Boredom, too much social media, absurd telly and that’s just for starters!

Another week in lockdown and it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that it’s been more of the same. I became so bored at one point that in utter desperation I cleaned the bathroom. In fact, it’s getting that bad I am even contemplating cleaning the oven. Given that my hard-working Rumanian cleaners ended up ghosting me rather than continue to clean my flat, I’ll leave you to imagine what an upset in the general scheme of things this is for me.

Of course the crux of being in lockdown when you live on your own is the lack of interaction with other human beings. At least I get to chat with the nurse at the clinic three times a week, but it can be soul-destroying at times when it’s just you, your thoughts, the odd book and Netflix to keep you company. It’s easy to start imagining the worst, fixating on social media or watching any old crap on TV just to pass the time. If you know anyone in that position, then take it from me, give that person a call – preferably via Skype, WhatsApp or Facetime. Being able to see someone AND interact with them will make all the difference.

Personally, I spend far too much time on social media and watching the news. It’s definitely not good for one’s mental health. Reading stories about #ventilatorgate and countries like Spain and Italy allegedly having cut off points to treat people at 55 and 45 respectively are worrying, particularly when you’ve been 38 for as many years as I have.

Thus despite the best of intentions, I’m sad to report that my resolution not to have an afternoon snooze failed miserably. I managed to stay awake during the day on only two occasions this week. Even then I was productive on just one of those days. I’ve come to the sad conclusion that my productivity rate is inverse proportion to the time I have at my disposal. That doesn’t bode well for me should this lockdown continue apace.

I did find time however to binge watch Freud on Netflix. Well, a gal has to do something with her time. In case you’re wondering, the programme is totally absurd. It features Freud as a young hunk who goes around solving crime while chasing Hungarian witches and in the process thwarting a plan to bring down the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Who said men couldn’t multi-task? I’m no expert on the life of Freud but I strongly suspect that a few liberties might have been taken with historical facts.

Despite the absurdity of the premise and its macabre nature, I continued to watch it for three things (besides being bored out of my mind). Firstly, I’m an Austrophile and the show is set in Vienna. (No surprises there). Secondly, some of the characters speak in the Viennese dialect for which I have a soft spot. (I admit that’s niche).’Give us an example?’ I hear no one cry. Well, at one point the policeman Poschacher (Christoph F. Krutzler) uses the phrase: Schas mit Quasteln to mean that’s a load of rubbish. The literal translation is ‘shit with tits’. You have to admit the Viennese have a wonderful way with words.

The third reason was down to Georg Friedrich as Inspektor Kiss who is, by far and away, the best thing in it. It’s worth watching Freud for his performance alone, and if Netflix had any sense I would scupper the Freud aspect and build a series round Kiss and his sidekick Poschacher instead.

In other news, I am still getting stressed by what’s going on and the fact that after this week I have no money coming in. (I suspect I’m not alone in this). I am obviously relieved that the government finally got round to saying they would help the self-employed though waiting till June for something to happen could prove interesting….

As I mentioned, I’m still making my trips to the clinic to get my wound treated. After one such trip I got an email from London Transport asking me if my trip was really necessary. I’ve decided if they email me again I will send them a photo of my wound, assuming I can work out the zoom. On Wednesday’s trip, I noticed three traffic wardens parading up the road, happily ignoring the advice to stay two metres apart from each other. Surely the one thing the world doesn’t need right now are traffic wardens? On the way back, there was just me and one other female passenger on the bus, who, for some inexplicable reason, was incandescent with rage and haranguing the driver incessantly. How come there is always one nutter on the bus even if there are only just two of you?

In an attempt to be pro-active I started a weekly book review. So far the choices have been rather eclectic – Nigerian writer Oyinkan Braithwaite’s novel My Sister, The Serial Killer and a Scottish classic, Robert L. Stevenson’s Kidnapped. So if you fancy a bit of a read, I would heartily recommend both. I also tried out going live on Instagram. To my amazement, people actually joined in for the few seconds I was on and then I realised two things. I didn’t know how to stop filming and secondly I hadn’t prepared what to say. Both proved major oversights on my part. In other news, Jen Brister and I hope to record something together via Skype. Given how technically adroit we both are, this may or may not happen soon. In the meantime, feel free to watch our virtually ignored vlogs via Jen’s YouTube page.

This leads me to the most surreal moment I had this week. I woke up from one of my afternoon naps to see that Curtis Stigers had tweeted about one of our vlogs. Given that almost nobody knows about them (including close friends. We really need to work on the marketing.) that was quite a shock to the system. Jen and I are always surprised when someone likes our tweets, let alone someone famous whose Twitter feed must be constantly updating.

It reminded me of the time I woke up from an afternoon nap (yes, another one. I like naps. I’m middle-aged. It’s a thing.) to find that an article which I’d written for Standard Issue about Jamie Fraser of Outlander fame had gone viral. I couldn’t believe it. I’d written an article and it was so good, it had gone viral. It then transpired that wasn’t what had happened at all. Sam Heughan who plays Jamie Fraser had retweeted a tweet with a link to the article and my Twitter handle happened to be included and his tweet had gone viral. But I suppose a gal can always dream……………

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