It’s not much of a game I’ll admit, but there’s a lot of waiting, just hanging around. A while back I described a game we play with the children called ‘Articulate’. Your team member has to guess a word by the clues you give them within a limited time. You might remember the word we were looking for was “Sacked” and Louis was given the clues - “Fired” or “Lose your job”. Louis guessed the word might be “Liberated?”. Says a lot about that boy. Of course we live in different times now, utterly surreal times. Playing that same game this week the word to guess was “Airport” and Amélie gave the clue “Somewhere we can’t go”. Next word “Supermarket”, Louis gave the clue “Where only a few people are allowed”. I find that quite sad. There’s always two sides to the coin though, Amélie is heartbroken that she can’t go to school to see her friends, conversely Louis is the happiest I’ve ever seen him, he’s been “liberated”. Undoubtedly they’re missing out on part of their childhood, a period in everyone’s life that is over far too quickly as it is.
What does seem strange is that I don’t seem to be doing any of the things I thought I’d accomplish. As has been said so many times during this crisis: “Our grandfathers and fathers fought in world wars, many lost their lives defending others. All we’re being asked to do is sit on the sofa and watch T.V. so don’t scew it up!”. Spending a long time in confinement might infer that you can now read all those books you’ve been putting off, tidy up your computer files, watch films you’ve missed. Not so for me, I wake up every morning with nothing to do and go to bed with only half of it done.
By the way you might notice that in some some shots included in this post that I’ve removed the 28mm and blown a huge amount of dust off the Noctilux 50mm f/0.95. You can read about this lens in an old blog post here.
So, here’s a quick look at what I’ve been doing. I’ve managed to get through some books and I’m part way through reading a Terry Pratchett novel about an apprentice witch to Amélie. I read to her every day for half an hour or so and spend another half hour with Louis helping him with his guitar practice. There’s over an hour gone straight off. There’s the household chores, two dogs make a huge amount of dust let me tell you, that’s some more hours depleted. After Christmas I decided it was time to improve my fitness and so I do ’The Shred’ for 20 minutes. Even though that’s the advertised amount of time, It’s slightly longer than that. I spend at least an hour thinking I should do it, another twenty minutes dragging myself to the exercise mat and at least half an hour in the ‘recovery position’ once it’s ended. Don’t laugh! Essentially it’s a high impact exercise DVD that Sam (my wife) had. The first week you do it forget about walking normally or sitting or laying down for that matter. Well you can, but it’s accompanied by a lot of groans and moans because every sinew in your body is screaming in pain. What makes it worse for me is that it’s aimed at women and so the instructor keeps saying “Come on ladies, chop chop, no stopping, push that butt out” or “pick up those weights ladies, we don’t stop, this is extreme, think about when you want to go bikini shopping”. I wouldn’t say that I was unfit before, I’m practically like a Greek God in any case ;-) For a start there’s always been a three mile or so dog daily walk across the fields. Now we do it with the kids. Same scenery and actors I’m afraid, just as I said in the last blog post. Some 28mm shots:
What else do I do all day? Well, we play games with the children, ‘Scrabble’, ‘Twister’ (no social distancing there), ‘Guess What I Am?’, that sort of thing. Incidentally, Louis was a Bridesmaid in the guess what I am game…revenge is sweet.
There’s been a little bit of cookery going on too, instruction courtesy of Sam our resident Head Chef. She makes cakes with the children, she bakes fresh bread everyday and prepares homemade soup for me. Here’s a little known fact: I’m a fully trained chef. Here’s another fact: I never cook. Here’s another one: I never eat anything Louis has made. We discussed before his cavalier attitude towards hygiene and how coronavirus is the least of my problems with him around. Here he is putting a “small teaspoon” of chocolate powder into the mixing bowl. Is that chocolate powder or gunpowder? You never can tell…I’m watching that boy like a hawk.
Of course there’s endless photographs to be made and developed, that takes some time. I feel the need to document most events, just like this one where Sam and Amélie got dressed up for the main attraction of the week… getting the wheelie bin in after the refuse collection. Here they are, followed by a quick portrait of them both and one of Amélie that depicts her as she is for the large majority of the time:
She insists on Sam straightening her hair when she’s getting dressed up. I don’t like it at all…“Thanks very much John, our Hair & Beauty Correspondent, now back to the studio for the news headlines”. Okay, what do I know about this stuff, what I do know is that I prefer her hair naturally curly and bubbly, just like that personality of hers:
Where was I? Oh yes, not getting anything done with all this time on my hands. I could be writing a book or I could be curating images for a Photography book that’s been on the back burner since God was a boy. I read the news, looking for some positive, a slight glimmer that things are moving in the right direction and we can get back to normal. That takes up more time than it should and I’m curtailing that particular part of my day. There’s a huge financial rescue package launched by the U.K. Government. Essentially quite a few people will be earning more than they were before the virus, unfortunately I’m one of those who have fallen through the crack, I get nothing. There’s more time spent worrying about money than dying from Covid-19. That’s a good thing, nothing centres the mind more than devising ways of jiggling money around so the kids can be fed. Fortunately Sam has some income so we’re saved, even so I have to plan where the next bottle of Rioja is coming from. I need that large glass of wine specifically for the 5:00pm news briefing from our Government. Our illustrious leader Boris Johnson is currently laying in a hospital bed under intensive care. Get well soon Boris, we need you, desperately. One reason for that desperation is that his deputy Dominic Raab is possibly the most boring person in England. Even the BBC cut away to something else the other day when he was in charge of the daily briefing, he is unbelievably boring. Seriously, I’m fairly certain that he’s had some kind of a ‘charisma bypass’. I did read however that he is a black belt in Karate so if he’s reading this and gets upset, I’m sorry and don’t want a fight. That said I do ‘The Shred’, I am ‘Shredded’ and therefore am ‘Bikini Ready’ so bring it on Mr Raab ;-)
The thing is I haven’t really found time to write this blog. I’ve been putting it off because, well, lets be honest, there isn’t much to say. We’re all in the same boat. We begun our lockdown a week before everyone else in the UK, we self isolated due to Louis’s persistent new dry cough and now we’re into our fifth week. We do the same things every day. I’m trying to avoid the ‘News’ like the proverbial plague, which essentially is all the news is about. Coming up is a little bit of grumbling from me, I apologise and put it here only because I can look back once this is all over. I’ve written to my local MP, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Cabinet Office to allow them the opportunity explain why it is many businesses and individuals are financially profiting out of this crisis with the aid packages on offer, ones in which I receive no help whatsoever. I’m genuinely delighted to hear Boris Johnson is on the road to recovery, I can’t help but wonder if his salary has stopped and he’s relying on the government aided Statutory Sick Pay - £95.00 per week. Okay, we’ll survive and I know there are many in this country and across the world that are in much worse shape. If I don’t get any financial assistance so what, I’m really frustrated about the giving away of taxpayers money to those who have never followed the rules and are stood to make a tidy sum out of all this, I’d rather be giving that to the genuinely desperate. The homeless or in what ever form the many vulnerable citizens. Anyway, that’s enough of that whinging. It’s written to remind me that I didn’t feel that there was enough help from my country, once this is all over perhaps I’ll pick a new one.
I’d like to say that I’ll be saying goodbye to rain and grey skies, unbelievably the weather here has been superb for many weeks. Dry, 25C and Gin clear skies…that also reminds me, time to get back into Gin & Tonic now the wine is running out ;-) Sam has returned from the supermarket with some beer, Corona, no idea why that isn’t selling, people are strange. It’s a mindset: Someone told me at well over two months ago that they were ordering a takeaway and couldn’t decide between Indian or Chinese. They chose an Indian takeaway, it would be safer because of the “virus”. At the time I wanted to point out that it was made locally and highly doubt anyone from Wuhan Province some 5,000 miles away was involved in the preparation! Of course I didn’t, because that person was obviously feeling extremely fearful and anxious. We all are: anticipating the unknown, trying to control something that’s beyond our control, reading too much into statistics. As Sam (my wife) so rightly says: “If these are going to be someones last months on earth what a waste of that time worrying about something that may or may not happen instead of simply enjoying that precious time”. Meanwhile we wait. It will end eventually. Then we can all move on to Brexit or the Environment… I can, once again, make that uneducated utterly uninformed leap from Photographer to Political Editor to Professor of Tropical Diseases to Environmental Campaigner. As they say: ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’.
As always my sincere thanks go to anyone taking the time to read this blog.
All images can be opened by clicking on the thumbnails and are taken using a Leica M with either a Summicron 28mm or Noctilux 50mm Lens fitted.
If you're interested in receiving new Blog Posts via email please subscribe using the box below which is titled ‘The Latest Leica Biker Blogposts Delivered To Your Inbox’