Lockdown Diaries II — this vegan life

Way back in December, I downloaded Duolingo. Two weeks on a Canary Island and I fancied myself fluent in Spanish, but then life got in the way and I forgot about it. Then Covid-19 got in the way of life getting in the way of learning Spanish, and I decided where I was going wrong was the language I’d chosen. I had no man in the game - I’d never learned Spanish as a child, I had no foundation and no grip on the words. French was my language of choice at school and while I still dream of future Canary Island holidays, I switched Duolingo to French and felt smug that now, I was just months away from becoming a bi-lingual badass.

I took one five minute lesson.

If lockdown has taught me anything, it’s that Duolingo is such a nag. ‘Hi Kim Willis! It’s time for your daily French lesson,’ it says, via email AND pop up notification. Always there to remind me only those who practise every day get anywhere. Yeah? Tell that to my piano!

My weekly progress report from DuoLingo. Ten out of ten for effort.

I have decided lockdown is not a time to learn a new language. It’s not a time to take a degree with the Open University. It’s a time for family, friends, food, fun and fitness. Even though French does also start with an F and I do love alliteration, it’s not going on my lockdown list because I can’t concentrate while a global pandemic whips the carpet out from under all that we knew to be fine.

So if you are feeling shit about yourself because everyone you follow on Instagram is posting productivity porn then I am here to tell you I deleted the Duolingo app and it feels great. My aim is to get to the end of each day without obsessing over the rolling Covid newsfeed, spending more time calling friends, baking bread, playing board games and appreciating all the things I used to take for granted.

I was wondering though, how are newspapers filling their sports pages now that sport is cancelled? I asked my husband. ‘Oh, they’re all covering marble racing,’ he said, without missing a beat.

You can always count on Gaz to find every brilliant thing happening on the world wide web (he can also diagnose that rash, re-tile that roof and reseed that lawn, thanks to his mastery of google. Gazzy Googles, we call him). All credit to Gazzy Googles for sharing this gem with me too - Sky Sports Presenter Andrew Cotter, busy narrating the showdown between his dogs, Mabel and Olive, as they take to their dinners.

Gotta love lockdown.

We’re getting pretty creative in our household. At the weekend, I took my sister, Pip, to Starbucks for a coffee, then we went to a nail salon for a manicure, all without leaving the kitchen. To be honest, the manicurist (my mum) needs a bit of training but she assures me she’ll try harder next time. Pip got into the theme of going nowhere while going everywhere, suggesting we go to the cinema in the sitting room come the evening. She is providing me with a daily stream of Pipisms, the finest of which I’ll share with you.

During an evening game of Rummikub, one of my favourite Freya Ridings songs came on. ‘They don’t love you like I love you,’ goes the lyric. I sidled up to Pip, put my arms around her and sang along. ‘They don’t love you like I love you,’ I sang, as well as my tone deaf voice could allow. Pip voluntarily wrapped her arms around me, which is rare, I usually have to ask for (demand) a hug. Here we go, I thought, she’s going to say something cute about how much she loves me too. Any second now. ‘They don’t love you like I love you,’ I sang again.

Hugging me tightly, Pip said:

‘I like to make biscuits.’