Let It Snow, Let it Snow, Let It Snow......Please!

So, how are we all doing right now? Another year, another lockdown. I know some people are finding this one harder than the last two and there are a variety of reasons for this. I am not any kind of psychiatrist so I won't even begin to bore you with my thoughts. Your reasons for hating/loving lockdown are your own. I can only speak for myself.

Firstly, let's talk Christmas. Due to the change in tiers just before the holidays, I decided to stay put for Christmas and not venture up north to spend it with my family. I didn't hate it. I wouldn't want to spend Christmas alone every year but I actually might actively arrange to spend it alone again from time to time. It was nice to not have to travel here, there and everywhere during a holiday period for once. I had a couple of weeks to veg out on the sofa, eat chocolate and watch whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, on the TV. This, of course, led us into lockdown 3.0 and a whole new way of being.

It's very strange not being able to do things when you want but it isn't a feeling I completely dislike. It makes you realise what you really think important and what you don't. For instance, as anyone who has ever read this diary will know, I LOVE a trip to Costa or Caffe Nero. BC (before Covid) I would visit a coffee shop 4 or 5 times a week, easily. I can now count on two hands the amount of times I have visited one since March last year and I can count on one hand the amount of times I have eaten in one. I have not missed it and don't intend to return to my old ways once this craziness is over.

What I have been doing, since this third lockdown began, is meet a friend for a socially distanced walk once a week in Selsdon. We go to an independent coffee shop, Planet of the Beans for the most excellent hot chocolate and then wander around the local golf course talking nonsense and getting our prescribed hour of exercise. Yesterday was Sunday and was the best day I've had in a long time. 

Yesterday the snow came to South Croydon. Thick, heavy snow reminiscent of the Beast from the East last seen in 2018. Being a northerner I miss proper snow. My weather app had told me to expect snow so on Sunday morning, as I told the people who follow me on Facebook,  I leapt out of bed with the enthusiasm of a small child but with the body of a middle aged woman and hobbled to the window. Hobbled because my ankles take a while to warm up in the morning nowadays. Alas at that point, 9am, there was no snow. I was due to meet my friend at 11am so I had everything crossed that the weather app wasn't lying to me. It wasn't and at 10am the thick snowflakes began to fall from the sky.

My friend and I met as arranged and picked up our hot chocolates and walked, in the snow, to the golf course. The snow kept coming and created the most incredible winter wonderland.

The thing that made yesterday particularly special was the fact that I had time to go out and enjoy the snow the way I had when I was a child messing about in 3 feet of snow (we got about 2 inches yesterday but it felt like more). Had we not been in a lockdown it would not have even occurred to me to go and make the most of the weather.

If being alive in these most crazy of times has taught me anything, it is that 'things' are unimportant. As they say, "you can't take it with you" and I believe I truly understand this now. Of course I would love to own my own little house and there are 'things' that would make life easier if I had them at my disposal but life is what you make of it not what you acquire along the way. 

The one thing I wish I could do during this lockdown is sing more for myself. I made a few simple resolutions at New Year and most I have stuck to, go for a walk everyday is one I have managed to achieve thus far. Another resolution was to sing for myself at least twice a week. Unfortunately I haven't managed this. I can't sing at home because my neighbour objects to my singing so that leaves my car as a possible place to practice but I haven't done so as yet. 

I also thought about starting a little project whereby I record myself singing in my car and upload those recordings to YouTube. My walking friend and I had been trying to come up with a pithy name for this project. We thought of Car-aoke but  Tesla use that already so I'm thinking I could call it Clair-eoke or In-Car-Tations or Petrol-Head-Voice. Unfortunately I haven't really felt like doing it so the name is irrelevant right now. If anyone can think of one, though, please let me know.

Ooh, before I go, my friend took this picture of me yesterday during the snowstorm (btw the snow was almost completely gone three hours later). I asked him "Do I look like I'm in a catalogue?" "Yes", he replied, "Screwfix".

 

I apologise for my very being!

So I’ve had a pretty rubbish few days. This post started out as something very different and I ummed and ahhed as to whether or not to publish it as it was. I decided against it as it served no real purpose as it was so I decided to rewrite it a little before I subjected you all to it.

I believe I intimated, in my last post, that I would like to move. I have not changed my mind about this but my head is all over the place right now and I don't think I could cope with actually moving right now. I’m trying to keep all my teaching going during lockdown, whilst also keeping the noise down as much as possible so as not to bother my downstairs neighbour. We are a few days in and no complaints so far but I’m not getting complacent. However, this is not the cause of my glumness right now.

It is no secret that I have lost my mojo when it comes to exercising. I started exercising seriously about 7 years ago but stopped about a year ago now. In that time I’ve put a bit of weight back on and I’m not as fit as I had become. I haven’t given up completely but I just don’t have the energy or mindset to exercise every day. Anyway, on Monday I needed to go to the post office so I thought instead of driving I would walk (it’s about a 25 minute walk to get there and a 25 minute walk back, 5000ish steps). I arrived and there was a queue to get in as, in these days of the pandemic, only 4 people are allowed in at a time. There are signs up to say to keep your distance and another that said “no mask, no service”. Now, I have never had a go at anyone for not wearing a mask as you never know someone’s circumstances, but, if you are not wearing a mask, surely it would then make sense to leave even more space between yourself and others. This was obviously not the thoughts of the woman who queued behind me in the post office. I could sense someone was close and looked behind to see this mask less woman less than a foot from my back. I said, under my mask, “are you actually joking?” and took a step forwards, as there was space, to move away from her but she proceeded to also move forward. “Un-f**king-believable” is the phrase I involuntarily expressed under my breath at her ridiculous behaviour.

Perhaps she thinks this whole pandemic thing is a hoax and therefore thinks any rules don't apply to her. This is not a debate as to whether the pandemic is real or not, or if we really need masks or not, it is just context for what happened next. Please don’t try and draw me into a discussion as I won’t join in. So, I was served by the lovely post office staff and set off to walk home. I was listening to a podcast as I walked but sensed that a car had pulled up beside me. It was the woman from the post office who had decided to very bravely pull up long enough to say “don’t swear at me in the post office, you fat c**t”. I had enough time to say "I didn't swear at you" which was completely true, then she was gone. I had no opportunity to respond, not that it would have got me anywhere, but this is the second time in the space of a year that this has happened to me. The last time it was at Sainsbury’s when I was told by a very beautiful woman how I am so fat and ugly that I shouldn’t leave the house. All because she was annoyed that, as I was parking my car, she had to wait to get into the car park!?!

I asked for it this time, and probably the last time too, in that I chose to comment on her behaviour so she had every right to speak back to me about it. I rarely make comment on anything anymore as there is something about me that makes people, in particular, women, very angry. That thing seems to be my appearance. I know I’m not attractive and I am fat, there’s no denying it, but why does my appearance offend people, women, so much. I didn’t think I was so ugly that children would run away screaming or that I’m so fat that I take up two seats on a bus (I fit nice and snugly into one as I should, thank you very much, but if you do take up two seats, so what!). So why do women think it is acceptable to comment on my appearance, no matter how much I have annoyed them?

I realise I am being ever so sensitive and, chances are, I’ll never see either of these women again, but I was ridiculously upset by what this inconsequential woman said to me, especially when she was the one ultimately in the wrong by standing too close to me in the post office (I say again, my problem was NOT the lack of mask). The problem now is I actually don’t want to leave the house to go anywhere as I don’t want to put anyone off their day. I am brainstorming ideas for a new career that means I won’t have to have contact with many people. I think I reported the first incident at Sainsbury’s on Facebook at the time and people were lovely about it but I do think there must be something in what both of these women (not ladies) said. I could try and lose weight again but even last time, when I was obsessed with exercise, I didn’t lose a lot of weight, I just got fitter so that’s not going to solve the problem my shape and size cause the general population. 

I would NEVER, EVER bring someone’s appearance into an argument. I may have done so at school but I don’t remember ever doing it. I apologise if I did but it is the sort of language and behaviour that should be left at school. It is a cheap, easy shot that requires no thought. I had SO many comebacks that I could have given had she given me the chance but, as I’m sure most of you will relate to, I thought of most of the really good ones hours after the event. 

The logical part of my brain knows I am not completely alone in this and many of you reading this (men and women alike) will have experienced something like this in the past, but today it feels like I am the most offensive person in the world because of my looks. That’s surely not right. No one should be made to feel like that no matter how much they have infuriated someone. I think I am angry with myself for being bothered by something that someone said to me that was in no way clever. Had it been a clever response to what I did then I don’t think I’d feel half as bad.

What I said indirectly to the woman in the post office was not mean but she chose to respond in a mean, unkind, aggressive, cowardly way. I feel better just getting this off my chest, to be honest and I doubt I will be changing career anytime soon. If I do venture out of the house again I will definitely make sure I do not follow her example. Peace out!

Dizzy! My head is spinning.....

Is anyone else binging on webinars right now? It seems the world and his wife are trying to sell online courses right now and they way they hook you is by offering you a free "workshop" to be a part of, but really they just want you to buy their course. I have watched A LOT of these free workshops recently and actually signed up to one course. I squeezed every last bit out of the original lockdown* in the hope that I would have plenty to show for the last 6 months. 

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Unfortunately I have a very short attention span and end up multitasking whilst I do anything these days. I can’t seem to concentrate on one task alone. I start doing one thing and then try to do something else at the same time. Then I find my brain is overloaded and I need to go and binge watch something on Netflix (it’s Cobra Kai at the moment. It’s very, very bad but makes me feel very nostalgic for the 1980s). I am about to get on my exercise bike to do some much needed exercise (lockdown has not been kind to my waistline) but whilst I am peddling I am going to watch a 23 minute video on using iMovie and a 20 minute video about creating Canva vision boards (homework from a social media webinar - part 3 is on Friday).

I don't know if anyone else is feeling like this at the moment but I am constantly tired and constantly annoyed with myself for not doing anything. I have very little get up and go right now. I get up and go out when I have to but the rest of the time I tend to stay in doing very little telling myself I'll do more tomorrow. I don't and then get annoyed with myself for not doing anything and then get annoyed for getting annoyed at myself. I have a constant headache that I can not blame on coffee anymore as I gave it up at the beginning of lockdown and have, on average, one Costa coffee a week now. I know something has to change but I don't know what.

I need to move, I know that. I have a neighbour who does not enjoy my singing, the word "piercing" was used to describe it by her, therefore, I can't practice at home anymore. Moving in the Greater London area is easier said than done. I need a house with, at least, one room unattached to any neighbouring house so I can sing at home whenever I want. I have a room I can hire at my local church hall but, as the country opens up, and the line dancing and art classes start again, the hall is getting more bookings and it will only be a matter of time until they can not accommodate me anymore. 

I have always been prone to a touch of anxiety but I'm at a new level right now. Unfortunately/fortunately my anxiety manifests itself by me burying my head in the sand, much like an ostrich but without the fantastic legs. I have ideas galore swimming in my head but I do not have the wherewithal to put any new plans into action. I think this is, in part, due to my fear of failure. If I don't try I won't fail but nothing will ever change and I will remain in this perpetual state of stagnation. 

So, what do I do about this? The most important thing to come from this post is that SOMETHING has to change. I am not enjoying everything I do at the moment (although I know I am in a fantastic position right now. I earn enough to pay my rent and buy the odd bottle of Malbec so I KNOW I am very lucky right now). The problem is I am restless. I know what I don't want to do, or rather, what I want to give up but I just don't feel like changing things is the way to go right now. 

Am I wrong, though? Is now precisely the time to change things up? I feel like I am existing rather than living most of the time right now but perhaps this is the best anyone should hope for at the moment. Maybe I should sit tight, stop fretting and keep watching the webinars. They are certainly an excellent way to waste time and, you never know, I might find something I really want to do with the rest of my life that way.

*at the time of writing we have only had one full on lockdown in Croydon. If we have another I am not going to waste a second of it (I know that's a lie. I'll be binge watching something by the second day).

You can't teach an old dog new tricks....or can you?

So, a LOT has happened since I last wrote. Pretty much all of it beyond my control. It may surprise you to know I am unable to cure Covid-19, I wish I could, but was never my bag at school so curing a global pandemic would not be listed as one of my skills on my CV. I am, however, considering myself to be a professional tea drinker now. Has anyone else found themselves drowning in tea?

I must say the Lockdown that was imposed upon us in the UK has not been all bad for me. It began with me being ill for the first 2 weeks so that wasn't great. I quite possibly had Covid-19 but I didn't get a test so I don't know for sure. However, I didn't leave my flat for 14 days just in case. That was the worst bit I'd say. 

Once I had recovered, I then had to set about fathoming the online meeting platform that is Zoom in order to run singing lessons and my choir online as well as doing a few bits and pieces for myself. In an effort to keep the kids I teach interested in singing whilst on Zoom, I taught myself how to produce virtual choir videos. I am in no way a master of this but it is a new skill and one I would not have acquired were it not for Lockdown. My video editing skills have gone from very basic to just above basic. I feel like I actually have a hobby now! I don't have a garden, I don't have a great kitchen and though I had intended to read every book on singing going, I didn't. I have attended countless webinars and talks on singing but I am finding concentrating on actual reading to be very difficult right now so the video editing thing became a bit of an obsession. Other ways I have kept busy is by watching old Eurovision Song Contests with friends over Zoom and many, many online quizzes. I thoroughly recommend Steve M's Sunday Lockdown Quiz on Facebook (it will be online for a while yet so have a go).

My choir, Songsations, also moved online and I produced 4 virtual choir videos for them too. I have loved working with the choir online and many members of the choir have also enjoyed it. I think it was a bit of a lifeline for some of them. It definitely was for me. The online thing is something I'm going to continue in some capacity for both the choirs and one to one singing lessons. Online meeting platforms are essentially now the norm and will remain part of our lives long after we emerge from this, of that I am sure.

Although I saw my income drop by almost exactly 50% I am definitely one of the lucky ones. I have managed to keep my business going and been able to pay my rent. I know many people who have struggled. We have all been forced to think outside the box and find new ways to make a living. 

So, at the time of writing, August 2020, we are starting to return to our places of work and this adds a new level of pressure. Guidelines for singing, and whether it is safe to do so in the presence of other people, have been released and the consensus seems to be that one to one singing lessons can start again if you can deliver these lessons in a large well ventilated space. My second floor flat no longer cuts it, I fear, and I need to find somewhere else to teach. My downstairs neighbour will be thrilled about that. The hall where I run my choir is, fingers crossed, going to be the place for this from now on. We have to wear face coverings in this hall at the moment but I feel it's worth a go if it means I can be in the same room as my students.

That said, I am anxious about starting up again. Not because I'm scared but because nobody really knows what is going to happen once everything does open up again. Will we have a second wave, will I have to self-isolate because I was in a Caffé Nero for more than 15 minutes when another punter with Covid was there? Who knows! And that is the worry. This anxiousness is what is stopping me from starting my choir meeting in person right now. Although the "rules" seem to suggest we can start rehearsing together again it just doesn't feel right yet. The research carried out in the Perform study (ParticulatE Respiratory Matter to InForm Guidance for the Safe Distancing of PerfOrmeRs in a COVID-19 PandeMic - catchy) has concluded that singing is no more dangerous than speaking, however, it all comes down to volume. The louder we sing/speak the more aerosols and droplets are emitted. With that in mind I have taken the decision to keep the choir online for the foreseeable. The problem with this is about half of the members of my 2 choirs haven't tried a Zoom session and don't really want to start now, which is a shame, but an understandable one. It's not the same and, to be fair, some people just aren't able to join us online so this is in no way a criticism, just an observation. I may write another post about this, although, as I intimated at the beginning of this post, I am not a scientist.

So that's a quick overview of my choir and teaching shenanigans but what of my own singing? Well I was inspired for the first 3 months of Lockdown and then something happened that left me unable to sing at the flat anymore so I've taken a few steps backwards recently. I did manage to book a room in which to do some singing and record some new songs for the choir a couple of weeks ago. I had the whole place to myself and those 3 hours spent singing properly and fully were the best 3 hours I'd had since March. I even managed to record a video, to be included in my choirs "End Of Term" online concert, of me singing an actual song. I have the room booked to do more next week and I can not wait. 

So there we have it, in a nutshell. There is so much more to discuss but as I haven't posted since February you may well have collapsed due to the shock of me producing something for you to read. I'm quite disappointed in myself that I have had since March 23rd to write something for you and it has taken me until August 30th to actually post something. So as a little extra gift, from me to you, I thought I would share my little video with you here. Excuse my unbrushed hair and the fact I couldn't remember the words so had them up on my phone. To be fair it's a miracle I'm sharing anything right now!

PS The title of this post may seem a little familiar. It did to me. So I trawled my previous posts and found I had used a similar title before. I'm not going to change this posts title as I can't think of another but if you fancy reading the other post you'll find it here. Enjoy.

If you’re having trouble opening the video click here