agree that the last ten months have been relentlessly weird, frequently upsetting, and pretty fucking exhausting. (excuse my language.) Inevitably, we’ve been locked down for a third time here in the UK and although it’s scary – weirdly, I’m finding this one scarier than the ones before – it’s for the best.
*closes eyes, tries to think only of sunshine and rainbows and baskets filled with kittens*
To get me through lockdown part three, I’m trying to remind myself of some of the things that helped me feel better during the first. And top of the “feel better” list is my sister (she deserves a medal for putting up with me) and, specifically, all the weird conversations we had over jigsaw puzzles back in March and April. When I was feeling organised, which wasn’t very often woops, I kept a note of some of the stranger snippets we (somehow) came up with and rereading them brought a much needed smile to my face.
Here are a few of the random things we said during Lockdown: The Original…
on homemade wine. ‘It definitely warms the oesophagus.’
on women’s troubles. ‘I felt like a fat dragon yesterday. Today I feel great.’
on not wanting to be distracted from completing a puzzle section. ‘Wait! Fish assembly is going on here!’
on Frida Kahlo puzzles. ‘The monobrow piece is going to be the best one to find.’
on puzzling in general. ‘With that section I just sort of jabbed pieces at it and hoped for the best.’
on memories. ‘Ah, the great crumble debacle of 2019.’
on panic buying. ‘I just felt like we needed a cauliflower in the house.’
on mangoes. ‘This is Mildred the mango tree.’
on death. ‘I accidentally murdered Mildred.’
on redemption. ‘My avocado is coming up! That slightly heals the pain of losing Mildred.’
on tough love. ‘I’ll stop mocking you when you start singing in tune.’
The next few weeks will be tough – just thinking that this will last until at least the middle of February makes my heart sink so, so low – but I am really looking forward to finding out what nonsense Sarah and I will come up with over a fresh round of puzzles…
Double trouble, way back when. The last ten months have seen our faces revert to these expressions a worrying number of times…
What’s bringing a smile to your face this January? What are your happy (or, happyish) original lockdown memories? Have you got any tips/plans for this one?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that 2020 has been all about revelling in the little wins. It’s been about celebrating the tiny nice things that have oiled the news-rusted cogs of each day. Sometimes, it’s simply been clinging on to delicate rays of light at the end of unexpected tunnels. And lockdown 2.0 in the middle of a rainy English autumn has only heightened that need (for me, at least) to find the good in the often bad and sometimes ugly.
This post is in honour of some of those random little things that have been my delicate rays of light.
In no particular order, they are…
watercolour clouds. Fluffy, wispy, and wavy; low, heavy, and menacing; in pretty purples, peachy oranges, pastel pinks, shining golds, glittering silvers, and grumpy greys. Clouds at this time of year certainly know how to keep us all guessing what their next moves will be. Which isn’t always ideal, but it is often nice to look at.
jumpers. I love summer, but being reunited with my jumper collection makes my heart ridiculously happy. I just love wrapping up in oversized knitwear, snug as a bug. If you need me anytime in the next six months, you’ll find me hiding in a cocoon of wool.
singing Fleetwood Mac around the house. My family and neighbours might not appreciate me doing this, but I appreciate me doing it so there. Songs to be particularly careful of when they start to play include: Isn’t It Midnight (my favourite), Gypsy, and – of course – Everywhere. Tbh though, no Fleetwood Mac song is safe from my vocal butchery.
bake off. Ah god, the Great British Bake Off brings so much joy to my 2020 wearied soul. It’s comfort TV at its absolute best. Although, did anyone else find watching all the bakers mess up the making of brownies during chocolate week worryingly distressing? FREEZER JUICE! *suppresses eye twitch* Freezer. Juice. I just can’t. *cries*
fresh sheets. Clean sheet day is my favourite day of the week. I love being snuggly, I love being squeaky clean – the match is made in heaven. Sweet dreams are made of this.
watching hair tutorials gone wrong on YouTube. I lay the blame for this obsession entirely at Brad Mondo’s door. It’s such a waste of time, but I can’t seem to stop and I kinda don’t want to stop. It is worryingly addictive witnessing people melt off their hair with bleach, and it somehow makes the worries of the world melt away too…
new music. Old favourites keep my soul cosy, but new finds keep my ears happy. I’m one of those annoying people who has no preferred genre, I just like what I like when I hear it and I don’t think internet algorithms and cookies know quite what to do with me. I’ve been on a new finds roll recently, and one of the tracks from this roll is Loom by Olafur Arnalds and Bonobo. I love it. And how b.e.a.utiful is this video?!
old photos. I love the nostalgia, I love the embarrassment, I love seeing how much clothes/hairstyles/make-up/tech has changed, I love the little stories behind each one… I can’t get enough. And they don’t even have to be my old photos. Vintage/antique photographs make me wonder about lives I’ll most likely never know anything about, and are great for inspiring story ideas.
chocolate. Chocolate makes pretty much every list post I write, which is probably a sign that I need some serious help… but I don’t actually want to recover from this addiction so there. *sticks out chocolate coated tongue*
putting on socks fresh from the radiator. I cannot recommend this enough. It is SUCH a toasty warm feeling and makes for VERY happy feet. If there’s only one thing that you take away from this list, let radiator socks be it.
reflections. One of the few good things about rain is that it makes great puddles, and great puddles make great reflections. And I love a great reflection. What can I say?
eBay. Lockdowns and the reduced opening hours of a lot of local charity shops have made second-hand shopping sprees rare for me this year, but eBay has been a great substitute fix. Which leads me onto…
dressing up. Lockdown boredom has resulted in me reaching to my wardrobe to brighten up quieter days on (a lot) more than one occasion. Sure, sometimes the visual results of my “pick the sparkliest, floweriest clothes I can find” attitude are questionable but it makes me happy so I’m not really fussed if I offensively clash a pattern or two.
wild time. Spending time in nature makes painful days bearable, and already good days even better. Most of my favourite memories from this year involve blue skies, trees, the sea, and/or flowers in some way. And although autumn and winter make outside time a little more tricky, it’s nothing a good piece of knitwear and a hot chocolate can’t fix.
boooooooks. I’m not even going to explain this one. My love will never die. ❤
So, those are a few of the very random things that have been seeing me through the harder moments of autumn 2020. How about you? I’d love to know what little things have been bringing you joy in all of this year’s strangeness…
Yesterday, I built a little bookcase using scraps of wood from the garden and a lot of blind hope (mixed with only a small amount of blood loss).
I was more than happy with the end result…
it actually works!
it’s not wonky, it’s rustic…
pretty patterns
Despite having a bit of an incident involving a saw and my right thigh; despite kneeling in chicken poop (fyi: I was much more upset about the chicken poop); despite deafening myself and my neighbours with a lot of sanding, nailing, and swearing; despite forgetting to wear sun cream and ending up with burnt shoulders; despite winging most of the measurements; despite having pretty much no idea what I was doing (my brain: “straight pieces of wood + nails = bookcase.”); despite spending an embarrassing amount of time trying to find pencils/bradawls/rulers/nails I’d only JUST THAT ACTUAL SECOND put down… despite all of those things, I feel that the whole DIY experience was a positive one.
And the shelf hasn’t fallen apart yet, so that’s another plus. #winning
All of this is good news, because I’m going to need to build another one VERY soon.
Seven weeks into lockdown and life for everyone is certainly very different.
I cannot wait for it to be over, but it’s a necessary evil for now.
Having spent the last two months worrying about coronavirus, socially distancing, and staying at home I’ve noticed there are some pretty random things I’ve been doing a whole lot more of.
I’ve been…
wriggling my face a lot. I never knew how much I touched my face before – now that I can’t it’s basically all I want to do. *screams internally* It turns out that my nose gets itchy, my eyes get itchy, my forehead gets itchy, even my chin apparently gets itchy ALL THE TIME and there’s nothing I can do about it except wriggle my face around like a maniac – which does nothing about the itchiness and does everything to make me look like a complete weirdo.
feeling very socially awkward. Ah god, and I already felt so socially awkward before this all started. Weirdly, I’m finding the two metre thing one of the most stressful parts of this pandemic – I don’t want to give someone too wide a berth and seem impolite, but I don’t want to give them too narrow a berth and seem impolite either. It’s a minefield.
marvelling at people doing stupid things. From the people who carefully wear gloves but carelessly touch everything then scratch their faces to the customers that pull their face masks down whilst leaning in to talk to me, I find it surprising every single day how silly* people can be. If I could actually touch my face without worrying about germs, it would spend a lot of time in my palms.
*I’m being polite with this word.
marvelling at me doing stupid things. This isn’t actually a new thing – I’ve been marvelling at/worrying about my ability to be an idiot for 27 years – I just wanted you all to know that I judge me and my stupidity harshly too.
having loads of baths. Not having anywhere to go makes the temptation to have a bath at four in the afternoon every day pretty much impossible to resist. I’ve never been so clean, exfoliated, and moisturised in my entire life.
contrail spotting. Contrails used to be a fact of sky life, now they’re rare and it’s kinda weird.
crying a lot. I think we’re all in this crying boat together though, right? *looks around nervously* Right?
wearing sparkly/flowery clothes all the time. Simple things please simple minds.
drawing rainbows and blue hearts. I love spotting all the rainbows that have popped up in people’s windows since March and I’ve loved releasing my inner five-year-old to draw my own too.
my window rainbow
going make-up free. It turns out that people don’t shrivel up and die when they see my face without foundation on. I’ve been wasting so much precious time. My freckles are going to get a lot more airtime going forwards – consider yourselves warned.
clapping in the street. Once this is all over, I think I’ll actually find it weird not going outside onto the street to clap/tap pots and pans/ring bells with the neighbours on Thursday evenings.
trying not to laugh at my grandma during video calls. My grandma is 94, so the fact that she can even use a smart phone by herself is kind of amazing – but she holds the phone so close to her face during video calls and it is so, so hard not to laugh when confronted with a screen made up mostly of her nose and eyes. (It’s really hard not to cry too – I just desperately want to see her in person.) ❤
buying unsafe amounts of chocolate. I’ve basically bought a bar of chocolate at the end of every shift at work for the last two months because (and this is a direct quote from my brain): “what happens if I have to self-isolate for two weeks and run out?”. The amount of chocolate currently in my house is probably medically dangerous. I NEED TO BE STOPPED.
puzzling. There’s obviously a whole lotta things I didn’t foresee about 2020, but jigsaw puzzles becoming a big part of my life is definitely near the top of that list. Before, they were a once a year thing. Now, they’re an everyday thing.
a moomin puzzle made the perfect seat for Jingles
❤
How about you? What random things has lockdown seen you doing more of?
A day dreamer? One hundred infuriating and very distracting percent.
lunartic
For some reason, though, when it comes to remembering what strange/terrifying/lovely/boring things have been going on in my brain overnight all I’m usually able to draw from it is a complete, dark blank. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. It definitely doesn’t feel like a good thing. It actually makes me a little bit sad and lottle bit jealous – especially when other people talk about their weird and wonderful dreams and all I can offer in return is a (now, thankfully, less frequent) recurring nightmare in which I balloon like Violet Beauregarde from Charlie in the Chocolate Factory and get trapped in my bedroom because I’m too big to fit through the door to get out.
*scrunches up face in embarrassment and shame*
Let’s not delve too much into it.
It’ll just get messy and awkward, and there’s enough messy awkwardness going on in the world already.
*smiles a messy and awkward smile*
So, anyway.
Dreams.
The Mud Maiden in the Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall
Since lockdown began, people all around the world have reported that they’re experiencing more frequent and more vivid dreams. I’ve seen article after article after article on them, and there’s even a study being conducted by postgraduate students at University College London on the effect the pandemic has had on our dreams.
It makes sense that our sleeping imaginations have gone haywire in the wake of Covid-19 – all of us have had to process some pretty intense emotions recently and most of us have had a lot more free time to reflect on the stories our stressed-out brains have been coming up with.
My dreams, though, are proving to be just as elusive as ever and I’m beginning to feel seriously left out.
Seeing as I won’t be getting up at 4.30am and seeing as I can’t actually go out to explore the real world, I’m hoping I can have a few (hopefully not nightmarish) adventures in some dream ones instead. I’ve bought a book on lucid dreaming (not 100% sure if this was a good idea, but I guess I’ll find out), stocked up on camomile tea, turned my alarm off off off, and I’ve even got myself a special notebook (any excuse) to write out any dreams that decide to stick around in my brain for long enough for me to get them down on paper.
I might be (definitely am) taking it too seriously, but, in my defence, my social and events calendar – like everyone else’s – is looking very, very free at the moment and I need things to keep me distracted.
I’ll let you know what dream worlds I discover.
❤
• Do you have trouble remembering dreams like me? • Have you noticed a change in your dreams since the Covid-19 pandemic started? • Have you ever kept a dream diary? •
Most of last week felt like a real struggle – like fighting through a thick, gloopy dark. But it also had moments of heart-warming, soul-lifting, and blues-battling wonder that left me feeling like things will be okay, no matter how strange they happen to be now – and they’re what I want to keep my focus on.
Two moments in particular stood out.
Both of them involved a field, and both of them involved my – already seriously overused – tear ducts.
I almost ended up in tears in the middle of a field. My sister and I were out for a walk by our local river when a big, big, big bird suddenly swooped above us, circling round and round. We’re used to seeing pigeons (tbh, isn’t everyone?), sea gulls, buzzards, crows, sparrows, herons, cormorants, and egrets on our walks but this was much more special: it was a red kite. Red kites became extinct in England in 1871, and their population recovery has been rocky and very slow since then (although it has recently begun to accelerate). My dad – who basically has the eyes of a hawk – occasionally spots one flying in the distance, and every time he does I always nod along and go “ooh” and “aah” – vaguely aware that there is some sort of bird shaped creature in the sky, but mostly aware of a whole lot of blue/clouds. But this red kite was so. close. and there was no mistaking it. It felt like a very special privilege to witness it swirling through the air just in front of us and had me blinking back tears (it had been a long day). It was utterly awe-inspiring to see, and, especially at a time like this, it felt like a good omen – a much needed reminder that things get better; they recover, they heal, and they thrive.
I actually ended up in tears in the middle of a field. This time, it was me and my mum out for a walk. Little did I know, my best friend – who I haven’t seen in person for two months – was out for a run at the same time. Cue a squeal of recognition and disbelief, a flash of happy heart butterflies, a moment where I couldn’t breathe, me bursting into tears, and an appropriately socially distant cry/talk/sob/chat from either side of the path. It was painful because I wanted to run straight into her arms and give her the biggest hug and not let her go, but it was also beautiful because I got to see her in actual physical real 3D life and it was the loveliest, most magical, surprise.
I hope you’ve had your fair share of heart-warming moments too.
Joanna Corbet 