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Cork
  • Lisa Shine
Kas 2019 – Eyl 2025

Cork

A little blog about my adventures in Cork! Okumaya devam et
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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 58 - Sunshine!

    9 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Thankfully I am much recovered from the shock of Leo’s announcement eight days ago, and I am enjoying lots of things about lockdown again. For a start, it’s lovely to be able to go 5km from home for exercise. I know we all talked about how changing from a 2km to 5km restriction wouldn’t make much of a difference, but it actually has. I’m now able to do a big 10km loop that brings me up over the Lee Valley, and it has the most stunning views, especially on a sunny day like today. What I also like about this route is that, while about half of it is on paths in the city, the other half is on narrow country roads through the countryside and you feel, mentally, like you’re quite far away from everything coronavirus-related when you’re out there! Thinking back, it now seems so strange that we were all restricted to a 2km radius from our house at one stage, and that we couldn’t even drive anywhere! I’ve been doing all of my running this week in the same area by the Lee that I’ve been going to for a few weeks now though - I wonder is it a case of Stockholm syndrome?!

    Before my run today I did the parkrun Global Quiz, as is usual on a Saturday. After the run, I returned home to find that our neighbours had put a bouncing castle up in their back garden. Strange, but thankfully they didn’t have any visitors over for it, which was what we were expecting to happen.

    Around lunchtime, I collected our Tesco Click and Collect shopping and, just after I got home, our landlord and her husband called in. Our washing machine is completely broken, so they’re going to buy us a new one as soon as possible. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long, as the washing is really starting to pile up! It was strange having our landlord and her husband in the house, fully kitted out in masks and gloves. However it’s understandable as she lives with her mum who is quite sick and, as such, has been fully cocooning for the past two months.

    Today was the nicest day of the year so far here, in terms of weather, so me and Peter sat out on the decking all day reading. I had bought the paper in our local shop, for the first time since lockdown, and we both read it cover to cover. It’s such a novelty for us to have a newspaper! It made for sad reading at times though, especially the section that gave the life stories of a number of people that have died from covid-19. Most of the coverage to date has been about the numbers that are sick and in hospital, so seeing the faces being these numbers really gave me pause for thought.

    Our evening was interrupted at about 8pm, by a big group of Spanish people, on the green in our estate, partying, singing loudly and playing drinking games. It’s strange that you would draw attention to yourself in this way! Anyway, moments later, the Gardaí pulled up in a van and the most hilarious scene ensued. The entire group of grown adults sprinted into the thin line of bushes beside the field as soon as they spotted the Gardaí. They weren’t able to hide very well though, and I could see lots of branches quivering. Meanwhile, an overweight Garda was scuttling around in the bushes whooshing everyone back out again. What a scene! Everyone went home again anyway and all was quiet for the rest of the night thankfully.

    I think scenes like this are being repeated all over the country though. Fiona texted this evening to say that there was a big carnival atmosphere in her estate, and that her neighbours were having people over for parties. It’s weird, I can’t imagine texting someone to invite them over to my house at the moment!

    In some good news, the number of new covid-19 cases has been below two hundred for the past two days, which sounds really promising. On some days in April, it was at over eight hundred! Anyway, the trend seems to be going in the right direction, thankfully, and I’m feeling a real sense of hope and optimism with all of this news. In particular, I’m wondering if they might bring forward some of the phases of relaxing the restrictions. Peter tells me not to get my hopes up, in case I end up disappointed, but it’s hard not to. Everything feels wonderfully optimistic in this sunshine!

    This morning, on our run, me and Fiona talked a good bit about the importance to the human psyche, of having things like holidays, or even just brunch with friends, to look forward to. We also talked about that lovely feeling you get when you step off a plane in a foreign country, and we pondered when we might be able to go on holidays again, even in Ireland. We’ve decided to replace our yearnings for foreign holidays, with the feeling of looking forward to a family reunion holiday in Rosslare. That will happen sometime soon, and it’s going to be just brilliant. In the meantime though, we can imagine we’re abroad, especially when the sun is shining!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 59 - 5km from home

    10 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Today I drove to Tramore Valley Park on the opposite side of the city for my long run. What a wonderful, liberating feeling! It’s like someone has had their hands around my neck for the past two months, and that today, they finally started to loosen their grasp! Firstly, driving somewhere that is not the Wilton Tesco is just so strange, and secondly, being in Douglas, a part of the city that we haven’t been allowed to go to for about two months, is just so exciting!

    I had a lovely eighty minute run around the park. There’s so much space here - wide paths, grassy fields and undulating terrain. I even (almost) bumped into Donncha O’Callaghan on the narrow path on the way into the park!

    During the run, I started pining for a time when we will be able to reward ourselves with a nice brunch out somewhere after our Sunday long run. So, to make up for not being able to do this, I stopped in Centra on my way home and bought a scone for myself. Again, I haven’t been in a Centra in almost two months!

    On my way home, I spotted a guy practicing his hurling against the wall of Cork City Gaol. That wall has been creatively used, quite a lot, during this lockdown!

    In the afternoon, and after a shower and lunch, myself and Peter headed to the big field beside the river Lee, so that he could do a running session. He thinks that he’s getting “soft” during lockdown, so he wants to start doing sprint sessions again. We measured out 60m on my GPS watch, and I wandered around and sat by the river, while Peter worked away for almost an hour. It’s great that he’s motivated enough again to get back out running, after a break of a few years!

    When we got home, we had a great Zoom chat with Fiona, Lisa, John and Garrett. These Zoom chats always have us laughing lots, and are the perfect tonic at the moment! We chatted for almost two hours, mostly reminiscing about funny stories from races that we’ve done in the past.

    There wasn’t much time after this and before I would end up falling asleep, so me and Peter watched the final episode of Money Heist - Season 1, and then I collapsed into bed. My legs are very tired after today’s long run, but I’m happy after another day well-spent.

    Boris Johnson updated the British public, this evening, on how they are going to start relaxing restrictions. His speech was quite confusing, though, and most people do not seem to be clear on exactly what they’re being instructed to do for the next few weeks. I’m glad that we seem to have much clearer leadership here at the moment! Our government’s document may have been a bit overwhelming for me last week, but at least it was very easy to understand!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 60 - Wrecked!

    11 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C

    I don’t know what came over me today, but I was completely wrecked, both physically and mentally! I spent the whole day with the worst brain fog, I could barely focus on anything, and I drifted aimlessly from one task to the next. Unfortunately, this coincided with my busiest day of the week, work-wise. I need to upload my chemistry lectures, screencasts and homework before 10am on Tuesdays and, of course, I always leave all of the work to do on Mondays! Some Mondays, I’m like a briar, trying to get it all done, and Peter knows to steer well-clear! Thankfully, today, I managed to get everything done without too much stress, despite my inability to concentrate!

    At one point during the day, I also had a massive sugar low and I was feeling light-headed and dizzy. I tried eating fruit to combat it, but it was only when Peter told me to eat one of his massive chocolate bars that I started feeling better! I wonder what caused all of this? Fiona tells me she was feeling similarly wrecked today. I reckon we’re physically tired from the huge amount of running training we’ve been doing, and this is on top of the mental strain caused by the pandemic. I guess it all takes its toll, even without you realising.

    At 12pm, I took a bit of time to do a live Yoga flow class through Fiona’s work account. Fiona did it too. It was good to do some gentle stretching, especially given that today is a rest day on my training plan and I’m not doing any running.

    After I uploaded all my lessons to our college website, at around 6pm, I went upstairs and did a bit of cleaning. Then, I face planted on my bed for about an hour because I wasn’t physically or mentally able for anything else! Peter arrived up eventually, saying “I thought I might find you here!” He’s very good when I’m in this kind of state! He put rice on for me, then the two of us had dinner and watched a bit of TV. Needless to say, I was in bed by about 10pm!

    I wonder what will happen next week, in terms of lifting restrictions. In one way, I’m enjoying having all this time at home. The roads are empty, so I can often run right down the middle of them, to give myself lots of space. Also, when I need to drive right into the city centre to collect my prescription from the pharmacy, it only takes about five minutes and I get parked right outside the door. News is coming through, from other places in Europe, like Germany, that the spread of the virus has started increasing, now that they’ve started lifting restrictions. They’re a little bit ahead of us, so it’s like a view on the future for us.

    Another Crusaders virtual challenge starts this week. I was on the winning team in the virtual relay challenge last week. It was lots of fun, especially the team element. The social aspect is nice too, getting to know people in the club that I’d never have spoken to before. Initially I thought we might be doing these virtual challenges for a month or so, but it now looks like they’ll be continuing for a few months before we can get back to training! I hope everyone doesn’t get injured in that time, because lots of people ran their timed mile last week completely downhill, to shave a few seconds off. The downhill running is getting a bit out of hand in the group!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 61 - Normal People

    12 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    On our running plan today was a tempo run, followed by eight thirty second sprints, followed by another tempo run. Me and Fiona did it “together” by phone and I headed up to the road beside the “Beautiful Lee Valley” sign for the hills. The views up here are just spectacular and are such a pick-me-up! I also love how few cars there still are on the roads - it means that I can run on this road with no footpath, without too much worry. I’m already feeling a bit sad that some restrictions will start to relax on Monday, because the place will start feeling busy again. There’s a lot to be said for this quieter pace of life, and I’ve really settled into it now as a new normal! I hope we don’t all rush headlong back into the way things were before, without thinking about whether we actually want everything to be exactly as it was before!

    We had our weekly Crusaders quiz this evening - Mike and Susan were the hosts. They had a really fun section, based on the Generation Game television show, where they showed us twenty items and we had to remember as many of them as we could later on. I got fifteen, but Mum and Anna remembered nineteen! Mum told the group about my “imaginary friend” story that I told on Newstalk yesterday - I don’t think I’ll live this one down for a while. Haha!

    After the quiz, me and Peter watched the latest two episodes of “Normal People.” It seems like most of the country are glued to this television show at the moment, not least because the amount of nudity in it has caused huge outrage on Joe Duffy’s radio show! The fallout from the show every week is nearly better than the show itself. As Peter said, “who would have thought we’d end up glued to Joe Duffy during this lockdown!” After the show, Joe Duffy tweeted: “I want to phone in sick tomorrow - who do I call?” Brilliant!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 62 - A new training partner!

    13 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Peter was still feeling stiff today after his first interval running session in a long time last Sunday. So we made plans for the two of us to head out for an easy jog, to help to ease the stiffness in his legs. At 6pm we went down to my now usual field beside the river Lee, and we jogged and chatted together for about half an hour before Peter stopped and I did another ten minutes. It was nice to have someone to run with, as I’ve done two months now of solo running. It was also a lovely evening, and it always feels like we’re completely in the middle of the countryside when we’re in that field. It’s never too busy either - just the odd walker.

    I spent most of the rest of the day trying to finish our lockdown orchestra music. It’s been going on for a while but I’m really aiming to “release” it before this weekend. Apart from anything, I’d like to try a new tune if others are up for it. I’ve learnt quite a lot about remote recording from this experience, so I’d like another go at it!

    We also had our usual Sheehan quiz at 9pm this evening. Suzanne, in Australia, was the quiz master and it was great fun - she even included a Kahoot round! I won the quiz today, and this was the first time that I didn’t have Peter beside me helping me too! When it was over, I chatted to mum and Anna for about an hour or so, which was nice.

    The anticipation is building again this week, in advance of restrictions relaxing a little bit next Monday. I used to enjoy the build up to these government announcements but, after the shock I got at the last announcement, which basically said that Summer is cancelled, I’ve decided not too think too much about this upcoming one. Once garden centres are still allowed to open on Monday, I’ll be happy!

    I popped into our local shop, for the third time since lockdown began, today. It’s only 200m from our house, so I’d like to be able to make more use of it. It’s a tiny shop, so the owner only lets one person in at a time. It feels quite pressurised, deciding which chocolate bar to buy when the shop owner is looking at you though, as well as everyone else queueing outside the window on the street! The atmosphere is always very friendly though, and people generally seem to be quite conscientious about giving each other space in the shop. It’s a bit of a pain having to queue, but the inconvenience does make me appreciate things that I would have taken for granted before. Finally walking out with the hard-earned newspaper and snack is a great feeling!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 63 - Adapting

    14 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    It’s funny how much you can adapt to a new situation, even when you initially think that you’re never going to adapt! I feel now, two months in, that I’m finally starting to properly adapt to the lockdown. This has become normal life now, so moving back to our previous normal will probably take a whole other period of adaptation! I see that my favourite garden centre will be opening on Monday. While I’m absolutely bursting to head there, I think I might wait until Tuesday or Wednesday as it’ll probably be very busy on the first day.

    Thursdays are always busy for me, as I give classes on Zoom from 10am until about 3.30pm. The students are finding it hard to keep their motivation up now, but thankfully we only have about three weeks left of term. Almost all of them have expressed disappointment about potentially having to start college next year online. They all seem to be dying to get back to Ireland, but it currently looks like they won’t get back until January. I think this has affected their motivation too. Watching lectures online at home in Oman was not the type of Irish College experience that they dreamed of!

    Thankfully, the sun and blue skies came back today again too. Me and Peter put Rodrigo Y Gabriela on the speaker, sat outside, closed our eyes and pretended we were in Marbella. This was Fiona’s recommendation, and it really worked! It was nice to imagine being abroad on holidays, especially given that it probably won’t happen for another year or so!

    In the evening, we watched a film about Brexit, with Benedict Cumberbatch in it. It was great! Although it got me thinking about how all these big news stories from a few months ago have now completely disappeared since Covid-19 arrived. Not that long ago, we were all immersed in Brexit. Now I can’t even remember whether it’s happened yet or not!

    This pandemic has really taught me a lot about the difference between what seems important in life and what is important in life!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 64 - A new washing machine!

    15 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☀️ 8 °C

    We have not had a working washing machine for about two weeks now, so I was very excited today to have a new machine installed! In fact, I was probably a bit too excited, as I put on five washes and now we don’t have enough space to hang all the clothes to dry! It’s not a great time to have an essential appliance break down. However, our landlord has been very good about it. Her and her husband came over, wearing face masks and gloves, and installed the new machine. We had very little contact with them, except to unlock the front door for them. Then we made sure not to be in the same room as them at any stage.

    I started today, like every Friday, with my 8am Pete class. For the first time, I did this class outside. Pete commented on how nice the weather looked here. For once it seems like we’d more sun this morning than Dublin had. It always seems to be the other way around! I took advantage of the nice weather to read my book outside for a while. Then I collected our Tesco shopping and, while me and Peter washed and disinfected the items before putting then away, we wondered if we were going to have to continue washing our shopping for years to come!

    In the afternoon, I went for a run to my usual field. Someone has moved a large slab at the entrance of the field, to make the stepping stones over the stream a little easier to navigate, which is nice! I’ve noticed lots of little things that people have done in the past few weeks to improve our surroundings. There are also a lot more weeds on the roads and paths, but I think this is a good thing, especially for the bees and insects. In addition, lots of the weeds have pretty flowers at the moment, which are nice to look at!

    While out running, I missed Leo Varadkar’s speech about phase 1 of the easing of restrictions, which begins on Monday. It’s probably just as well, given the meltdown I had two weeks ago after his last speech! I only end up getting my hopes up, and it probably has less of an impact on me to hear the latest updates, gradually, from other news sources, rather than from Leo himself. As expected, not much is going to change on Monday. Garden shops and hardware shops will open. We can meet up to four people in an outdoor space if we wish, and we are advised to wear a face covering when on public transport or in enclosed spaces like shops. We’ve all been so good for the past nine weeks - all of this seems like not very much reward.

    Fiona also missed Leo’s speech this afternoon, and I joked that our radius had gone back down to 2km. She got a bit upset hearing this - I shouldn’t joke about these things! I would have gone mad if someone had done the same to me. Sorry Fiona! She was also disappointed that Ikea will not now open on Monday, when it had originally been earmarked as somewhere that would open. I totally see where she’s coming from. We’re all looking forward to when we can do things like holiday in Rosslare again, so we really want to see the early phases moving in the right direction! For some reason, hardware shops can open, but not homeware shops.

    This evening, we ordered dinner from Pompeii pizza, which me, Peter and Damo had been looking forward to for almost the whole week! Initially, the restaurant was too busy and we couldn’t put an order in, but thankfully they reopened a short while later and we soon had our food. I loved Peters excitement at about 6pm when he exclaimed “is our Pompeii pizza delivery tonight?!” It doesn’t take much to get us excited these days!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 65 - Eurovision

    16 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    Saturdays always start with the parkrun Global Quiz. Me and Mum both did it from bed this morning, and I got a pretty dismal seven out of fifteen this week! Doing the quiz in bed is a nice way to gradually get used to the idea of getting up.

    After this, me and Fiona did our running session. This felt great this morning, and my legs felt nice and energetic, compared to the tiredness that’s been in them for a good few days up until now. On my way home, I spotted a sign outside the Cork Waterworks tourist attraction. It said that, due to coronavirus, the building would remain closed until March 29th. That got me remembering those days in March when we all thought that we were going to be shut down for about two weeks or so. I even remember, at a staff meeting around the 10th March, discussing whether we should do laboratory work or not when the students came back in April! We really had no idea what was ahead!

    RTÉ and TG4 are showing past sporting events, to make up for the complete absence of sport on TV these days. The Ireland vs Romania match from the 1990 World Cup was on television, and I put it on for a while. Peter remembered so much detail about this match, including the players, the score and a lot about what happened during it!

    Pretty much the whole of today was spent adding Peters recordings and video to our lockdown orchestra project. We had a good laugh making his video part - he’s gotten surprisingly into this project!

    In the evening, the Eurovision was on. During the show, they played a thirty second clip from each of the entries, and interviewed previous winners etc. It was an unexpectedly emotional watch, and I ended up going to bed earlier than I was planning because I was tired from the emotion of the programme!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin
    1

    Day 66 - Back to the Marina!

    17 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    The 5km limit on how far you can go from your house has been in place for almost two weeks now, but today was my first time back at the Marina in over two months. This is where I would normally do almost all of my long runs, so it was lovely to be back for a ninety minute run today. I particularly enjoyed getting to be beside the sea again for the first time since March. The next thing that I’d like to be able to do is to go for a sea swim, but I think that’ll have to wait until the radius extends to 20km in three weeks time, as I can’t think of any swimming areas within 5km of home. At least it gives me something to look forward to!

    I also managed to capture one of my favourite images of the lockdown, while out for my run today. A lady, who looked like she was over seventy, had her arms outstretched and was breathing in the sea air. It makes me feel really uplifted just looking at this image!

    On the way home from my run, I stopped in a nearby Tesco express to pick up some grapes and a few treats. Unexpectedly, I was the only customer in the shop for almost the entire time. People are shopping less these days so I think they prefer to go to the bigger supermarkets where they can do a bigger shop.

    Me and Peter did a lot of work on our lockdown band recording this afternoon. Peter seems intent on perfecting the piece to within an inch of its life at the moment! I guess we won’t be going anywhere for a while, so I’ve now allowed myself to get sucked into the process of tweaking and fixing lots of little bits in the piece. It’ll be a masterpiece by the end of all of this!

    I’d a lovely chat with Fiona and Orlaith on Zoom at 4pm today. We avoided almost all talk of the virus, and we’d a good laugh about air fryers and egg makers. Complaining about the restrictions of lockdown has its place, but it’s also really nice to have a conversation with friends, in which the virus and lockdown are not mentioned at all! After a little wobble this morning, where Peter had to listen to me rant about how “Leo Varadkar is not managing the situation well,” the chat about an egg maker was much needed!

    I do, overall, think that the authorities have managed the situation in our country well. Sometimes, though, it just seems that the current restrictions are unwinding at a snails pace!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 67 - Phase 1 begins

    18 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    Phase 1 of reopening country begins today. It doesn’t mean much for most of us though. Hardware shops, garden shops, and a few other essential shops can open again, and construction workers can go back to work. The rest of us still have to stay within 5km of our homes.

    Hardware shops have been getting ready for big crowds. I’ve posted a photo of preparations at Woodies, below. On the radio, I listened to an interview with people, who had been standing in a queue of fifty, waiting since 7.30am for a garden centre in Cork to open at 9am! The woman who was first in the queue said she came because she really wanted some geraniums. I think people are just bored and desperate for something to do at this stage! On the news this evening, they showed scenes from B&Q in Liffey Valley, and the queue stretched back and forth several times across the car park!

    I certainly wasn’t going to attempt going to any of those places today. My students online chemistry exam arrived, so I spent most of the day using it to prepare a revision class for them. The exam is quite out of left field, and will be quite a shock to the students, I think. Even Peter found it tricky enough! So, I’ve prepared a question for them to do this week, that is almost identical to the exam question, but with a few small changes! I normally would never do something like that, but there’s no rule book for this year! Me and Peter had a great laugh, as he helped me to prepare my revision class. The answer to one of the exam questions is copper sulfate. We decided that I should talk about a hypothetical substance called popper pulfate in my revision class!

    It’s funny how so many things around town have become frozen in time. One of the photos below shows the advertising hanging on the Cork Opera House, advertising shows in February, before the lowdown!

    We got our covid 19 information booklet in the post too. For some reason ours is completely in Irish though - they must have run out of the English language ones!

    My sunflowers are also still doing really well. I must get some twine to help them stand up though. I can’t wait until I can soon go to a garden centre!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 68 - Garden centre

    19 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    I decided to head out to the garden centre early today. The weather’s due to be nice this week, so it’d be great to have some flowers to plant while the sun is shining. I’ve literally done every other thing that’s possible to do in the garden at this stage. The place has been meticulously prepared - I’m pretty much picking weeds as they appear, these days!

    I got to the garden centre just after 9am and I was the only person in the shop! It was a lovely experience. They had social distancing measures in place, including a one-way system in the shop, jut in case the crowds were big. It’s in quite a rural location though, so it’s still not possible for a lot of people in Cork city to get to this shop. The staff were lovely too, and they were all saying things like “welcome back!” Many of the staff seem to be close to or over seventy, but they had a teenager out on the floor, moving your trolley to the exit after you’d paid, while the older staff stayed behind a plexiglass screen.

    When I got back from the garden centre, I had a Zoom meeting with my manager, Marian. I told her that I thought the chemistry online exam paper will be very tricky for the students, and that I had prepared a question to show them, that was almost identical to the question on the exam. It turns out that she’s done the same for her subject, which was funny, but also a relief. She said to me “Lisa, you’ve verbalised how I’ve been feeling - there is no rule book for this year!” We’re all just trying to do our best, in unchartered territory, I guess!

    Before lunch, I prepared to do my running session at the same time that I knew Fiona, Olwyn and Mum were meeting in Kilboggat to do theirs. I was on the phone to Mum, and then every time Fiona and Olwyn passed her, we would shout and woop at each other! It was great fun! I was also stopped twice during my session by two separate women out walking in the field, who commented on how much energy I had. “No sooner have you passed me by, then I’m turning around and you’re passing again,” one of them said! One of them is called Mary, and we’ve seen each other a few times recently in this field. She told me that she’s over seventy but that she wasn’t able to stick with the full length of the cocoon, so she comes down to the field to walk up and down a few times every day. She was very keen to hear about my training! I know her name is Mary, because on my jog home, I spotted her driving from the field and then going in the gate of a house a few hundred metres further along on the Lee Road. She waved at me again, and I heard the man she was with saying “see you soon Mary!”

    My Miles that Mater T-shirt and medal arrived in the post today. I got them as part of a virtual run that I did, and all proceeds go to the Mater Hospital Foundation. I’m not really sure what you’re meant to do with a medal that arrives in the post during a pandemic, so I decided to wear it around the house for the afternoon, much to Peter’a bemusement!

    I spent the entire afternoon having a great time planting all of the flowers that I bought this morning. Then, as usual on a Tuesday, we had our Crusaders table quiz. James Cottle won this week, on his birthday, which was nice. Following the quiz, we watched the next two episodes of Normal People on TV. It’s such a great show, and it’a nice to look forward to every Tuesday!

    There were only fifty five new cases of covid 19 reported today. This is good news. However, we’ve also been told today that this virus, and social distancing measures, are likely to be with us for years, rather than months. That’s the type of comment that I note briefly in my mind these days, and then quickly filter out, so that I can focus on the present. There’s a good bit of evidence online that shows that people are not sticking to groups of four, as per the current rules, when meeting up. Lots of people are meeting in much bigger groups. It’s a bit of a kick in the teeth to those of us who haven’t seen our families in months, and are patiently waiting and hoping that the phased relaxation of restrictions won’t be pushed back later than it’s already scheduled for.

    Oh look, I’ve just spotted the photo we took of Peter blending into the blue chair!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 69 - Meeting outside my household

    20 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    I had a few bits and pieces to do today. I had to plan my second last chemistry lesson for tomorrow, I had lots of washing to do, I walked to the post office with a letter for Peter’s parents (his Mum needs a particular electric lead to be able to play her violin remotely with her friends) and I planned my questions for tonight’s Sheehan family quiz. However all of this pales into insignificance compared to the main event of the day: meeting someone from outside my household!

    My household currently consists of me, Peter and Damo. And, for sixty nine days now, Peter and Damo are the only people that I know, that I have seen. Wow, when I write that down, it sounds completely insane. But it’s true. I’ve seen shop assistants and pharmacists, but, in terms of friends, Peter and Damo are the only ones I’ve seen for over two months now. I guess I have just never thought of it that way because I’ve seen so much of my friends on Zoom these days. This is the first time that I’ve really stopped to think about it!

    Anyway, last Monday, my friend Marie from St Finbarrs running club texted to ask if I’d have any interest in meeting for a socially distanced run this week. What an exciting text to get! I had been thinking of texting her but I wasn’t sure how up for it she’d be and I didn’t want to pressurise her. It turns out we were both thinking the exact same thing! I’m so glad she texted though. This is day three of us being allowed to meet in groups of up to four for exercise or socialising.

    We met outside Tramore Valley Park at 6pm and did a forty five minute run around the park. When I met her first, it felt so surreal. It was the strangest thing ever. I’d almost forgotten how to interact with a friend. And, I guess it was made all the more weird by the fact that we couldn’t come closer than two metres, even though that’s what every urge in your body wants to do when you see someone you know! I’ve heard people with autism describe how difficult it often is for them to know what to do or how to act in social situations. I kind of felt a bit like how that has been described to me!

    We’d a great catch up on our run. It turns out that we’ve both had a similar experience of lockdown. For example, she had a big meltdown the day that Leo Varadkar announced the details of the phases of the relaxation of restrictions, and it took her about a week to recover from that. She’s also really missing being able to go and see her family in Cavan, more than anything else, and is keeping the option of a sneaky trip home on the back burner for now! It’s nice to chat to someone in the same boat as me, and we are both counting down the days to July 20th, when we can see our families again! Interestingly, she said that her husband finds it hard to understand why she’s so upset, which is exactly how it’s been with Peter too. In fact, I’ve heard so much anecdotal evidence of women finding the lockdown tougher than men. When I stopped in Tesco on my way home, I saw several newspapers’ headlines which said that women are being hit hardest by the lockdown. This conclusion was arrived at after a CSO study, which I actually took part in. I wonder why so many women are finding it tough while men, like Peter, are happy out?

    In the evening, I hosted the weekly Sheehan quiz. Everyone, especially John, was very complimentary of my questions, which was great! Peter won. He beat the Lisnashee team by three points. The Lisnashee team are quite the force to be reckoned with every week! My last question in the sports round was “in which county is Castlehaven parkrun?” Anna was outraged by such a question, but Mum loved it. I think it’s actually my favourite quiz question of all time!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 70 - Storm coming!

    21 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ 🌧 12 °C

    Since lockdown started, we have had the most lovely weather. We’ve been able to sit out in the garden, in the sun, almost every day, and it’s been such a help at these times. There’s a storm on the way this evening though, that’s due to last for the next forty eight hours or so. In the early evening, I was chatting on Zoom, and Damo came in to say that he’d had to move our coloured chairs because they were blowing around the patio. By the time I’d gotten off the Zoom call, Peter had moved all my plants to under the pergola for shelter. He seemed to be particularly concerned about the sunflowers, which are quite tall at this stage, and I just about convinced him not to bring them indoors!

    As usual, Thursdays are my busy days, in terms of Zoom classes. Today was my second last day of classes though before the exams start. The chemistry exam paper has been redesigned so that it can be taken online, and I think it looks really hard. So I spent today showing students questions that are almost identical to what will be on the exam. I’m glad I did, because they were all exclaiming how unfamiliar the format of these questions was to them! I probably laid it on a bit thick, but sure, as I keep telling myself, we are in extraordinary circumstances. I pretty much as good as told them what’s coming up on the exam. I don’t know how many, if any, of them will have picked up on that, but I guess we’ll find out!

    The weather was nice this morning, so I managed to get out for a walk and chat with Mum. It was good to get some fresh air between classes, instead of doing the usual housework that I often fit in at this time!

    In the morning class, one of the nerdy Vietnamese students started trying to point out a mistake in the question that I was trying to teach (which he quite often does!). At the time, I kind of dismissed his query, as it wasn’t really relevant to what we were doing. However, by the time the afternoon came, I was looking for something to do, so decided to email him to ask him about the question, in the hope that I would “win” and that he would be wrong! Haha! Me and Peter spent a few hours trying to research an answer to his question, in the hope that we might be able to prove him wrong - this appears to be the stage in lockdown that we are at now! Thankfully, after Peter spent a bit of time searching the literature, it all worked out in our favour and I was able to email the student to point out his mistake (for which he actually seemed to be grateful!). Me and Peter had a great laugh through all of this, and by the time evening came, I was looking through my class lists saying, “right, which other students can I start emailing to take down a few notches?!” Haha!

    Unfortunately, there were images on this evening’s news of crowds at Sutton beach and Dart station. The Gardaí even had to clear the beach at one point, because of the crowds. It’s difficult not to feel angry, when you’re doing your best, even though it’s hard, and you see other people not trying at all. Hopefully these type of scenes don’t see the relaxation phases being delayed this Summer!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 71 - Windy!

    22 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

    Today was very windy, but I managed to get out for a run just before 8am, and then I was back in time to do the 8.30am “stretch flow” class hosted by Home Festival. Home Festival is a Facebook page that hosts about six or eight free online activities per day, including dance classes, yoga, cooking classes and makeup tutorials etc. It’s been one of the best things about lockdown for me, and I usually do something from their page at least once a week.

    At 10.30am, I had to meet my boss to hand over some student assignments. She lives out past Blarney, so we met outside a church that is about halfway between our houses. It was nice to see her in person again, after over two months. We didn’t get to chat much though, because we could barely hear each other in the wind. She opened her boot, stood back, and I put the papers in. It’s a bit awkward trying to navigate these new social interactions! I’ve now met two friends since lockdown began, and I’ve felt quite clumsy/awkward in both encounters! We’ll learn to adapt to the new normal, I guess.

    I spent most of the rest of the day preparing my screencasts and lecture material for Tuesday’s classes. I think this is the first time that I haven’t left it until the day before! I’ll be glad on Monday, when all I have to do is hit the upload button.

    As usual on a Friday, we chatted to Peter’s family on Zoom in the evening. Zoom makes me tired sometimes, so I joined in about halfway through. Then we watched a funny Seth Rogan film called Long Shot, although I passed out asleep before the end. I’ve my Crusaders virtual relay mile tomorrow morning, and I’m feeling a sense of anticipation like I would before an actual, real life race!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 72 - Cru Together Apart

    23 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    This morning was time to do another virtual relay with Crusaders. Today, I was on a team with Fin and Ian. They were each running 3km, and I was running one mile. I jogged a mile along the Lee Road, as a warm up, and this meant that I knew exactly where my run was going to end. It was hard doing it the last time, not knowing where or when I could stop running. I improved my time today by twenty four seconds (since the last mil time trial about a month ago), to get 6:36 for the mile. I’m delighted that all of the training I’ve been doing seems to be paying off!

    After my time trial, I headed down to the retail park in Mahon to collect a power washer that I had ordered yesterday. Quite the new vista greeted me as I drove into the retail park. About half the shops were open, and each had their own long queue waiting outside. Thankfully, there were only about ten people ahead of me in the queue for Halfords, but B&Q must have had about fifty people waiting outside! Shops are limiting how many people can enter at any one time, which is causing these queues to build up. Halfords weren’t actually even letting anyone into the shop - they had a desk at the door, and most people were just collecting items that they had ordered online. I must have been waiting about half an hour though!

    This evening was meant to be our annual Crusaders club dinner, so I came up with the idea earlier in the week, of making a picture with all of us wearing our club colours during lockdown. A steady stream of photos came in to my phone throughout the morning, then after lunch I compiled the collage. It looks even better than I expected. It’ll be a lovely souvenir for us all to have and everyone seems to have loved it!

    I managed to squeeze a little bit of power washing of the patio in this evening, then me and Peter ordered takeaway and watched the film Birdbox, which was very entertaining! Our favourite takeaway, Yama, has reopened this week, so it was nice to be able to order from them again!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 73 - Virtual escape room

    24 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ 🌙 10 °C

    I started my Sunday morning, as usual, with a long run while chatting to Fiona on the phone. I headed out along the Lee Road, into the beautiful countryside and then came back along the other side of the river. I’ve started driving down to the start of my run because my calves are starting to complain about all of the uphill walking that I do after every run!

    In the afternoon, me and Peter headed out to meet Brendan, Megan and baby Maura in Tramore Valley Park. It was a lovely sunny day, so it was nice sitting on the grass chatting. It’s difficult to make a baby do social distancing though! Maura kept crawling towards us and the others kept having to pull her back! We chatted for about two hours, and it was strange saying goodbye at the end. None of us were really sure how to leave, because normally you’d hug or something! It was hard not to go close to baby Maura too because normally your instinct with babies is to play with them.

    I’d a few hours of sunshine in the evening to read my Normal People book and I also spent half an hour cutting out the necessary material for our Virtual Room Escape in the evening. Then me, Fiona, Mia, mum and Anna met on Zoom to do the virtual room escape. It was brilliant! There were all sorts of clever puzzles to put together and, as usual, Mia was the one who solved the final, pivotal clue for us. Of course there was also the usual situation where the Cualanor gang ended up frantically shouting things like “tell me which one is for the lips!” or “what do you mean Blacksheep Enterprises?!” Room escapes would not be the same without them. Haha! I laughed so much, shouting things frantically back at them too!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 74 - Crying at a parkrun documentary

    25 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    Wow, this whole thing is quite the emotional rollercoaster! Today started out with a nice walk, as it’s a rest day on our running plan. The paths are getting a bit tricky to walk along in places, though, as the weeds have grown loads and I don’t think the council are working to clear them at the moment!

    I also power washed our patio today, and it’s really brightened up. Peter climbed into our recycling bin to squash it as it’s getting very full. I did not approve of this method - it looks a bit high risk!

    In the evening, we sat down to watch some television, and a parkrun documentary (that I’ve actually seen before) came on. I was delighted to see it! The strangest thing happened though. About ten minutes into watching the programme, tears started coming out of my eyes. It took me so much by surprise that I had to ask myself “what is this?! Am I sad?” I think it was the fact that I was watching images of a life that we can’t have at the moment. I was crying because I missed it so much. Parkrun is one of my favourite things to do, and we don’t know when it’ll be happening again, but it was only this evening that I realised just how much I deeply missed it and all of the lovely socials aspects that it brings! I turned to Peter, with tears in my eyes, and said “I’m finding this quite sad!” Before I could finish the sentence, though, I was laughing. And, next thing, we were both laughing out loud at how I was crying while watching a parkrun documentary! I was laughing so hard and so loudly, that I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. It was just a massive outpouring of random emotions!

    In the evening, the switch on our cooker’s extractor fan broke and it got stuck in the “on” position. We managed to switch it off at the switchboard, but it means that we’re going to have to contact our landlord again, just two weeks after she had to come out to replace our washing machine. Very annoying!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 75 - Last chemistry class

    26 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Today I had my last Zoom class with my chemistry students. It’s really surreal to think that we’ve somehow gotten to the end of the year already. The past few months, in one way, have seemed long, but in another way it feels like they somehow got sucked into a vacuum! I used the class to talk them through how to download, complete, and upload their chemistry exam. Then, I showed them a photo on screen of all of us standing outside the chemistry labs in UCC in January. Back then, little did we know that the year would end in such a strange way, with none of us getting to say goodbye in person! The students sent me lots of nice messages through the chat box in Zoom, then I said I’d see them for their exam next week, and I signed out. I’d better get started on the coursework corrections, given that the exam corrections will be coming my way next Wednesday!

    As is usual on a Tuesday, we had our Pete strength class at 6pm, which I did outside. I also cooked us some lovely lentil and goats cheese stuffed peppers, which Peter, kind of surprisingly, really liked! In the evening, Emer was the quiz master for the Crusaders quiz. I think hers is the quiz that I’ve had the biggest laugh at so far. At one point you had to state which isotope was released from Chernobyl, and you even had to get the mass number exactly right, to get the point!

    The weather is meant to be really warm and sunny for the rest of the week. That’ll be nice as it really helps to keep the spirits up!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 76 - Unbelievable weather!

    27 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Right, so I’ve a big pile of corrections that I need to get done before next week, but the weather is amazing, so I’ve decided that they can wait! You just never know what the rest of the Summer’s going to be like, so you may as well make the most of it while you can!

    I spent much of the day outside, reading, listening to podcasts and tending to the garden. At 6pm, I met Marie again for a session in Tramore Valley Park. It was a gorgeous evening and she was happy to follow whatever plan I had, so we did a hill session. She told me that she’s planning on heading to Cavan to see her family this weekend. We’re currently not supposed to travel further than 5km from home, but Marie said that she’s still having very disrupted sleep and misses home, so she’s just going to go for it. And, to be honest, I couldn’t argue with that. It’ll be interesting to hear how her journey goes and whether she encounters many Garda checkpoints.

    After our session, I stopped in Wilton Tesco to pick up some BBQ stuff for tomorrow. It still gets me every time, how completely and utterly everything about our lives has changed so quickly in recent months. We now take it as normal that there’s all these signs, like the one below in the shops, instructing us to use one way systems and not to come closer than 2m from each other.

    At 8pm, Fiona was quizmaster at the Sheehan quiz, which was brilliant. I particularly liked her round where you had to guess what TV show the music came from. She kind of used it as a way of making television show recommendations to us all! As usual, me, Mum, Anna, Fiona and Mia stayed on a little bit after everyone else to chat, and Suzanne popped in briefly from Australia where it was 7am. She had a lie on this morning so didn’t make it to the quiz an hour earlier like she usually does!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 77 - Puncture

    28 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    One of my car tyres appeared to have a slow puncture, so I had an appointment in the city centre to get two of the tyres replaced today. I hadn’t been in the city centre since March, so I was actually looking forward to having a stroll around while I was waiting for the car to be ready. Unfortunately, due to social distancing and a majorly reduced staff in the car mechanics, it took three hours for the car to be ready! I wandered around the streets in the sun, got a takeaway burrito and then sat for a good while on one of the bridges over the river.

    At once point I got a bit emotional at how much the city centre has changed, and a few tears welled up. So many shops are shut, and the ones that are open have queues to get in. It felt kind of sad how quiet everything felt. At one point I went into Boots, the first non-essential shop visit that I’ve done in months. I felt guilty, though, browsing nail varnishes and face moisturisers, so I left after not too long. I’m not sure why I felt bad. Maybe catching covid-19 while shopping for essential groceries would be easier to take than catching it while browsing night creams!

    In the evening, we had a lovely BBQ, our first this year. We had vegetarian sausages and burgers, and they were actually delicious. You’d barely tell that there was no meat in them.

    Fiona also sent me a little package this morning, which was a brilliant surprise. It contained Avamys spray for my hayfever (which is pretty bad at the moment), a birthday present for Peter, and a big bottle of “Squashies” scented shower gel - my favourite sweets! It’s nice feeling connected to home through these little gestures.    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 79 - New runners

    30 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    I arrived home from my run today to find a package on my doorstep. It was the new pair of runners that Mum had promised me from my birthday in January. What a brilliant surprise!

    The runners are red, and match our running club’s colours, so I especially can’t wait to try them out in a race with my club singlet!

    My family have been so good at posting bits and pieces over the past few weeks and months. Fiona sent me a bottle of “Squashies” shower gel a few days ago, when she was posting my hayfever medication. It’s all these little things that make this time in lockdown so much nicer! Plus, you can’t beat bathing in the elixir that is liquid Squashies! Haha!

    My sunflowers are coming along nicely. I’m also really enjoying having them as a little project at this time!    Okumaya devam et

    Çeviriyi gör
  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 80 - Mini marathon day

    31 Mayıs 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Today would have been the day of the Mini-marathon, and it would also have been the day of the Cork City Marathon, which me, Mum, Fiona and Anna were going to do as a relay. So, in lieu of this, our friend Olwyn organised a socially distanced 10km, with staggered starts, around Dun Laoghaire, for a small group of friends. Obviously I wasn’t able to join them, so the plan was for me to do my long run here at the Marina, while chatting on the phone to Fiona. Fiona ended up running the 10km with Olwyn, but she kept her phone on so that I could listen in to their conversation while I ran! The time passed quite quickly while I was listening to the two of them chat!

    I started my run at 8.45am and it was already very warm. It’s probably just as well that we weren’t racing today! The atmosphere around the Marina was nice also, and I could sense that lots of people were running their marathon on their own today anyway. I could spot the marathon runners as they had gels, water bottles and one was even wearing their Cork Marathon pacer T-shirt! It felt like a bit of an event was happening.

    I finished my run before 10.30am and I had an hour and a half to wait until I could collect my first brunch of the lockdown from Douglas (as you had to book your collection time in advance). I attempted to go to Woodies while I was waiting for brunch, but when I got there the queue had about fifty people in it, so I decided against it! I went and sat in my car and chilled in the sun in Douglas instead!

    At the cafe, their outdoor seating area had been transformed into an outdoor queuing system, and it had a window that you could collect your order from. I was sitting, waiting for my order with a few others. A man arrived, looked at the arrows on the ground and asked loudly “is there a queue or what’s happening? It’s impossible to tell how anything works these days!” We all laughed, and I think that was because we all agreed with him!

    When I got home, I sat outside in the sun and ate my brunch. Then I spent most of the rest of the day sitting outside in the sun, reading (trying to finish the Normal People book, in advance of the last television episode this week!) and chatting with Peter. The nice weather is meant to end on Wednesday, so we feel like we have to make the most of it!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 81 - Visiting Nuala

    1 Haziran 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    We had two social appointments today! Life has been running at a much slower pace in recent months that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be trying to fit multiple activities into one day.

    Before all of this though, I got my long run in, wearing my new red runners. They were very comfortable. My running sunglasses broke when I dropped them on the floor before going out though. I bought them in Lidl ages ago and I haven’t found a more comfortable pair since. I must keep an eye out for a new pair!

    Our first meet-up was with Brendan and Megan in Tramore Valley Park. The sun was beaming down and it was almost too hot at times. However, we found a nice little slope of grass in the park and had a great chat. Megan had baked us two muffins each, which we wolfed down before the butter icing melted. Their daughter Maura also seems to have started walking since we saw them last week! They said that they enjoy bringing her to meet us, as it’s probably good for her to see other people that aren’t just her parents. She mightn’t cope well with meeting new people if the only people that she sees for months are Brendan and Megan.

    After about two hours or so, we left the park and went to visit my great aunt Nuala, for the first time during lockdown. She seems to have a setup that has gotten a lot of use over the past number of weeks. She has a little table and chairs set up outside her window and lots of photographs stuck to the inside of the window, that we could look at. We chatted to her for about an hour and she gave me a jar of cucumber pickle when we were leaving. It was strange new having to turn down her offers of tea or a glass of water, but you’re not meant to use cutlery at another person’s house.

    We stopped for ice cream in Centra on our way home, and I felt very satisfied when I got back to our house. That was a lovely day out! I found the envelope from the card that Fiona sent me recently, when she posted my bottle of squashies shower gel. Getting presents from family, at this time, is almost like having a little bit of them in your home!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 82 - Last drop-in class before exam

    2 Haziran 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Today was another lovely, sunny day and I went for my run in the morning out along the Sundays Well Road and onto the Lee Road, as usual! We also had our Pete weights class in the evening. I’m doing all of these classes outside now and I’m improving my set up each time. I’m almost not missing the in-person classes at this stage! Our pergola makes the perfect place to tie my elastic band for various exercises.

    In the afternoon I held a voluntary drop-in session on Zoom for any students that had any last minute questions before their chemistry exam on Wednesday. Two students signed in with small queries and a third appeared in the Zoom “waiting room” but disappeared after a while, before I could let them in. I’m feeling a sense of sadness at the fact that this is my last week with these students. It is the nature of teaching, as a job, that you have to say goodbye to students every year. However, it’s heightened this year by the fact that we don’t get to say goodbye in person. Almost all of my students would love to get back to Ireland in September, but it’s looking likely that university courses will be online until after Christmas. It’s funny that they all can’t wait to get away from their family again, while I’m counting down the days to see my family!    Okumaya devam et

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  • Lisa ShineCorkGezgin

    Day 83 - Online chemistry exam

    3 Haziran 2020, İrlanda ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    I was up early today as my online chemistry exam began at 9am, and I had to meet the students on Zoom at 8.45am to go through the procedure beforehand. The guy who came to my drop-in session yesterday, but left before I could talk to him, said that he had just wanted to come along to say hi!

    All went well with the exam. I stayed on Zoom for an hour after the start time, in case anyone had any questions, but they didn’t really. I also kept a vague eye on my emails throughout the day, as the students had twenty four hours to submit. A good few messages came in during the day, and I was surprised at how thrown some of the students (especially some of the better ones) had been thrown by the online exam. I guess the new format was a bit disconcerting, even though I had basically told them what was coming up last week (or at least, I went as close as I could to telling them)!

    In the evening, I did an hour’s run (at a fairly snappy pace!) with Marie in Tramore Valley Park. Then I stopped in Iceland on my way home, to pick up some frozen dinners. They have “Wham” flavoured ice cream. I might buy it another time!

    In the evening, Anna was the quiz master at the Sheehan family quiz. I really enjoyed it. It’s great getting to see so much of our aunts and uncles these days. We’ve a great laugh every week!

    Exam corrections start tomorrow, and I’ll have one week to get them done. I’ve already had two emails from students: one lamenting how easy the online exam was, and one complaining about how ridiculously hard it was. In a Zoom meeting win my colleagues, they guessed exactly who the emails were from. I was very impressed!    Okumaya devam et

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