Two non-essential walks a day and supermarket cabaret

Along with most people, my life is properly weird right now.

The government told me I’m only allowed out once a day. I hate rules so I’ve been going out twice. Responsibly though – one of those walks is to the end of my drive, and back.

On these walks, we (and by we I mean I) have time to reflect on a lot of things. Primarily on not being inside. I’ve found during this period of isolation that my subconscious mind is going haywire.

I’ve dreamt of ruling over a city in Ancient Rome, breaking the health and safety code at a glue factory, and, just this morning, I awoke with a jingle in my head – about elderly hour at Waitrose. Song pending. 

It’s funny what a change in environment can do to you – I imagine prison isn’t as fun as it looks in The Longest Yard.

To be honest I have almost no clarity at the moment.

I don’t know when I’ll finish school. I don’t know if there will be any clients for us to make work for if we get out of this by the end of the year. If so, will there will be any jobs for us to go in to? A strange old time to be learning the ropes of a new industry. 

But as we’re told on a bi-hourly basis at the SCA, opportunity is now here. 

Even if here is from some weird control centre you’ve created in your bedroom.

A lot of people have been asking me about how I manage to separate my work from leisure at home. They haven’t really but when you’re in isolation it’s sometimes nice to pretend people are interested in your life. 

SO. I’ve started building a fort. As a child I loved building forts. Pinning up the sheets, playing with the interior, the lighting, the ambience. There’s really nothing like a well erected fort. 

For starters I’ve moved my whole room around so as to ensure the angles are in my favour – you don’t want a droopy sheet in your fort. Next, I ordered 3x extra large sheets from the internet. I did this at 3am after accidentally falling asleep at 8pm and waking up in the middle of the night thinking it was my Barmitzvah again. So I bought 3x large sheets and pack of nails. 

It’s been almost twenty years since I last built a fort and let me tell you – I’ve learnt a lot in those intervening years. A lot about setting expectations for myself and understanding what is realistic to achieve in a given time frame. As a child, I would plan to turn my whole house in to a fort. On reflection, this was not a ’S.M.A.R.T’ goal. 

My sheets arrive on Wednesday and I’d be telling complete fibs if I told you I wasn’t excited.

For context, I’ve been in quarantined isolation far longer than most people. So if you’re reading this thinking – “what the hell is wrong with this guy, I’ll never turn that stir crazy” – let me tell you cousin, you’re wrong. 

If you don’t heed my warning, that’s fine – just don’t @ me for fort advice.