Toilet roll situation:  1cm of current loo roll left. I now store a ruler, pen and post it notes in bathroom to keep track of this. This feels like an odd trajectory. 

Pasta stocks: As per.

Cough: Gone!!

Temperature: Nooopeeee!

Today’s verdict on whether I have coronavirus: Well, definitely not anymore!

Human contact: 

Phone calls:

• Just Dad / Not-Scotland-Sister for remote Ticket to Ride.

Video calls:

• One work meeting & one brief social call with the work team.

Visitors: 

• Zerrooo

Mum’s top tip of the day: Didn’t actually speak to my mother today either (It seems her initial concern for my welfare has diminished), but I’ve got this tidbit from day 1 of Self-Isolation.

I think the answer here is alcohol*.

(This was supposed to help my cough)

*This is against World Health Organisation guidelines. Their official policy is:  ‘don’t use smoking, alcohol or other drugs to deal with your emotions’. Instead they advise you to ‘draw on skills you have used in the past that have helped you to manage previous life’s adversities and use those skills to help you manage your emotions during the challenging time of the outbreak’. 

General:

Brilliant day!

Think in previous days I was so caught up on the negative connotations of the word ‘isolation’ that I forgot to take advantage of one of the key benefits of this whole week.

I love spending time on my own.

I know not everyone is like this, but I flipping love, you know, not seeing people. There’s a reason someone bought me a mug that says ‘I hate people’ and it’s not because I actually hate people, I just, you know, don’t like spending time with people (this is not really true).

My ideal Saturday involves: 

• A nice, lazy morning on my own. A lie in, a cup of coffee, brunch.
• Maybe meet a friend for a coffee mid-afternoon for an hour or so
• Come home and potter about a bit. Watch some TV. Drink more coffee. 
• Go out for dinner in the evening with lovely company, great food & a glass of wine.
• Be home by 9pm, have another glass(es) of wine on my sofa or in bed and stay up too late by accident, then slip into an easy, restful sleep.

Done. Brilliant.  Alone time to people ratio at about 3:1. 

Ideal. 

My every-week commitments (work, church, volunteering) equate to 50% of my waking hours spent with other people, before any of the active socialising to hang out with my friends and see/chat to my family or visit brilliant far away friends. Then with that slice of time left, you’ve also gotta wash and cook and clean and eat, and none of that counts as good quality alone time. 

I have the best friends and brilliant, funny and inspiring people in my life. I have friends who will sit in my garden and play games through the glass and friends who will descend on my house and clean everything if I’ve sprained my ankle right before my birthday party and can’t walk. I have friends that will drive me to the station so I can catch a flight last minute after I’ve sprained the other ankle and friends who will get an airport-wheelchair and delight in wheeling me round and friends that will then try and persuade me to be sensible and get an x-ray and friends that will later drive me to the hospital drop in when I eventually concede that I should probably get the ankle checked out given it’s been a week and it’s still the size of a house. I have my amazing besties that I would love to see more of and my gorgeous niece and Sister-in-Scotland. I am incredibly blessed with brilliant people in my life and this past week has really made me realise what an amazing, security-inducing, wonderful thing that is.

However, I also really really like it when said friends cancel a plan and I get to spend an evening curled up on my sofa under a blanket, blissfully alone.

Well, this is the year of the cancelled plans. It’s all cancelled. Schools and exams. Theatres, gigs, holidays. Weddings. Commutes and going out for coffee. 

So today, I decided to revel in being on my own. I turned my phone off while I was ‘at work’ (read: upstairs), painted during my breaks and spent the evening building Harry Potter Lego Hogwarts in front of the fire and it was lovely. This is the kind of thing I usually do on an evening after I’ve had a super busy week, but that’s totally the wrong attitude to have about rest.

We shouldn’t rest because it means we’ll be more productive the rest of the time. We shouldn’t be resting because we need-to-right-now-or-I’m-gonna-explode-rest, but because rest is an amazing, live-giving thing to do. Plus, it’s fun.

Harry Potter lego, people! It has working trap doors and moving staircases. It’s the best Christmas Present I ever got when I was about seven years old and, every so often, I rebuild it. 

Well, given I’m currently without a housemate to be perturbed by the massive amount of mess this creates, it is definitely time for a full rebuild. 

Technically allowed out tomorrow, but maybe I’ll stay in and finish reading that book.

(Probably won’t. There’s galic to buy, and all that). 

Today’s top 5 benefits of self-Isolation:

1. Totally acceptable to sing, loudly, while at work. When actually at work I usually try and dial this back to about 60-70% which, granted, is still quite loud. Freeing and fun to belt out ‘Jolene’ while waiting for the spreadsheet to load. 
2. Don’t have to wear a work lanyard. Mine is gross and needs washing which I realise every day right as I’m leaving for work, then promptly forget whenever I’m doing laundry. Never realised that necks could be so disgusting before work lanyard. 
3. No awkward small talk while you’re making coffee or walk past someone in a corridor. 
4. No one in house to judge wine consumption (not that housemate does this anyway).
5. Ordered myself cream eggs because I was self-isolating. Wouldn’t have done this otherwise, but would have wanted cream eggs. Now I have cream eggs. 

Today’s top 5 pitfalls of self-isolation

1. When I was younger I used to be really self-conscious about my ears sticking out and had this theory that if I wore my over hear headphones for long enough that it would be a little like free ‘ear pinning’ surgery. Now have serious doubts this is true, but if headphones have been improving the angle of my ears then they’re probably going to go back to their natural setting any time now.
2. Naturally create mess due to who I am as a person. Now I live in that mess.
3. Getting out my Harry Potter lego has made me want more Harry Potter lego. Harry Potter lego is expensive. 
4. Wine in the house is finite (there’s plenty, don’t get me wrong, but there’s the knowledge that if it did run out then that’s that). 
5. Haven’t really been sleeping well. Probably because I’ve walked about 2m in the past week so have burnt zero energy.