Day 63 – Reflections on Lock-Down

Today is a Bank Holiday Monday. I must admit, it felt like any other day I’ve experienced on lock-down. Did anyone else notice it was a bank holiday?

I am feeling more relaxed and present today – which I think is due to not having Chi Gong this morning – I am on Morning Chi Gong holiday for 3 days.

I fell asleep nearly immediately last night at midnight – I was exhausted, after a weekend of Birthday walks with Honey the Dog.

However, I woke up about an hour after and couldn’t get back to sleep. I often find that happens if I am too tired!

I finally got back to sleep about 3.30am and slept until 10am. If I had Chi Gong this morning, it would have had a knock-on effect of surviving on 4 hours sleep for the rest of the day. Thankfully, that was not been the case today.

I’ve had lots of energy to do things round my flat and generally felt more relaxed and a calmer mood.

Honey has been really tired, sleeping most of the day! I guess all that walking at the weekend has caught up with her.

At lunchtime, Honey and I headed up to Kate’s Park and spent a couple of hours hanging out in the park, sitting in the sun. Read the Guardian newspaper and relaxed. It was lovely.

Then I came home for a Zoom meeting with Robin.

Since 2003 Robin has run the Ceilidh Collective which organises ceilidh’s to raise money (unrestricted funds) for social and environmental charities and grassroots organisations. Including

To name a few!

The ceilidhs are run by volunteers – from decorating the venues, feeding volunteers, staffing the door and bar, tidying up and recycling. In return volunteers get in for free, get a lovely homemade vegetarian dinner and a free drink at the bar!

Some ceilidh’s we raise over £1000 in a night for a charity.

I first started going to to the ceilidh’s back in 2008. When I wanted to go, but my friends didn’t want to go that night, I decided to volunteer. That way I could meet new people, have people to dance with and have some fun too!

It’s a great community to be part of. Although, in the last couple of years, with my magic business growing I have been along to less, due to working on Saturday’s when the ceilidhs are on.

With everything on lock-down, on Saturday Robin is organising the first virtual Traditional Ceilidh event – ‘Quaker Cabaret Ceilidh‘. A traditional ceilidh is when different people stand up and sing a song, do a poem, etc…So that is what we are doing.

Remember the Zoom Photo-Shoot I was part of on Day 28 (20th April)? That was for this event to make the poster.

Robin originally had the idea of doing something similar to Majk Stokes Album Launch (Day 26) on Saturday 18th April, when I was the Zoom Bouncer and Doorman. However, with the issues of muting and un-muting everyone. He has come up with the idea of broadcasting the Zoom Event on Facebook Live.

All the performers will be in a Zoom Room, with every watching it on the Ceilidh Collective Facebook Page on Facebook Live.

We spent the afternoon trying to work out how to link a Zoom Meeting with Facebook Live.

Originally it kept shutting down Facebook Live after about 4 minutes.

At 4pm, Robin headed to the Post Office to post a parcel, whilst I tried to work out what the problem was.

He came back announcing it was a Bank Holiday, which he didn’t realise and the Post Office was shut!

But we solved the problems and now are all set for Saturday.

We always have a raffle – so we discussed how to do that virtually – which we worked out! Looks like its going to be a fun evening.

So if you are free on Saturday – head over to the Ceilidh Collective Facebook Page – CLICK HERE

Readers Corner

Aileen

Aileen posted a comment on Facebook on yesterday’s blog:

“Happy belated birthday, honey!”

Thanks Aileen, I’ve past your message onto Honey – she wagged her tail 🙂

Pat

Pat also posted a comment on yesterday’s blog on Facebook.

“Hi Mate Just Catching Up..My Tablet Was Out Of Commission… Happy Birthday To Honey… Hoping Your Safe and Well… 🙂 :)”

Cheers Pat – I’ve past your message onto Honey. She wagged her tail as well 😉

So as I reflect on today, its been a fun day, I am feeling pretty chilled out.

The last few days have been turbulent times with the Dominic Cummings saga. I have chosen not to mention this in my blog, as I don’t want the blog to become political.

Although, incidentally a few days ago I subscribed to Netflix again and watched Brexit: The Uncivil War and on my Birthday (18th March) watched and then re-watched last week on BBC iPlayer, Taking Control: The Dominic Cummings Story. Both about Dominic Cummings.

So if you don’t know much about him, I would highly recommend watching both of these. Also, check out his blog – not as good as mine, of course 😉 – dominiccummings.com – he’s an interesting man!

Hope you all have had a good Bank Holiday Monday – if you knew it was happening 😉

Jim xxx