Day 40 - Quiz host

It’s day 40 of our lockdown and I can’t believe we’ve gotten to this point already. What have I don’t with the last forty days?! Good thing I have this diary to tell me! It’s been like some sort of weird lent, where instead of giving up chocolate, we have to give up leaving our houses!

Today started, as it usually does, with an easy run down by the river. I passed two Garda checkpoints within the first kilometre or so of my run. It’s funny that just one month ago, a Garda checkpoint to ask you why you’re leaving your house would have been unthinkable, and now it’s almost completely normal! Things have changed so quickly. The new way of life has become normal so quickly. I was just thinking that it was just over a month ago that they announced the school closures, and Peter and I headed to a jammed Wilton Tesco to stand in queues of people all stockpiling food. These days, meeting one person on the opposite side of the road is close enough contact for me! Thankfully, the Gardaí at the checkpoints are never really interested in pedestrians and are pretty much only stopping cars, so I was able to continue my run unhindered.

I ordered some seeds online last week and they arrived from Mr Middleton’s a few days ago. Having planted lots of them in my garden, I put some in envelopes today to post up to Mum and Fiona.

I’m really fully embracing lockdown mode in recent days now, or “living my best quarantine life,” as they’d say on social media! I’ve no doubt that it’ll probably only last briefly, and that I’m only days away from another meltdown and another frustrated outburst at the restrictions, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. I think the best way to sum it up is that I am now ok with being unproductive, for the first time in a long time!

I prepared homemade chickpea burgers with chips for lunch, and me and Peter sat at the dining room table to eat them. How civilised!

Then, at 6pm, we had our weights training class with Pete. I think it was our hardest one yet! It was also a funny situation because Peter was jamming on his guitar in the same room as me doing the class. I’m still also using a massive rock, instead of a proper weight, but I hope to rectify this on Thursday when Lidl have a sale of fitness equipment.

At 8pm today, I took on the role of Crusaders quiz host, having accidentally volunteered for it last week! It was a great success, even if I did end up pretty tired afterwards from talking to myself for over and hour. I really enjoyed making the quiz this week too - it was a lovely diversion. The best round, I think, was one where people had to guess the missing word from James Cottle’s race reports. People seemed to like to novelty of it, and I’m sure there were some funny answers! I got great feedback afterwards in our WhatsApp group amyway. The winning score was 37 out of 50, and a good few people seem to have gotten about 25 right, so that sounds like I pitched the standard appropriately.

I don’t know how another nighttime has rolled around again so quickly, but I will be fully embracing my sleep tonight, as I’m tired from my run and strength class. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but I hope it brings nice weather at least. There are rumours of some very sunny weather in the next few weeks!Read more