If IKEA Owned Supermarkets .....

For those that have been following my coronacrisis blog the good news is that sleeping arrangements are back to normal and Oscar the Dog despite lots of huffing and puffing is back in his own bed. Nights are certainly more restful, although I sometimes still hear the ghostly creak of floor boards as he takes himself off for a drink of water halfway through the night.

At this stage Borisolation isn't going too bad for me personally, in fact there are some significant advantages. I am fortunate that I can work from home, which means there are no 5:30am starts and no 2 hour each way commute into London and back. I wake up naturally, head downstairs, take Oscar for a walk, coffee and toast then start working in the study. If you have to work it's about as perfect as you can get. I must admit though my personal hygiene standards have gone out of the window. I can go several days without having a shower or a shave, it's just that at this stage, I've not managed to build it into my new routine. It's only when my wife starts opening windows and Oscar takes one sniff then walks away that I think maybe I need to make time to freshen up.

I've never been a great movie buff, in fact I'm the last person you'd want on your quiz team if there were any entertainment questions. It's not that I don't enjoy watching movies and going to the cinema, it's just that I tend to lose concentration or just nod off. So Meg, my youngest daughter, never one to turn down a challenge, has started me on a cinematic education program. I have a list of moves that I have to watch whilst in lockdown. This started with the three Star Wars trilogies. I've never quite got on with Star Wars and I've previously had no interest in the recently released prequels and sequels. But I have to say watching them in cinematic order, I have really enjoyed them, I wouldn't go as far as to say it's been life changing, but I do feel I've achieved something. I'm now at peace with understanding how Darth Vader could be Luke Skywalker's dad (sorry if that's a spoiler, but I think everyone knew that apart from me), where Han Solo comes into it and why he travels around with a shaggy bear like creature that apparently chews bacci all the time. Roll on the next batch of movies although I suspect that the remote control will be taken off me to prevent me pausing the movie every 20 mins or so to ask questions.

I've got so many Netflix series and movies lined up to watch, I'm getting a bit panicky that I may not be able to fit them all in during the lockdown period. There is one major drawback with this binge watching and that's binge eating. I can't watch a movie without eating chocolate or popcorn or usually both. I sort of hoped the pub close down would mean I'd be losing weight, but at this rate, going back to the pub will be like going on a slim fast diet.

How are you all getting on with social distancing? Mrs Riley has taken to it with far too much enthusiasm for my liking, I didn't realise it applied inside your home. Oscar the Dog also gets very confused, if we have a delivery and the doorbell rings, he's off like a rocket, barking like a Rottweiler, I mean it sounds impressive, but the worst he could do to anyone is lick them to death. We have a glass front door, so when he gets there it's all very odd for him as there is no one to bark at. When we open the door he shoots off down the drive to investigate but the delivery driver has usually gone, so he just comes back with a puzzled expression. The one exception to this is if we have a pizza delivered, he skips the investigation part and goes straight to the pizza, and because he can get out of the door quicker than I can we've had a couple of tug of wars over the pizza box, so far it's 2-0  to me.

I had to go to the supermarket last weekend, and bizarrely I found myself getting a bit anxious about it; how do you do social distancing and what are the new social etiquettes, would I need to queue up outside, would the police check my shopping trolley for non essentials (I'd added bread, milk and eggs to the list and my cunning plan was to stack them on top of the wine, beer and chocolate, in the hope I'd pass a cursory inspection if stopped). Things didn't get off to a great start, as I tried to enter the store through the new exit only door and got the 'there's always one' look from the staff. Once I'd worked out how to get in, I passed through the sanitizing station, declining the offer of a pair of latex gloves, I just associate these gloves with TV vet programmes and I can't get my head around using them for food shopping. Once in the store things didn't go too bad, I'm not a very organised shopper and did get a bit panicky about the acceptability of my random wandering up and down aisles, was it acceptable to have two way traffic down one aisle, but I rationalised the only way you'd solve that is if IKEA owned supermarkets, god forbid. We'd be herded round in one direction and if you missed something you'd have to go back to start, I'd be there all day. Well I got home safely, Mrs Riley asked me to strip off in the hall, for a moment I thought our social distancing had been relaxed and she was initiating some form of Waitrose food delivery service role play, maybe I should have accepted those latex gloves after all. But it turns out it was just a decontamination process, as I was directed to the shower and my clothes went in the washing machine.

Well I'm sure most of you, like me are trying to do some new and different stuff to keep you entertained during our isolation period. Some of my friends have been watching the National Theatre and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. In addition to my movies, I've rediscovered the Wii and I've joined online quizzes - there are benefits to marking your own answer sheets, I've devised my own system of half point scores if I think my answer was close enough. Yesterday, I even did a Joe Wicks workout session. I have to report though that there were a couple of disadvantages, I'm in agony today, I can hardly walk and you can't drink wine whilst you are doing it. So I've rethought my strategy and I am going to join an online Pilates session later this week, I understand it's much more gentle and I can keep my glass of wine at the side of me whilst I'm doing it and no one will know.

Well that's enough for this blog, keep safe, and may the force be with you.

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