14th April 2020

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I was aiming to get up at 6am this morning and get some work done before everyone else woke up. What actually happened was I woke at 4:20, couldn’t get back to sleep, moved downstairs to listen to the radio for a bit, started to doze off, woken by a random phone call (with seemingly no-one on the other end) at about 5:30, eventually got back to sleep and then woken by the postman knocking at 7am, then finally made tea, took it up to D and then couldn’t find the energy to get up until gone 8am. So not an unqualified success.

Once I managed to get myself working I was pretty productive for the morning and had a couple of productive (but short) Zoom calls. At around 3pm I decided to cut the day short and spend some time with the family. I helped B with a Python install issue on his computer and then watched a kids Jackie Chan movie with F (The Spy Next Door).

F was pretty flaked out today after being awake until past 10pm last night. She was very pleased to get a birthday present this morning (the 7am postal deliver that woke me).

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She declared her intention to watch TV after breakfast and then “go to sleep on the sofa”. We let her do the first of these (it is the Easter holidays after all) but drew the line at the second – and she played outside and made a plaster cast volcano she got for her birthday with help from D (who is working half days again this week). Happily this evening she (F) went to bed, and then to sleep, without any drama – she must have been tired!

B spent the day playing around on the computer and reading. He was doing some machine learning tutorial and asking me random questions like “how would you model genetics in a computer game” and “what equations could you use to model the environment” (way beyond my ability to answer) and trying to tackle vector algebra (which I think I only did when I studying undergraduate mathematics) – I don’t know how much he understands (probably more than I realise and less than he thinks) but he seemed to be both engaged and happy with what he was doing.

We had roast chicken for dinner yesterday – which we very rarely do, and it was a revelation for F – she thought it was like having Christmas dinner 🙂 That meant today we had left over chicken stir fried for tea, and I made a batch of stock with the carcass.

Going to go to bed at a sensible time tonight and try to get a good nights sleep. I’ve not left the house since my shopping trip last Thursday, and I don’t think the others have been out for over a week, so it would be good to get out for a walk tomorrow.

Stay safe, stay strong.