Wed 1: It didn't seem the right year to do an April Fool's post, and the rest of the world's media seemed to agree, although I did enjoy the National Trust's squirrel signposts. Thu 2: Tuned in to watch One Man, Two Guvnors on the National Theatre's NT at Home YouTube channel, which was a very welcome three hours of escapism, and creatively brilliant. A wistful reminder of a time when gathering together in large numbers was permitted, even encouraged, simply for the purpose of enjoyment. Sounds proper dangerous now. Fri 3: BBC1 rejigged its schedules to end the evening with Sliding Doors, the what-if romcom. I spent most of the early part of the film grimacing at the relentless geographical inexactitude (that train doesn't go to that station, that's not the street outside, you couldn't possibly walk there...), and the rest of the film being repeatedly amazed by how different life in 1998 was. Giving both of the lead characters mobile phones would have solved most of their problems. Sat 4: Sir Keir Starmer is the new Labour leader, which feels like a total irrelevance at present but also a return to some kind of reality, even potential electability, if not for some time. Sun 5: The Queen has far better speechwriters than the government. Mon 6: Shopping update: I've managed to stay away from shops for the last eleven days, but today I needed groceries so had to go back to Tesco, and I was a bit nervous but they'd upped their social distancing procedures since last time and it was fine. Yay, even pasta is back on the shelves. Tue 7: Every spring there's a last day I go out in my winter coat before realising this was an unnecessary mistake, and that day may have been today. Wed 8: To keep me occupied, one of the tiny habits I've picked up is tackling the daily sandwich sudoku at puzzle-sudoku.com (although I have my adblockers at full strength). I've completed it in under ten minutes just the once. Thu 9: I finally received a note through my letterbox from a neighbour reaching out to share a general offer of help, running errands or whatever. We're not as organised as my Dad's village where everyone knuckled down to help each other on day one. But my neighbour's note also came packaged with a Bible tract called 'Hope Beyond Corona Virus' which bleated on about sin, hope and judgement, so that went straight in the bin.
Fri 10: It being Good Friday I walked down to the Widow'sSon, where the annual bun-hanging ceremony will not be taking place today. It's now the last surviving building on a block of land overtaken by towering flats. Sat 11: The bumper prize crossword in today's paper usually keeps me occupied over Easter, but I couldn't buy a copy today so had to make do with filling in a pdf and it just wasn't the same. But I did complete it by 7pm and damn I was hoping it'd last longer than that. Sun 12: It's not quite the warmest Easter Day of recent years - last year and 2011 both topped it - but 25 degrees and sunny is about as good as anyone could expect. I stared out of the window at it. Mon 13: After 28 weeks of top-flight quizzing, my Monday evening now has an Only-Connect-sized hole in it. Instead I enjoyed BBC4's slow sheep gather and ITV's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire coughing drama. TV feels more important while we're locked down, but nothing new is being made which suggests thin gruel later in the year. I fear Only Connect may not be back for some considerable time. Tue 14: I must be more confident about the nation's future food supply because I opened one of my stash of tuna cans today. Pre-Brexit hoarding has unexpectedly paid off. Wed 15: Shopping update: My supermarket seems more organised this week, with a longer chicane outside for queueing and smoother access to the checkouts. Because I went early I didn't have to queue for either. But shoppers seem less careful than before, lingering mid-aisle with no thought for others and ignoring the one-way arrows stuck to the floor. Most annoyingly, however, no cheap leftover Easter eggs. Thu 16: Digging around in a box of old stuff I found a) a letter from a teenager destined to become Foreign Secretary, b) a Christmas card from the son of an Oscar-nominated actor, c) the scribbled note which unexpectedly led to my first shag. Fri 17: My library books were supposed to go back at the start of the month, but then they extended the deadline to the end of April. Now I see the return date's been postponed again until the end of July, so the librarians clearly aren't expecting anyone back soon.
Sat 18: Geoff and Vicki are doing a rail-themed quiz on their All The Stations YouTube channel every Saturday night at 8pm, which is proving an excellent way of filling 4% of the day. My Saturday lockdown routine also invariably includes Radcliffe and Maconie on Radio 6Music at 8am, Pick of the Pops on Radio 2 at 1pm and Stereo Underground on BBC local radio at 6pm. Sun 19: I've finally cancelled my Annual Travelcard because it's not getting any use. In good news they'll backdate the refund to the last time I used it, which means I should get six months back. In bad news refunding a travelcard also cancels the Oyster card it's on, because that's how TfL's internal systems are calibrated, so I need to go out and buy a new one. Mon 20: I went outside at 10pm to try to watch dozens of Elon Musk's intrusive Starlink satellites passing overhead. This is difficult from my balcony because I have a severely restricted view of the sky. "Sheesh," I thought, "the light pollution from those things is horrific...!" but it turned out I was looking at Venus. Alas I never spotted the artificial train overhead. Tue 21: I grabbed a Wagon Wheel as mid-afternoon snack, and after a couple of bites suddenly realised it didn't taste of anything. Alarm bells rang. Losing one's sense of taste is a potential early symptom of coronavirus, which perturbed me as I finished off the rest of the flavourless snack. There was definitely jam inside, so why couldn't I taste it? Thankfully a Polo mint confirmed that all was well (and further experimentation confirmed that I'd probably just bought a duff pack). Wed 22: I had to go to my local pharmacy to renew a prescription, and I wasn't looking forward to it because the place is always busy, but today there wasn't a single other customer. Normally I have to sign something, but today they did that for me. Thu 23: TfL have confirmed that one of its least frequent bus routes, the W10 from Enfield to Crews Hill, is to be extended to North Middlesex Hospital in October and renumbered 456. That means buses before 9.30am for the first time, and after 2pm, even a Sunday service in case you ever feel the need to nip up to the garden centres. Fri 24: Shopping update: No carrots, so I doubled up on sprouts. No peanut butter either, so I stood wistfully in the aisle for a bit until I realised that wasn't going to help. But I'm quite proud of only going to the supermarket three times this month.
Sat 25: Today I reached the "maybe I'll wash the curtains" stage of lockdown. Should probably have done it sooner. Sun 26: Some of my neighbours decided to go outside into the courtyard to cook Sunday lunch, and the first I noticed was when toxic fumes from their cheap barbecue tray wafted up to flood my lounge, and they looked so surprised when I closed my windows. Mon 27: These are London's hours of sunshine every day so far this month.
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
4
2
3
10
12
4
12
4
10
12
9
9
8
11
13
8
5
1
11
13
13
13
12
12
8
13
This is almost unheard of. This is how it's managed to be the sunniest April on record. Last week was particularly impressive, with maximum sunshine on four out of seven days (and almost max on two more).
That's just 5% of the normal monthly total. Alas it'll all go wrong tomorrow, the first damp (and fully overcast) day of the month, but what a joy this April would have been under normal circumstances. Tue 28: While I was tidying up I found a spare filter for my vacuum cleaner, which I somehow had the foresight to buy in 1999. Replacing the old filter has had a transformational effect on my Electrolux's ability to whip fluff off the carpet. Wed 29: If you're not going out much you may not have realised, but Metro is still publishing a daily newspaper in spite of the absence of large numbers of commuters. Every morning someone delivers 50 copies to the bin outside Pudding Mill Lane DLR (and presumably removes the 45 copies nobody picked up yesterday). Thu 30: As the nation celebrates the 100th birthday of chart-toppingCaptain Tom Moore, war veteran and NHS fund-raiser, I'm particularly thrilled to discover that he was a contestant on Blankety Blank on Christmas Day 1983, appearing alongside Terry Wogan, Beryl Reid, Patrick Moore and Ruth Madoc.
