Disconcerting to see the headlines about Canada and Germany halting AstraZeneca vaccinations for women under 55 considering I'm a 54-year-old female who's due to be pumped full of the stuff tomorrow.
I'm nervous.
Was wide awake at 6am so sat and watched the gulls do their usual pre-dawn congregating on the rec. There were hundreds of them, having a good old chat to each other. Most of them stayed airborne this time. As soon as the sun came up, they were gone.
Felt like the kind of day to binge-watch Breaking Bad and eat jaffa cakes, so that's what I did.
Before I got settled in with the DVDs, I took this snip of the Ever Given from vesselfinder.com, and I'm glad I did because a few hours later it had moved:
Genuinely historical events don't happen that often, except for the last few years when it's felt like we've had about one a week.
And photos of the Thames at low tide, which reminded me of this one I took in 2013, at Millbank, on my second day of walking the Thames Path:
(With unerring instinct to make everything as gruelling as possible, I chose the height of a very hot summer to start the walk, didn't practice - distance or rucksack - beforehand, and wore unsuitable footwear throughout.)
And now I can finally close all those tabs.
Today's Photo: Too Much Reading And Not Enough Hoovering Going On Around Here
Spent the day reading for pleasure. Books of my own choosing! Incredible. This would count as a perfect day even before lockdown.
Finished three library books I've had out forever: Who Killed John Lennon by Lesley-Ann Jones, The Rhine by Ben Coates, and Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.
I'm taking notes from The Rhine, just in case I ever pass that way again.
I visited bits of the Rhine on my meandering and largely unplanned 2019 Grand Tour of Europe (I say "of Europe"; it was actually a limited and specific part of north-west Europe, Europe itself being much bigger than I had anticipated), and I enjoyed the experience so much I'm now tempted to do the whole river by bike.
You can cycle from Hoek van Holland to the river's source in Switzerland in eight days apparently; there's a proper trail and everything. And of course rivers have the additional benefit of being quite flat.
Bits of the Rhine I visited in 2019:
(Hoek)
(Bacharach)
Ben Coates says of Bacharach: "In years of wandering Europe's scenic landscapes, I'd rarely seen anywhere prettier."
Oh lovely Bacharach, I discovered you completely by chance and how happy you made me with your scenery and your glorious sunshine and your free overnight campervan parking right next to the river.
The fireworks to round off the Kulinarische Sommernacht am Rhein festival that night weren't too shabby either.
The next morning I dipped my feet into the river and thanked my lucky stars for bringing me to this gorgeous place.
The water was freezing and the current so strong that if I'd fallen in I would've been back at Hoek before I knew it.
I also watched a bunch of random TEDx talks today. This was a tangent from Invisible Women - I needed to google 'hyperbolic plane crochet' and one thing led to another and then I let YouTube autoplay take me where it will.
I really liked this one:
The John Lennon book left me with a huge list of other books to read and things to google, and also a new Beatle place to visit, Durness in the far north of Scotland, in case you were wondering how I plan my holidays.
(The Europe trip was basically an excuse to go to Hamburg; Iceland Christmas 2015 was mainly for the Imagine Peace Tower; New York both times was for Strawberry Fields and some other stuff I suppose; I go to Liverpool at every opportunity and even moved there once, nuff said).
It was a looking-out-of-the-window sort of day today, mostly watching the magpies coming and going and wondering what was happening in their nest.
There was a lot of noise coming from it this afternoon, so perhaps there are babies already.
Both of them came and sat in the big tree this afternoon, and one made periodic visits to take some of the food I've left out on the windowsill.
They ignore the sultanas, seed mix and almonds, and pick out the walnuts.
I almost bought dried mealworms for them, but was defeated by the creepiness.
Their nest is a marvel of engineering. It's built in a slender tree that lashes about in the wind but it's as solid as a rock. How do they do it? They don't even have arms.
As someone who booked a Covid test just for something novel to do after work this morning*, it resonated.
I was totally looking forward to the excitement of someone shoving a giant cotton bud up my nose but sadly, on arrival at the testing centre, I was told it was going to be self-administered.
Luckily, the young man ushering people through the facility spotted I was an idiot who was going to spend hours reading the instructions, so he stood there (at a safe distance) and directed me through the whole process.
Continuing the 'pretending to be on holiday' vibe, I drove - illegally, I think; it's more than 5 miles away - out to Barry straight from work, to see a big sky, breathe fresh air, dig my toes into yellow sand.
Mission accomplished:
Even saw some ocean-going swans:
But the whole enterprise just made me feel sad. I came home and went to bed for the rest of the day.
I feel sad when I'm utterly overwhelmed with university work, and then even sadder when I'm not. The relief of 'having nothing to do' soon gives way to realising how alone, how lost, how scared this past year has made me.
If forced to say nice things about lockdown, I could easily come up with two.
Firstly, being made to stay at home on full pay while being forbidden to work was probably the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Secondly, sitting around at home for months on end cured my plantar fasciitis.
After a lovely lazy, calm and peaceful morning this morning, I was finally driven from my flat mid-afternoon by the noise of all the noisy people noisily enjoying the sunshine on the rec, and all the noisy traffic.
Schlepping through quieter streets was pleasant. I went though Bute Park and into town.
Zara's haunted children shop mannequins were particularly terrifying, but all in all it was nice to wander through a near-deserted town centre:
I walked five miles in Converse - the first time I'd worn them in a year.
So close to finishing it off, submitting it, having a fortnight off for Easter, slogging my way through the two remaining modules of this academic year, dropping out of university, quitting my job and fleeing the country in order to resume a carefree life in New Zealand.
This essay's about eating meat and ignoring the sentience of cows and the brutality of the food industry and stuff, which is how I came to find this photo:
Still trying to figure out a way of working it into the essay.
It is the 78th day of 2021. The year is 22% over.
This time last year I had no idea how long the remaining 78% of 2020 would feel.
On that Friday, I was sent home from work, and wouldn't go back until September.
Walking home on empty streets, it felt like the end of the world.
