
Well crumpets – picture by my mother – retrospective last month at the Open Eye Gallery. You can take a virtual tour here. Sorry that this blog is so neglected but I went pell mell for starting up my classes again – I was so determined to make this year different… ha ha! So threw myself into promoting them.
My friend H’s Aunty V calls this ‘Splendid Isolation’. I think I will adopt this attitude. I’m thinking here of my cat Frida who did this very well. She enjoyed me being ill and approved of me in bed where she could perch on me for hours. I’ve spent many weeks and months hardly ever leaving the house with frankly nary a phonecall or an email from a friend. So I have a touch of the herrumps about me. I see their slightly panicked emails and social media postings. And even their reaching out to me I can sense that really they just want someone to respond to them. I’m trying to be kind….
I have had pneumonia which nearly killed me and have ME. I’m self isolating as I’m not keen on getting anything which goes for the lungs – luckily my lodger is very sensible. Though his reports from the outside world are hair raising. I can set up working form home which is next weeks job. I had a virus two weekends ago which is still lingering as these things do with ME. I just feel quite tired. Luckily I have the space to take things slowly.
Top tips for staying home from my experience with illness.
1.Don’t fight it. The people who fight their illness just stay ill longer. Accept you have to be in isolation.
2. Gentle routines. By gentle get up wash, make food, clear up, wash clothes.
3. Admit how you feel. Panicked, anxious, say it out loud. Unacknowledged feelings bite you on the bum. I’ve done what I can to plan and prepare. I can now do no more. Try to live in the thinnest slice of now as Robyn Posin says.
4. Do slow things, Knit, craft, mend, listen to radio dramas ( I think this will work for people outside the UK but check out the stuff here – BBC sounds – scroll down for the programme categories). If you are in the UK I find ITV hub good for detective dramas if that is your bag – currently watching Scott & Bailey) Books – I had a premonition and hastily ordered 7 books from Abebooks – I entered in my favorite authors and did cheapest to most expensive. It supports second hand booksellers too.
5. Write cards. I have been able to use up a stash given to me by downsizing cousins! but got some lovely new ones from local artist Sally Richardson – free delivery in UK and will continue to send some postal cheer to others who are self isolating. Stamps I’m going crazy and getting them from here.