Tag: lockdown

Day 26 – Really missing footy

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Another day. No football.

I’m getting very tired of seeing this. You could argue that simply not opening up the app would prevent the daily anguish of seeing this message, but then if there was – by some massive stretch of the imagination – a surprise game of togger, you wouldn’t know it was coming.

Can you imagine how awful that would be if you only found out after the fact?

Sadly, it’s not likely to be right any time soon though, so maybe I will actually take a chance and spare myself the regular torture and associated depression for a little while.

Day 24 – DIM

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DIY = Do It Yourself
DIM = (Fine, I’ll) Do It Myself (then)

I have been forced into doing all those little jobs that my wife has been going on about for a few days years now. Well, technically she did half of them and then I felt so guilty I had to join in and do the rest. We now have – amongst other things – cleared flower beds and painted walls.

And a stronger marriage. Maybe.

These were the sort of chores that we might normally have done together over a weekend, so I don’t feel too bad, but they did still need doing and I hadn’t (until now, at least) done them.

That’s not to say that I haven’t done anything though – the steps in the back garden were falling apart, and now they are falling apart a little bit less. Some trees and bushes were getting a bit overgrown and now they are less overgrown. But sometimes it’s hard to motivate oneself to do these rather mundane tasks, especially when one day is very much blending into the next and the world is not going to fall apart (any more than it already has) if you don’t do them.

Even I have to admit that the flower beds look better and the wall looks lovely though. I tried to suggest that the fact that we’d done these jobs together meant that we can both be proud of the outcome, but my wife rolled her eyes so far back that she could see 2019.

I may be in trouble and I suspect that only a well-mixed gin and tonic will get me out of it. I’m going to give that approach a go right now.

Day 23 – internet woes

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We’re not even two thirds of the way into this extended lockdown thing (which may well be extended again) and I’ve just finished the internet.

Everything.

All the interesting stuff, at least.
I’m going to leave the other 99.99% for the next pandemic.

What am I supposed to do now?

Maybe I’ll invite loads of people around for a braai like the neighbours have done today.
Oh no. Wait a second. That’s both utterly stupid and totally illegal. Wankers.

Back to the internet then…

Day 21 – Mildly delayed

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I have been trying to get these daily posts out at 8am, but this one is slightly late.
I’m pretty sure that no-one will notice – is there really anyone frantically hitting refresh at 7:59, like they’re hoping to be the first in line for concert tickets on some underprepared concert ticket website that will then crash 10 seconds later?

Remember going to concerts?
That was fun, wasn’t it?

Anyway. I digress. Often.

Yesterday was a flat, dull, calm, grey day. Horrible for photography, but great for taking the drone up for the first time in ages and having a quick spin out of the back garden. It needs some work on the camera (the drone, not the back garden): the lens plate is slightly damaged, but apparently fixing that is not an essential service, so it’s not going to happen for a while yet. So I was left having to do a  little bit of fiddling in Lightroom, which did at least give me a different image for my photo-a-day Lockdown album on Flickr.

And then, after a quick rain shower, and just as it seemed that all hope of any colour was lost, a watery peach sunset, which I togged from the top of the braai chimney while the braai was in use.

I would not advise this approach.

This photo really is nothing special, but as a symbol of hope and optimism after a miserable grey day, it’s still nothing special.

Today is also grey. Hold tight for the sunset.

Day 18 – Exercise revisited

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Or The Incredible Speed of 6000…

Following the debacle of the first lockdown run, I’ve been getting better at exercising and doing small circuits of the garden Chez nous.

Some upper body weights, some online core and HIIT classes, the occasional run, a bit of cardio up and down the steps. It’s mostly been great. I’m actually feeling pretty good.

There are a few things that still need sorting out though.

This was yesterday’s workout:

Not bad. Decent figures. That distance isn’t correct though – the first run was measured on GPS and sold me short. This one relied on my steps and probably overestimated by a couple of kilometres. But this was all about heart rate and time, not about distance.

It wasn’t about speed, either. And that was a pity:

How do you like them apples?
What’s up, Usain? Can’t keep up, petal?

Yes. My maximum speed was 91.9kph. A speed I haven’t managed to achieve since heading back from Agulhas a couple of years weeks ago.

I’m faster than I look. Weird though – I don’t remember my face being dragged off my skull by the sheer, brute force of massive acceleration next to the pool. And Christ only knows what the braking distance is for that sort of speed. I’m surprised that I didn’t collide with a wall somewhere. My garden really isn’t that big.

There’s one other issue. Timing.

I’ve been timing my workouts by song. As in:

I’ll just do two more songs and then I’ll get a beer.

And when you know that you’ve only got one last song, you put in every ounce of effort you can. And then that last song turns out to be the 12 extended player of some 160bpm dancefloor remix by the Pet Shop Boys. And you very nearly die.

For 9½ minutes.

For the record though, the Pet Shop Boys are really good for getting you going while you’re exercising. Yesterday’s dance version of Love is a Bourgeois Construct got me up to almost 92kph.

Powerful stuff.