Lockdown day 12 - The list

(No, this is not a post about Kantara having started to lean over to one side. She hasn't. This boat has, however.)

A lot of my friends and acquaintances on social media have said how bored they're getting on these social-distancing days. I can thank my bullet planner for helping me to make sure that everything that has to be done - or those things that I simply want to get done - get done. Another piece of advice I've picked up from others is my list.

One entry that appears every day in my bullet planner is a line with the numbers 1 to 9. These don't get officially referred from the previous day; they're a permanent feature. They refer to nine things that I've decided I want to do every day, each of them to benefit me either physically, or mentally or spiritually. So there's

1 Exercise (largely weights and cardio)
4 Brain games (apps on my tablet and phone to challenge and develop my 68 year-old grey matter)
6 Duolingo (I was told when I retired that it's good practice to learn a new language, so I'm swatting up on my school German and school/university French, and learning Italian)
9 Walking (a decent distance at a speed that get speeds up my heart- and breath-rates)

and there's

3 TED (a daily TED Talk or similar to teach me something new, or to give me a new perspective on something.)
7 Reading (a novel, alongside one or two non-fictions that serve much the same purpose as TED)
5 Writing (not just this blog, nor the book-writing I attempt, but also fun writing exercises from a fabulous little book I was given by a friend)

which leaves

2 Meditation (something I'm new to and not yet made a habit. I use a really good app to lead me through each one)
and 8 Music (not as a background to the washing-up or whatever, but sitting down and listening with headphones and really paying attention to it. I'm amazed by the huge number of songs I'd never really heard properly!)

Obviously, it's rare for me to tick off every one of those on any one day, because there are other things to do with my life. And I've not yet tried it out whilst on the cut when I don't spend as much time below deck as I am at the moment (and who knows when we'll be able to cruise again!) but I find it a helpful list, the nine activities give me a lot of pleasure, and I always have something enjoyable to do.

Lockdown day 11 - Planning made easier

I'm not even sure what number day this is in the whole social distancing thing, but today I'm going to start using this blog as a bit of a log of our journey through this word-changing epidemic. I'm sorry if that bores you readers, but hey, you might find bits of it interesting! I'll look back at it in a few years time, maybe, and be proud that I didn't go mad from inactivity and under-stimulation.

Firstly, a visiting swan not keeping to the 2 metre distancing rule.

Since January 1st I've been using a bullet planner. Unlike a diary, it looks ahead and helps me to use my time well, and not to forget to do things - important or otherwise. At the start of the year, I listed all those things I could think of at the time that I wanted to get done in 2020. Some would get done in the first week, some of them are to do with with next Christmas. Some of them are related to the house, others to the boat. As new things come up, they go onto this "Future Log".

At the start of each new month, I refer back to the Future Log and take entries from that to put in the month's Task List. At the start of each day, I create a list of those things on the Task List that I want to do (and can do, depending on weather and other external factors) on that day; at the end of the day I tick off the ones I've done and refer forward to the next day the ones that remain, and they will appear among the next day's entries. Any number of them may get referred forward several times, but that simply ensures that they get done as soon as possible.

Naomi (eldest daughter) has been doing this for years, and swears by its power to improve your productivity. Last year, I read the book about it that she had bought, but I wasn't attracted to the idea. Then she showed me exactly how she uses hers, and I was won over straight away.

Of course, the journal can be used for all sorts of  other things, too - recipes, details of films seen, books read, ideas you've had for writing, blogging, growing, making things... It's very versatile, and it really works for her, and now for me, too.

Lockdown day 6 - A great way to achieve social distancing

I treated myself to an exercise walk to Cracks Hill yesterday. The weather was just right for it. I only saw two people. One was a jogger who overtook me on the canal towing-path, and the other was a baby-carrying woman who hurrying down the Crick Bridle Road towards me. We passed with two meters between us, but she seemed rather distressed. She was probably the owner of an abandoned small saloon car further up the path. It was up to its hubcaps in soft mud, and pieces of turf covered the ground around it, having been thrown up by her spinning wheels. She'd well and truly dug herself in. My problem was understanding how the heck she had got there, having had to cross three very uneven fields and gone through four farm gates. Odd.

Cracks Hill was silent, and I sat there for some time enjoying the sights, the fresh air, and the music in my headphones.

Back at the boat I continued the out-door theme and sat at the end of the pontoon with a cup of coffee, my music, and the beauty of the marina. This could become something of  a fair-day ritual. I've just come in from today's.

I did much the same walk today. This time I was intending to take the photos I didn't take yesterday of the mud-stuck car. Unfortunately - though fortunately for the owner - it had been rescued but, judging by the new deep ruts in the mud further down the bridle path, it hadn't been easy going.

This is where she gave up trying yesterday...

...and this is clearly one of several places where she got stuck again on her way down the track later.

Strangely, there were signs on Cracks Hill that perhaps this is some kind of local sport.

Social distancing is fine when there are walks like this to do!

I didn't pass this boat. Walkers have been asked not to go near moored boats in order to avoid
the risk of contagion should there be someone inside who has symptoms of the virus.

Lockdown day 3 - Spring arrives on the socially distancing marina

I've just come in from a wonderful half-hour or so sitting at the end of the pontoon, looking across the almost mirror-like marina pond under a warm, clear, blue sky, drinking coffee and listening to some of my current favourite music. Jan and Ed came back to Emma Jane a couple of days ago to make social distancing easier, and they're parked up next to us as usual. But they're inside the boat, and we're safely socially distanced. There seem to be very few people around. I can see one man on the other side of the water.

Well, we did our Paracetamol hunt yesterday, visiting four smallish supermarkets and one pharmacy, and coming home with two packs of caplets. We'd have liked it to have been four, so we'll keep our eyes out on those restricted shopping trips for food. Once again, the supermarkets were remarkably well stocked with almost everything, and shoppers were casual and sensible.

In the afternoon, we went for an hour's walk. It's not difficult to avoid people when you're living in the heart of the countryside, and the canal towing-path and a local footpath together offer some lovely walks of up to several hours duration. One Dutch barge passed us. The canal was very quiet. The weather was lovely - as it is today - and we only had to hold our breath on a couple of occasions when we passed other walkers. After the rough weather we've all had over the past weeks it's so good to experience the spring. The swans have nested here again, on a tiny island in a remote corner of the marina. They knew what season it was!

This really is the place to be at the moment, and I'm feeling very privileged, very grateful.

My new book has had its first review already! It was written by fellow blogger and author Valerie Poore, and I couldn't have hoped for a better write-up.

Check out Val's books. She lives on a barge in Rotterdam, and she writes about her years spent in South Africa as well as her boating experiences in Europe - very different from ours.

And don't forget "Out of the sunrise", will you?

Lockdown day 1 - Current reality

I've met a number of boaters over the years who have told me how glad they are that they spend much of their time being separated from their spouse by the length of the boat. Typically, he takes the helm while she sits at the front knitting, reading, drinking G & T or tea, and trying to stop a couple of badly behaved dogs from jumping overboard. Fortunately for us, this is not the case with Grace and me. We stand together at the stern while we cruise, and share the whole experience. So the fact that we are now spending most of our time social-distancing together in the boat is not a problem.

Despite the weather.

Nonetheless, I do feel physically cramped on occasions, and feel the need to get out and go for a walk. So I braved the weather on Friday, and headed out for a good stride on one of the several possible local, circuitous routes. It was cloudy, but not raining, but... the wind! I got to the top of a bit of an incline on my way to the marina gate and stopped. Not voluntarily, mind, but physically brought to a standstill by an oncoming gust. It ceased, of course, as gusts do, so I took a few more hopeful steps. Then I was halted by another. This gave me sufficient incentive to consider the option of abandoning the walk, but the sudden and painful freezing of my hatless head (silly me, forgetting my trusty beanie) persuaded me in a split second. Had I continued, my cranium would have surely turned to ice, and I would have died of hypothermia before got to the gate. I turned around, and was blown back home.

I tried again the next day. It was still a bit blustery, but nothing like as cold, and the deserted canal and countryside under greening trees and a clear blue sky were a delight. Social distancing was implemented to the letter. I met Phil Achernar taking Oscar for a walk, and we stood several metres apart for our brief chat. After that, I met no-one.

Today, the sky's the same, but we have a Friday wind. I have my beanie at the ready, but I'm not likely to face those gusts again.

I am very impressed by the people of Yelvertoft village and the current residents of the marina who go there for shopping. A couple of recent visits to the tiny Co-op there revealed shoppers with sensible amounts of goods in their wire baskets, and shelves that are almost totally full. People were walking past stacks of toilet rolls. True, there was little in the pasta and rice section, but the lovely Irish lady at the till told me that daily deliveries continue, and they rarely find themselves short of a stock item. There's a lesson there to be learned by the rest of the world!

A Sunday morning may well find us either at Dagnall Street Baptist Church (top) in St Albans or Rugby Baptist Church (bottom), but this morning such gatherings were - and will remain for n weeks - out of the question, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic (Covid - the new C-word) so the two of us joined DSBC virtually by means of the internet. It was otherwise a normal morning service of about an hour's duration, but sound only, and a recording made during the week by Simon and Jonni, our minister and his associate. Hymns were provided by YouTube (joining in was encouraged). It was strange, but oddly moving. I look forward - don't we all? - to living a life that feels more normal, though I think the end of Covid will start a new reality - but these simple socially-distanced services will serve the church very well in the meantime.

Tomorrow, we're going on a Paracetamol hunt. This is not stockpiling or panic-buying, but simply us making sure that, should either of us go down with this flu, we have enough for our needs. I wonder how many empty shelves we shall find.

PC or not PC, that is the question

Wow! We went to Sainsbury's yesterday. Just to do the week's shopping, I assure you. This was not panic buying on our part, but our twentieth step into the supermarket showed it to be far from super. We had never before seen so many empty shelves. Fortunately for us, everything we wanted was available in relative plenty, though I do confess to having taken the very last two-pack of tissues, which was hiding behind all of the empty boxes.

The interesting and useful thing is that out local Co-op rather small supermarket is very much more super. The only shortages they suffer from are toilet rolls and paracetamol, though these are both restocked daily along with everything else. In truth, the only reason we did our shopping at Sainsbury's is that we had three large bin-bags of recycling we were pretty desperate to get rid of, and Sainsbury's, though it's a twenty-five minute drive away, has our nearest recycling facility. We thought we might as well get the food in while we were there.

Back on the boat, we continue to pass our time reading, writing, knitting, doing jigsaws, fixing a few things the fixing of which is a bit/a lot overdue, and trying to find a break in the rubbish weather when we might go for a decent walk.

"Out of the Sunrise" is now published, the failure of the Kindle publishing machine having been overcome by my persistence - fifth time lucky - and has had a few sales already. With my tongue close to the inside of my cheek, I'm wondering if the story might be too non-PC.

• The lead male character in this book is not politically correct
• The lead dog is male
• Some of the characters are sexist
• All of the characters are White Caucasian.
• The only religion depicted is Christianity
• The only Christian denomination is Church of England
• Male and female characters do not play an equal part in the story
• The vicar is a man
• The dentist is a woman
• So is her receptionist
• Injury is caused to some of the animals in the story
• All of the human characters are apparently omnivores. Those who may not be don’t advertise the fact
• None of the characters are apparently LBGTQ (but they can be if you want them to be. I won’t mind)
• None of the characters speaks out against human slavery
• Christmas is called Christmas
• A spade is called a spade

I hope this won't put you off buying it. My beta-readers gave it an enthusiastic thumbs-up, so they weren't offended. One of those readers was Valerie Poore, herself an author rather more prolific than me, and well versed in the art of writing. I'm very grateful to her for her thorough reading of it, and the several useful criticisms she made.

Maybe this book of mine might help you pass your self-isolation time enjoyably!

Out of the Sunrise

a boating adventure with Billy the Dog