Lockdown Diary: Misunderstandings

I used to think chocolate truffles were snuffled out of the ground by pigs. I’ve never seen my daughter’s dad laugh harder than when I told him!

Inspired by this and a few other misunderstandings, I tweeted about it.

I got a few misunderstandings sent to me from my original tweet, my favourite of which was from a Chinese professor:

My friend Charlie Brooker then saw the tweet and replied to it about the KFC logo:

Excitingly, he then quote-tweeted it to his 1.2 million followers:

The misunderstandings came in thick and fast. Here are some of my favourites:

And my favourite misunderstanding of all:

I feel so much less alone now!

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Aragorn Strider, Lucy Spencer, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Mark White,  Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Nana

Feeling very melancholy thinking that I may never see my beloved Nana again in person. The care home almost certainly won’t allow me to see her until a vaccine is found (and understandably so). The problem is that we don’t have time to wait – she’s going to be 95 next month! And she’s deteriorating a lot from lack of human contact. She’s become withdrawn and quiet again on the phone.

I miss her so much.

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Aragorn Strider, Lucy Spencer, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Mark White,  Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Exhausted!

Hello to Guillaume, John, Thomas, Keith and all other readers,

I hope you had a lovely long weekend. I spent mine with the nine-year-old. Looking after her has brought me so much joy, so much happiness, but it’s also exhausting! She has now gone back to her dad’s and I am knackered, so I hope you’ll forgive me for phoning in this blog before I collapse.

In the photo above, she has tucked her toy husky dog inside her beanie hat and is finding this very funny. She is adorable and hilarious and I’m very lucky, but now I have to sleep.

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Aragorn Strider, Lucy Spencer, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Mark White,  Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Set

The nine-year-old is back with me today, and as well as spending the weekend playing Rummy, we’ll also be playing a card game called Set.

It’s a fascinating game all about visual perception. You have to spot sets of cards with the same characteristics – shape, colour, number and shading – or a set of cards with completely different characteristics to one another! The person with the most sets at the end wins.

Being a visual game, it’s very hard to explain, but you quickly get the hang of it and then it’s addictive. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes card games.

Don’t play the nine-year-old, though. She’s the undisputed reigning champion and will definitely beat you!

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Aragorn Strider, Mark White, Lucy Spencer, Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Model house

I’m so impressed with the nine-year-old. She’s made a 3D model house out of cardboard and paper! It only has two rooms so far but it’s a great start. This is the other room:

‘Work hard and be nice to people’, indeed. I’m proud of her for doing both.

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Aragorn Strider, Mark White, Lucy Spencer, Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Rummy

I just taught the nine-year-old the card game Rummy. One of my happiest childhood memories (thankfully there are a few) was staying with my loving grandparents in Leicester, where my wonderful Nan would play Rummy with me. I remember her bangles clicking and her long hot-pink-painted fingernails clacking as she rearranged her cards.

She usually won, and it turns out that the nine-year-old has inherited her talent. We played a ‘best-of-three’ set yesterday, and she beat me by winning two games in a row, meaning we didn’t even play all three!

Maybe Rummy will become one of her happiest childhood memories too. I hope there will be thousands of sweet memories for her to choose from.

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Aragorn Strider, Mark White, Lucy Spencer, Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Unicorn

The nine-year-old has been amusing herself by doing more arts and crafts. Above is a toilet roll unicorn she made. John joked, ‘That’s a very expensive unicorn!’

She’s also been writing a diary. Apparently people can die from boring homeschooling! Who knew?

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Aragorn Strider, Mark White, Lucy Spencer, Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Balloons again

Lily’s very cute three-year-old half-sister came round earlier. She was very excited as the whole house is still decked out in confetti and balloons from last weekend’s party. I said she could have some balloons to take home, but Lily was a bit sad to lose her balloons, so I’ve now rashly promised to keep buying and blowing up balloons so that the whole house is always festooned with them! I buy them cheaply in big packs so they’ll cost me less than £40 a year.

Pretty sure this is bonkers but it does make the house look very bright and happy, so why not?!

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Aragorn Strider, Mark White, Lucy Spencer, Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Touch

I miss touching people. Hugging them, and holding hands, and having massages. I spoke to my humanist funeral celebrant mentor yesterday, and we discussed how achingly sad it is that people with coronavirus have to die without their loved ones there holding their hands, and that their relatives are not allowed to comfort each other at funerals.

The power of human contact and touch can’t be underestimated. Loneliness is one of the biggest killers, alongside stress, malnutrition and lack of exercise. Babies who are held thrive more and grow faster than those who aren’t.

Lockdown is necessary right now. It’s also devastating to many. I hope we’re through to the other side very soon.

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Aragorn Strider, Mark White, Lucy Spencer, Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

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Lockdown Diary: Journal

Yesterday I started a journal. I used my 2019/2020 diary which I had yet to write in. Better late than never!

My journal differs from this blog (which is good, as there wouldn’t be much point in my writing it otherwise). It’s more about my innermost thoughts than events, and I think it would be tremendously boring to anyone else. I’m not worrying about whether it’s entertaining or readable; I just want to make sense of the stuff inside my head, and am finding it incredibly cathartic.

I had therapy on and off for 23 years and it can be wonderfully life-changing. I stopped my sessions when Talk Yourself Better came out in October 2018, and haven’t restarted. There are a couple of reasons why I stopped: firstly, I felt as though I no longer needed it — or at least, that it wasn’t value for money/time for me anymore as I was pretty much fine (and still am, hence not restarting); secondly, I wasn’t sure my therapist was right for me.

But even in two days of writing the journal, I’ve been able to make some headway on my goals. Just being totally honest with myself is therapeutic, and you can be even more honest with a diary than you can with a person, as you’re unlikely to be able to hurt its feelings. It can’t annoy you, either, or vice versa. Plus it’s a tangible record of how you’ve changed over time.

I totally love journalling and would recommend it (and/or therapy) to anyone who genuinely wants to change their life for the better.

This post has been made possible by my awesome Patreon supporters Peter Weilgony, Ricky Steer, Charlie Brooker, Mary and Tim Fowler, Steve Richards, Alan Brookland, Mark Ormandy, Oliver Vass, Keith Bell, John Fleming, Mark Bailey, Rebekah Bennetch, Matthew Sylvester, Brian Engler, Jack Scanlan, Dave Nattriss, MusicalComedyGuide.com, Aragorn Strider, Mark White, Lucy Spencer, Shane Jarvis, Emily Hill and Marcus P Knight.

If you enjoyed this blog, please support me on Patreon from just £1 a month and you’ll get to read a lot more of my writing.