Now two months into isolation and time to take stock at Linden Grange. While Annie has been productively recording musical parts for video collages, making face masks and getting her sailing blog up to date my own efforts have been languishing. At first relishing the opportunity to have time for previously neglected activity I have discovered how difficult it can be to focus and achieve anything.

Along with other of the nation’s musicians I went outside and played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy one Friday. Buoyed by my success I spent the whole of the following Sunday trying to video record a performance worthy of posting for the wider world to appreciate. It was a nightmare. Bad technique, bad sound, mental blocks, wayward fingers, frustration and lack of concentration. All mistakes from ingrained flaws. Rather like skiing it was so depressing to see the reality of imagined ability. I bought a series of online guitar lessons that explain exactly what is wrong. What is required is systematic, dedicated, managed practice starting with correct technique. This will take application and discipline. Unfortunately it also requires a young mind. At my age you have to re-learn hand and finger movements and new pieces of music without the benefit of new brain cells to make the essential cranial connections. It’s like trying to re-programme a worn out computer with no spare memory.

Reading should be more straightforward and I have three books on the go. Time to refresh my knowledge of the Geology of Britain but sadly I am still languishing in the Devonian period. The History of the Thames got off to a promising start but I haven’t got beyond the Middle Ages yet. Worst is The Philosophy Guide where I haven’t progressed beyond Confucius. Most reading is in bed at night but I am now sidetracked by backgammon with Annie (at least it isn’t Scrabble which would both reduce reading time even further and ensure I had even less chance of winning). In fact I have now abandoned the former reading in favour of “The Source”, an imaginative romp through the history of the Jewish people in the Middle East. James Mitchener has been essential reading on passage with “Caribbean” and “South Pacific” and for historical background on many parts of the world is to be recommended (by me).

Another good start was to go through, select and edit the photographs from our sailing travels and put these into book format along with the blog text. Given the complexity of retrieving the photos from storage, finding and using a suitable editing suite and managing the limited storage on my laptop I became rather bored with the process beyond Spain. However it is good reading the old blogs again and I can recall writing them as if it was yesterday.

Oliver (my son) had a birthday recently and this was an opportunity to think of a present that would be appropriate under current circumstances. This is when I discovered that so much by way of indoor activity has sold out - can the whole nation now be constructing models, playing board games and doing jigsaw puzzles?! Fortunately I did eventually find board games to fit the bill plus, and what better for these times, a balsa model aircraft kit. In my enthusiasm for the model I did rather overestimate the time available to a father of two young children who is also working from home. Still, it must be a good opportunity for some father/children bonding............ Anyway the point is when asked what I might like for a forthcoming birthday it immediately occurred to me that we could each build a model at the same time and share progress. So, you will see included in the attached photo a kit that I have now completed and is awaiting its test flight. My greatest lockdown achievement.

And this is where my anxiety set in. If I was to do justice to each of these projects how was I going to fit it all in? How can I have already spent two months achieving so little? Actually, there is one good aspect to this life in isolation. Annie and I are doing far more exercise than normal. On the boat we lose muscle tone and become very unfit. Now we are joining Joe Wicks (young UTube fitness lifestyle coach) most mornings for a workout and discovering cycle paths, routes and parks hitherto unknown. Combined with the wonderful spring (that as travelling sailors we haven’t experienced since 2015) we are both getting fit and loving the quiet streets, parks, blossom, birdsong and clean air. 

So, in an effort to inject some productive structure into this isolation I came up with a daily planner. Much flexibility was required in response to daily circumstances but I broadly try to stick to it.

This all sounds a bit self indulgent and even if we admit to liking many aspects of this new regime, Annie and I would like to do more Productive things with our time. Annie volunteered to help out with medical work but it seems that not only has she been retired for too long but there isn’t the need either - there is still a lot of NHS capacity In Bristol. I can’t even go and visit my father at his care home but at least can FaceTime. With his dementia he really doesn’t get the hang of video technology nor what is happening at the moment so the calls are never for very long. I will try and make them more frequent. I also signed up for the Bristol City Council volunteer group. I hoped delivering prescriptions and food parcels could be done by bicycle and wouldn’t interfere with modelling. However it seems that I am not required for volunteering any more than Annie.

With lockdown measures now being eased and many people ignoring them altogether Annie and I can definitely say we do not want to go back to life as ”normal”. We now refuse to fill our time with endless lists of things to do. Lists stay uncompleted, most tasks are unnecessary. We rarely drive the car. We walk and cycle and love the quiet streets, the general lack of traffic noise. We love the birdsong and the beautiful places in our locality that we never previously had the time to discover. Nearly all our shopping is on line and I never want to go around a supermarket again. We are limiting our social engagements (the outdoor socially distanced socialising of course!). Why would anybody in their right mind want to spend hours a day commuting, fighting with congestion, finding consolation in a lifestyle that requires spending money, buying things that they probably can’t afford and almost certainly don’t need? We have all been coerced into a pressurised, unsustainable, unfulfilling, environmentally damaging way of life. Easy for me to say as a relatively well off pensioner but for the sake of the world we live in I can only hope that others feel the same.

In the meantime sailing friends remain stuck in various places around the world. Annie and I had planned to spend most of 2020 in the UK but those still on their boats are having a mixed time. Island communities that used to welcome visiting yachts now perceive them as a likely source of Corona virus (however implausible that might be). Some yachts in Indonesia and the Maldives have been treated with hostility. Most ports have closed their doors to new arrivals and those yachties not prepared to hunker down and wait things out have been undertaking long and out of season passages to safe refuges. For the most part cruising this year has stopped and yachts have been stuck in whatever marina or anchorage they happened to be when lockdown began. Seasonal weather changes will force some to move on, others such as in Malaysia are being encouraged to fly home as soon as there are available flights. Some island countries are beginning to open up to yachts but only with prior arrangement and with stringent arrival conditions in place. So, plans for 2021 remain up in the air with most planning to take stock towards the end of this year.

In the meantime it looks like Annie and I will be moving back into the house that we have been letting out during our travels. We also will take stock of our sailing plans later in the year. If we can continue our circumnavigation in January 2021 then we will do so. If not then shipping Vega back to the UK is currently looking more favourable than leaving her to bake in the Thai sunshine for another year.