Day 164 – Reflections on Lock-Down

Wow – it’s been a fun packed day today!

I didn’t sleep so well last night, went to bed too late and then woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep.

But after Morning Chi Gong, Honey and I went out for our run round Arthur’s Seat (clockwise).  As we ran up Easter Road, we bumped into Austen, who was near to Mo Beans Coffee Shop wondering when it was going to open as he had arranged to have a meeting there.  We chatted for a while and he posed for today’s ‘Face-Mask Corner’.

We then continued our run up Easter Road and bumped into my friend Juliette, with Sid (baby) and Joe (dog).  I haven’t see Juliette for ages, so I joined them for a walk round London Road Gardens, before bidding them farewell.

 

I then stumbled across a noticeboard for the park, so read all about the history of it.  Apparently it originally was an area for slate quarrying!

 

The rest of the run was non-eventful.  For the first half it was perfect weather for running – warm, a cool breeze, overcast.  However, on our second half of the run, it became a lot windier and started to rain.  There was some amazing light, I was in sunshine, but behind me was rain – however, my phone had run out of battery for photos 🙁

 

As I ran past the pharmacy I noticed some work going on, but had no battery in my phone to take a photo.  However, later in the day on the way to The Melting Pot all was revealed – a 24 hour prescription pick-up.  There was no mention of Covid Safety on it, but I guess it would mean less people having to go into the pharmacy to collect or wait for their prescriptions!

Do these exist in other parts of the UK or the world?  I’ve never seen one before.

 

If you want to find out more this website has all the details and a short video too – https://prescriptionlocker.co.uk

I walked part-way to The Melting Pot, then picked up a Just Eat Bicycle (Billy 10713), stopped off to buy a kettle (mine has been broken for 6 weeks) and then cycled along a newer route.  I noticed lots of social distance signs embedded into the concrete and on trees.

In The Melting Pot I managed to get lots of people pose for Face-Mask Corner, so that’s nearly a week covered 😉

The general conversations were that people miss events, parties, gigs, dancing in nightclubs, anything!  In fact, not just missing events – but longing for them, life is boring without them.  I agree and perhaps this explains part of my feeling and stagnant energy.  I think it is also because I haven’t been on holiday since March.  I am planning on heading to the Isle of Canna at the end of September and so really hoping that some kind of local lockdown does not prevent this from happening.

The other thing that people were talking about lots was how we all want to do things In Real Life, rather than virtually.  For me, real life encounters are so special.  It feels like I have taken for granted the specialness of spending time with people IRL (In Real Life), now when it happens it is so special.

After The Melting Pot, Helen, Julie and myself spend some time (outside) at The Abbotsford Bar.

 

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Face-Mask Corner

Today we have Austen who I saw this morning.

He said his partner Alice made his face-mask out of an old pair of shorts 🙂

Wow!  Looks great – that’s two features in here which have been home-made 🙂

 

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Readers Corner

Just one sharing for today from Helen.

 

Helen

Helen posted a comment on yesterday’s blog (Day 163) saying:

“Well done Brian I searched around a lot too. I knew you had to be right about it being The Supernaturals – their style is unmistakable!

I didn’t find “Ken’s Song”, but I did find lots of their songs that I hadn’t heard before. And like you said, they got back together, so it was lovely to find some recent stuff.

I really enjoy the playlists and YT videos that appear in Music Corner, and it would be great to see more “guess that tune” competitions!”.

 

Thanks Helen for the comment.  Brian did have a bit of a head start, as he made me the compilation tape about 20 years ago!

Glad you are enjoying Music Corner, me too, and loving Spotify 🙂

I will have to try and find some more unfamiliar tunes for “guess that tune” competitions!

 

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Music Corner

As I listened to Spotify this afternoon, as I “follow” Hannah on Spotify (and her privacy settings allow me), I can see what she is listening too.  This is a great feature and is leading me to lots of new music I’ve never listened to before.

There’s also something nice, listening to a playlist, whilst you know your friend is listening to it too at another part of the world 🙂

So today’s playlist, is what Hannah and I were listening to this afternoon, it is one of Hannah’s own playlists.

SixtiezRoadtrippin’

You’ve obtained a 1967 convertible Mustang (legally or otherwise) and you’re driving it through the New Mexico desert looking for a wormhole to a better era.  It’s all in mono and one speaker’s out but this’ll do.

 

 

Thanks Hannah!  Some great tunes here 🙂

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As I come to the end of the blog, I am feeling super tired – less sleep last night and then a busy day of meeting folk today!  Saying that it has been great to be out and about and meeting with a friends.

There’s more and more in the news about big house parties and illegal raves taking place at the moment and being broken up by police.  But it makes sense, that people are so bored of this situation.  It feels like we are in stagnation, wanting things to go back to how they were, but they are not.  How long will be have to wait?  No wonder, people are just organising things themselves.

Today the weather has been a mixture of rain and cloud, but quite warm.  Although, this evening it got colder.  There was a really bright moon in the sky this evening, I see it was a full-moon yesterday.

I hope you’ve had a fun week.

Jim x