Day 8 of CoronaVirus Lockdown

The days are starting to run together a bit. There isn't a lot to distinguish between them. I've been reading about how best to cope with the stay-at-home instruction, and the advice seems to be have a routine of some sort. My routine at the moment involves breakfast in bed reading the newspaper on my iPad. Get up, check the chickens, then it varies. It all depends on my mood. I've been putting together little videos to go on YouTube and link back to this blog. Now that I'm back in the swing of blogging, it is quite nice to have that little bit of structure.

Last night I had a group accordion session with my No1 Ladies Accordion Orchestra. We all went online together and one lady would lead. We used Zoom. Mics were all muted so you could hear the lady who was leading and what you were playing. We then chatted a little between pieces. We had shared around all the music electronically beforehand. Debi could display the score for us via the main screen as the host if we needed it, but that made it difficult for her to join in. Most people had printed off copies. It was great fun.

I've learned a couple of German tunes from a harpist called Merit Zloch. The link below opens on  Merit playing an original composition inspired by the Jim Henson movie, Labyrinth called Harfe: Reise ins Labyrinth which demonstrates some amazing sounds that can be made with a harp by somebody who is so musically creative. Merit comes over with other musicians and often teaches at Halsway Manor, the National Centre for Folk Art. Her live streamed workshop on Facebook was brilliant (and I might add the tunes she taught us were nowhere near as complex as the Labyrinth tune I've linked to here!). She should have been in the UK when this Coronavirus hit.

People are being very creative. Today I participated virtually to a great workshop by Ben from Shoot Gardening on how to get the most out of their their garden database, tools and planner. I've got a 5 year subscription to this but have hardly been using any of the features. Now that we are all homebound, I plan to really get into it. The workshop was really good - I took lots of notes.

Last night I woke up at about 1:10am and tossed and turned for a bit. When I did eventually get back to sleep I had odd dreams. I've read that this is not unexpected in this strange and rather surreal existence we are living. Talking to my friends in the orchestra, few of them have even left the house since the lockdown started last monday (possibly none of them apart from me).

On the news they are suggesting that this situation might persist for up to 6 months. I do hope not, but if it does, I guess we shall cope

The daily coronavirus update has just started on TV. Listening to it in the background while typing this. I guess this has become part of my daily routine.