Has anyone else taken on a project or two to keep them busy during the lockdown? I'm still going to work as normal but my free time is spent differently. So far I am re-reading all the Swallows and Amazons books (but not in order) and solo playing the board game Terraforming Mars as every different faction (there are 13). I've also done a couple of writing projects. Plus working on my garden as normal. What have the rest of you been up to?

I've started writing a drabble. Won't publish it until I've finished it which may take a long time. Mentioning it here may make me work on finishing it.

Look forward to it! Any clues about where/when it's set and who are main characters?

Pondering starting a lockdown blog, if only for myself so I can look back on it ... if I want to! I've written one drabble, watched several films which have been in my Sky Planner or Amazon Prime watchlist for ages, and got all the photos taken so far this year stuck into albums.

I'm working from home - some days there's plenty to do, some days there aren't. And I'm going for a long walk every day. I haven't spent so much time in the local park since I was in the second year infants and the teacher used to take us for "nature walks" to pick up acorns and pinecones!

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

Don't get your hopes up about my drabble which will be poking fun at the EBDisms in a family. It starts at the beginning and will finish??

Exile - where's your drabble, please?

It's not a drabble, it's maritime history articles. I suppose I could do some drabbling too.

Maritime history sounds interesting too!

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I've devoted some of my time to identifying animals captured on motion cameras in the jarrah forest of south-western Australia. My favourite photo was an adult emu (probably male, as they do the raising of offspring) with 8 young! That's finished now, but there are plenty of other online volunteer activities at https://www.zooniverse.org/

My usual volunteer activity is with distributed proofreaders (https://www.pgdp.net). We've had a much higher rate of new signups, and so my activities have been mainly directed to making sure there's sufficient material for them to proofread. Newbies start in the first round, which has been completing about 3 times as many pages as usual. Other rounds are also getting higher outputs, so I expect some older volunteers have returned when they have more time on their hands.

I started a lockdown log London 2020 (pun) subtitled (stolen) "Journal of a Plague Year" but don't put much in it. We thought at church we could try something like Mass Observation.

There's not much in it as I'm not a writer or jotter and I couldn't find a collaborator

Alison, best of luck with yours. I really enjoy your writing.

So far I've taught myself how to make videos (sermons) and voice recordings (churchy stuff) and finally managed to make Google Classroom behave!

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"Lack of planning on your part does not necessarily mean an emergency on mine"

"Association does not infer causality"

Also I just spent 85 quid on Lego. But I have wanted it for ages (Apollo lander kit)

Spoke too soon - I have to be able to share a screen and, though I can understand the instructions can't make it behave.. On well, on computer for Zoom and a notebook for Google classroom and hope it works

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"Lack of planning on your part does not necessarily mean an emergency on mine"

"Association does not infer causality"

I "painted" (with Sharpies - easier to control!) some wooden eggs to send to friends. And used Camp NaNoWriMo to motivate me to write, but it didn't turn out to be what I was expecting to write, so now I have two things on the go, and a dissertation, of which the first 20% has gone off to the supervisor for approval, so I'm taking the next few days off that. I enjoyed doing the eggs so much that I'm thinking of getting some more in even though the season's over.

I've written a load of lockdown blog posts now, but haven't posted them all yet, just, so far, a few notes on how it all started. It's mainly to have a record for myself, because my handwriting has deteriorated so much over the years than my manual diaries are hard to read . I'm sure WordPress has got more complicated since I set up my book review blog in 2014! It's quite weird looking back through my January diaries and seeing a few mentions of a strange virus which'll probably have long since faded out of the news by the summer.

Here


My next job is to watch some TV programmes I've had on my Sky Planner for ages. No live sport and soaps are on ration, so there isn't much else to watch!

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

That's very interesting Alison, thanks for posting it, would like to see more!

Thank you .

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I am rereading a set of books I came across as a teenager: the 'Marianne' series by Juliette Benzoni. They are set in Napoleonic Europe and are far more unrealistic than I remember (she is shipwrecked, kidnapped, raped and imprisoned on a regular basis). However, they do have a lot of history in them and it is so much easier looking people and places up on a kindle! I have also decorated my hallway, which I had been putting off for ages as I live in a bungalow, so it meant painting the woodwork on seven doors; it is done now and looks fabulous, so all the effort has been worth it. Now, what shall I paint next? My family say no more!

I wish I wasn't so useless at DIY! My house badly needs painting, and the bathroom and kitchen both need tarting up. I'm better with writing .

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

Just gone to your blog again Alison and seen more. I gave the link to a friend, she found it very interesting too and hopes for more.

I'm finding it interesting, too. It's amazing how quickly one forgets, or the memory blurs. It's a good job we have a historian to keep a proper record for us. Thanks, Alison.

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

Oh, thank you . I do write things down, but my writing has got so bad over the years that it's hard for even me to read sometimes!

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/