Hands up I’m not finding lockdown too hard. Of course I’m sad that my husband and I couldn’t celebrate his 60th birthday at The Fat Duck. I’m sad that I won’t be walking in the Brecon Beacons next week. I’m sad that I won’t be spending a weekend at Center Parcs in May. But, hopefully, these are all postponed not cancelled.

I am enjoying not getting up at 5am every morning to commute to work. I am making the most of having that bit of extra time to do other things. Although there has not been as much time as I had hoped.

I am, I know, very fortunate. I am working and have a garden. I’m not worried about money. Well apart from the economic impact on my pension. And I still have a social life albeit through a screen.

My education has equipped me with the knowledge of knowing what 2 metres looks like and what a household is. So far, so safe. Unfortunately, if my daily exercise is anything to go by, there are a lot of people that don’t have a clue. Or they just believe that the rules don’t apply to them. I’m not sure what is worse.

I first wrote about life in our new social distanced world a month ago. At that time I was focusing on my health and well-being. I intended to get more sleep, learn to meditate, keep fit and healthy and learn a new skill. I’m currently at two and a half out of four.

I’m getting eight hours sleep every night. Well as long as Oscar doesn’t become desperate to see off the fox taunting him at the backdoor.

I am exercising. I walk the dog and do one, sometimes two, classes over zoom. My gym has been excellent. Seventeen classes a week, fitness challenges, a rave night and a quiz night. A community. They are also responsible for my latest addiction. Myzone. Myzone is a heart rate monitor which tracks calories, exercise intensity and heart rate. Through the app I can track not only my progress but see how everyone else is doing. What I’m delighted about is that it monitors how hard you are working. Not how fast you are. Not how much weight you can lift. The intensity is recorded as a percentage of your maximum heart rate so is age adjusted. We all start equal and we all have the same objective. To gain Myzone Effort Points (MEPs) and get into the red zone.

So far so good but my diet is probably letting me down. I’ve put on a kilogram. It is the working day that takes the blame. I would normally prepare food to take to work. I am a Tupperware queen. Or I would go out at lunchtime to buy a salad. But working from home, going from meeting to meeting, I find myself heading to the bread bin when I have a few minutes spare. Not good.

As a consequence I’m looking fairly ropey. Oh how I wish I could apply an Instagram filter to Microsoft Teams. But with that not being an option (or is it?) my diet needs some urgent attention.

I have been trying to meditate. I join a guided meditation session every Sunday. I downloaded the Calm app to use every morning. But I’m finding it difficult. The science as to the benefits of meditation is robust. It reduces stress and anxiety and improves mental focus and clarity. So what’s not to like. I’m told that it takes practice therefore I will persevere as the rewards appear to be great. And I may have found an alternative to the eyes closed, palms facing upwards version (see below).

Finally, a new skill. With the assistance of YouTube I have learnt to crochet. And I’m loving it. It is more forgiving than knitting and progress is faster. That being the case I’m still slow. I have started to crochet a blanket. Each row takes an hour. There are 127 rows. I may finish it by the Autumn.

There is something very soothing about crochet. The smooth repetition calms the mind allowing your thoughts to go elsewhere or nowhere. It feels like I imagine meditation should feel so, of course, I googled ‘meditation and crochet’. And it is a thing. I may have cracked a new skill and meditation in one fell swoop.

Four weeks into social distancing, three weeks into lockdown I’m doing ok. I’m surviving and thriving. Long may it last.

N.B. Thank you to those who messaged me after my last blog. My finger eventually stopped bleeding and I had my INR checked on Tuesday. I was out of therapeutic range. Fortunately not by much. It will be checked again this week.