2020-08-23
I woke up early and lay in bed for a while knowing Emma wanted a big lie in to catch up on sleep from a bad week. Eventually I got up and booked a slot at the gym and cycled there. I’ve been running less and going to the gym more, is that a more vain balance of exercise? Jay Rayner was back at the gym, and this time James Nesbitt was there too.london
2020-07-06
We’re coming back to the world in floods of normalcy at the moment. One of my best friends was back in town on Thursday, and he came over for dinner and a drink. He was able to see our new home, I was able to cook for him, we were able to sit in our living room together and chat. We kept up chatting until just before midnight. We were all just so thankful to be able to have the kind of conversations you have with your friends in person when you’re relaxed.2020-07-01
I’ve been meeting my manager in the park every week during lockdown. He lived in a neighbourhood nearby and we both missed seeing people from work face-to-face, so it made sense. Plus the weather’s been good for the most part so it’s been nice to sit and have our catch up in the sun with either a coffee or a beer. Today I cycled there from the new house; it’s about fifteen minutes away.2020-06-10
The Black Lives Matter protests have become the story of the day. Hundreds of thousands of people in cities all over the world have been demonstrating for over a week. We joined the end of a march in Brixton first, hearing about it from a friend who saw it pass through Kennington and cycling out to join the fray. It was the first crowd I’d been in in months. It made the fact that people were shouting in one voice even more striking.2020-06-02
We’ve picked a new house. It’s going to be a house! It’ll have a garden and stairs and space for the cat, space for us to work and relax. We’re leaving in three weeks unless some recalcitrant property manager or landlord gets in the way. Outside, COVID-19 measures had begun to relax and things had begun drifting slowly toward normal. Then a few days ago the US exploded with protests against police violence in response to the murder of a man named George Floyd by a policeman in Minnesota.2020-05-25
The quiet of Abney Park in Stoke Newington We’re getting ready to leave the house. The idea of moving out of this place and into one of our own, already a firm intention before lockdown began, has become a serious one again. Subtly depersonalised pictures of the room we’ve spent so much time in have been taken, and posted online. We are responsible for reviewing applications for our replacements. Young professional, woman, 27, media.2020-05-03
We slept unhappily and woke up wary aliens to one another. I shuffled downstairs for breakfast and coffee but there wasn’t any milk. I’m known to shower first thing every morning, with stubborn regularity, but today I masochistically let the discomfort and sadness of yesterday fester on my skin and in yesterday’s clothes, which I slipped back on to lay on the bed. The cat curled up against me as I started reading, creature next to stone golem.2020-05-02
All week we’ve been building up to a big trip to the supermarket — the real, have-to-drive-there megastore. The others wanted the Big Shop experience; Emma wanted to give the car some use, save it from sitting unused and rusting for the duration of the spring. Some of them have also grown tired of the tight loop of stocking the kitchen just-about with grocery box deliveries and trips to the (still beloved, by me) corner shop.2020-04-12
It’s Easter Sunday. We ran 10k, to the river and back; it was sunny and the paths up the banks were quiet. The residential streets were even quieter, though every house was full up with its residents. These’s no simple phrase to describe a street that is quiet in the sense of traffic coming and going, but packed with everybody who lives there being at home at once. Yesterday we celebrated a birthday by cooking and eating a lot of food, drinking, playing games, and getting high.2020-04-05
The Queen gives a speech The bike and the cat have both arrived. They’ve shut the local park, a preemptive action ahead of a hot and sunny weekend. The endless internal and external dialogue about what is okay and not okay to do to stay happy continues. The cat gives some respite. Our minds can be filled with fretful thoughts about her instead of about the virus. The death toll is climbing quickly here, as in other places, but it feels much less visible now.