Bookworm NOT in Paris: Lockdown, Routine and MASH

Hi all my bookworms

How are you all?

I hope you are indoors, safe and well.

I have been struggling for ideas as what to write on a Monday at the moment.  During, what now seems such a short time in Paris, I was writing to you weekly on places I had been, things I’d seen, bookshops I’d been to and it hardly seems worth it while we’re in lockdown.  But I thought it might be useful to tell you what I am doing in order to keep cabin fever at bay during this difficult time.

For the most part I have been avoiding the topic of you-know-what on here, apart from reminding you to stay at home as much as possible, because I wanted this to be a safe place for me to come and avoid it.  For me, books especially, are an escapism.  When I was in sixth form, around exam periods I would read more in that time than any other time of the year because my stress and anxiety levels  were too high an escaping into whatever fictional world I was currently fascinated in was a way of distancing myself from the events that were going on around me.

It probably would have been better to deal with the stress and revise for my exams but I got the results I wanted, so I’m happy.

So for now I will continue on with ‘Bookworms NOT in Paris’ as a way of sharing coping techniques that I have found.

And the technique that I have found the most useful at the moment is routine.

A lot of people have said it but I’m going to say it again.  Routine.

Since I’ve come home from Paris the schools have shut down and the work I thought I was coming back to has shut.  It would be so easy for me to get up late, eat junk food, laze in front of the TV all day and play on my iPad, nap in the afternoon and then not sleep at night so I wake up late the next morning.  And that day would go on and on and I know from experience that is a sure fire way to let my anxiety levels get away from me.  So I have a routine.  It’s something me and my brother have promised to do together.  He does his class work just like he would when he’s in college, so at nine o’clock if he has a music lesson he does his music lesson, if at half one he would normally have a ITC lesson, he does his ICT lesson and that way he keeps to a schedule.

For me that means waking up sometime between seven and eight, depending on when the cats decide they want to kick me out of bed and then I do all the morning things, breakfast, shower etc. and then I sit myself at the desk in the library (yes, our house has a library, but I’ll leave that story for another day) and I write blog posts.  I try to write two or three each morning and get them scheduled and then, by the time that’s done, it’s time for lunch.  Half my day has gone and I have accomplished something.  The afternoons include some sort of lunch, walk, read, TV combination, maybe some cooking or baking if I’m in the mood sometimes I help my mum do some food shopping sometimes I just go for a walk in the secluded woods that are not far from the house and walk a couple of laps round the path with an audiobook playing through my headphones.

An evening usually means watching TV as a family something fun a light hearted.  At the moment we’re making our way through M.A.S.H. something I recommend all people watch.  If you’ve never seen it you are missing out.  It was wrote by some amazing comedic geniuses, or rather one in particular, and acted out by some brilliant actors.  And it is brilliant!

Now you’re looking at me like I’m crazy.  Don’t worry I’ve had that look from many friends over the years when I have told them about the program until I get them to watch it.  The programme follows a small group of doctors and nurses at an American M.A.S.H. (mobile army surgical hospital) unit during the Korean war.  They are living in hell, awful conditions doing meatball surgery but some how they still find a way to look on the bright side of life. whether it is enjoying gin from the homemade still or making fun of frank burns or even just writing a letter home on the camp stationary (toilet paper) they make their days enjoyable and try to forget the hell they’re living in for just a while.

I’m not sure what I expected to write when I started it and I have very obviously gone off on a tangent.  However I hope that you try watch M.A.S.H. and I hope that you let me know down in the comments what you are doing to keep yourself sane at the moment.

So my bookworms, until next time, and happy reading.