Corona Journal, 31 March: Day 16
10.30am Have a lie in, and it is glorious. Then make brunch – reduced avocado from Waitrose on reduced sourdough bread with poached eggs, and fresh orange juice made from oranges flatmate bought with good intentions but didn’t get round to eating before they went soft. Feel exceedingly bougie. Suggest popping to the shops for some prosecco to mix with the orange juice to make mimosas – flatmate and boyfriend veto this idea, reminding me that it is 11am on a Tuesday. I remind them that airport rules apply during a pandemic, but they still don’t want a mimosa and I’d feel weird drinking alone so grumpily drink plain orange juice. What is the point.
12pm AMAZING NEWS. Have an email back from HR man at previous (sigh) employer agreeing to furlough me rather than lay me off, to be reviewed in 3 weeks. He warns that I will almost certainly be laid off at the end of the furlough period (end of May), which is sad news but I’m too relieved that I’ll be able to access the government support to worry much about that.
2pm Should be doing some lesson planning, but have spent most of the past few hours worrying about who to vote for in the Labour party leadership election. The deadline for that has really crept up on me, what with this bug thing that’s going round.
3pm Applied for a clerical/admin support job with the NHS. Ok, really going to do some lesson planning now. M has two brothers who also need Italian/French tutoring, so I am doing one lesson of each tomorrow. Eeeek.
6pm I am still planning. This is taking forever. I’m am quite anxious about the lessons as I don’t know what level the boys are – I did ask their PA, but it’s pretty difficult to tell how good someone is at French or Italian if you don’t speak any yourself. I’m a worrier (in case you hadn’t noticed) and I know I am over-preparing, but I can’t help myself; the thought of winging it makes me want to throw up. My unfinished lesson plans look like a choose-your-own adventure maze of ‘if this is too easy, skip to activity 5!’ or ‘if this is hard for him, try X with him’.
7pm The boys’ mum asks if she can sit in on the Italian lesson because she wants to learn as well, and I freak out because I assume the real reason she wants to listen in is because she has found out that my Italian is actually rubbish and I can’t really teach for shit and she wants to catch me out and fire me. I tell this to one of my teacher friends and also that I haven’t even started my French lesson plan yet and I’m stressing. She immediately sends me a brilliant ready-made lesson plan about rooms in the house and then tells me to read this article. I start to calm down.
8pm Bloody hell, I haven’t left the house today and all I’ve eaten since breakfast is digestive biscuits. Luckily, my close personal friend Adriene from Yoga with Adriene is on hand to help me. The series I’m working through (slowly) is called ‘Home’, which seems cruelly apt. Ask boyfriend if he wants to join me; he declines and opts instead to watch in horror, I mean submit the water bill, from the dining table.
8.30pm Should probably have dinner. Can’t be bothered to cook, but fortunately I have all my reduced stuff from Waitrose in the fridge so I feast on out-of-date beetroot, feta and walnut salad, quail’s eggs and tortillas with charred corn, black bean and piquillo pepper dip. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: being rich would suit me.
9pm Breaking news! Quail’s eggs taste exactly like normal eggs. Literally exactly the same, but smaller. You learn something new every day in isolation.
