Day 42 – Reflections on Lock-Down

This morning, my routine was all over the place. Following Chi Gong, I listened to myself on the radio, reading out Days 1 – 7 blogs.

Despite, reading them all and playing them numerous times, it was actually really great to listen to them again. I don’t know how many people tuned in, but my friends Fi and Kenny said they listened.

I then met my magician friend Magic Gareth for Zoom Coffee.

Gareth has now developed The 20-20 Virtual Birthday show with different packages. It is for children’s parties, So if you are looking for a way to celebrate your child’s Birthday whilst on lock-down, I can highly recommend Gareth – he is highly entertaining and has some great reviews.

Following, that I had some things to do and before I knew it, it was lunchtime.

Not having a productive morning, my mood and motivation to do anything productive in the afternoon was minimal.

It’s amazing, how when I am in that type of mood, the chat in my head gets louder. Convincing, me that I need a day off. And “you walk Honey everyday on Arthur’s Seat, you deserve a day off”. I listened to the voice and we headed along to Kate’s Park instead – and the graveyard before Bedtime Chi Gong.

Honey spent most of the time sitting waiting and looking for any movement in Kate’s Park – hoping to maybe see a squirrel or a cat. She saw a cat right at the end, but no squirrels.

In the graveyard this evening, the sun was just setting and the moon was out. It was really still and I felt the quietness and stillness and “wow-ness” that I remember from the early days of lock-down.

In fact that evening walk was probably one of the highlights of my day!

This sign, caught my attention. Now that I KNOW I am a Leither it has so much more meaning 😉

Today, I got my first Universal Credit payment – the full amount for one month – £409.89. How anyone can live off that beats me! I could apply to get help with paying my mortgage or ground rent, but I can’t do this until I have been paid for 9 months of Universal Credit!

For those of you who are self-employed. HMRC has now launched a website so you can check with you are eligible for the Self Employed Support Scheme. This is not to apply, it is to just see if you are eligible for the scheme. If you are, you will be told when HMRC will get in contact with you in May.

The link is – https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-a-grant-through-the-coronavirus-covid-19-self-employment-income-support-scheme#eligible

The website told me I am eligible to get some money from the scheme.

Readers Corner

Kenny

This is Kenny’s first appearance in the blog. Kenny lives in Glasgow. He listened to me on the radio this morning and was firing comments over to me on WhatsApp. He wrote later about listening to me on the radio: