Feeding my Face Vs Feeding My Mind

I have been doing my absolute best to stick to my exercise routine during lockdown, doing all kinds of fancy walking, parade marching and scenes from West Side Story up and down my driveway. I was self-conscious at first, it is very much like doing it in public, but then it dawned on me that the moment I came back inside the neighbours I had been entertaining would be out doing their own version of keeping fit.  Any shyness I may have thought I had is now properly something of the past.

I wish I could say I have been equally attentive to my eating habits. Not that I haven’t tried but fry-ups for breakfast have been more frequent and a cookie with 11 o’clock tea has become the norm, as has tv snacks. I used to only eat crisps on a Saturday afternoon with a glass or seven of wine and any form of fried breakfast was reserved for Saturday or Sunday mornings. Not hat I have completely clattered off the wagon and spend the day feeding my face. Thankfully, there are limits as to how much I can have at a time, or else there won’t be any for the rest of lockdown. So, while it seems I have been behaving badly at the buffet I am doing quite well under the circumstances.

Speaking of wine; Drinking by myself is really no fun at all, but things being what they are I have indulged myself a little. I bought six bottles of wine, intending them to last the duration. They have. A few glasses on a Saturday evening and a couple on Sunday afternoon, it’s all good. Extension of lockdown has changed things rather dramatically; I have one bottle of wine left and nearly three weeks to go. If it weren’t for sewing lessons, chores, and mental activities I would join in the clamouring for the bottle stores to re-open.

So instead of crying at my lot I have found something else to do. For the remaining days of lockdown, starting last week sometime, I am watching a biography or documentary every day. Granted, if I wanted to know something, I could always look it up, but viewing it is much more fun. Besides, if you put me in front of a stack of encyclopaedia, are they still around? Or in front of a computer and told me to look up something and take in what I can, I wouldn’t know where to begin. The glut of information we have access to nowadays makes it difficult to home in on something. Picking a movie about someone or a documentary is always easier. There is a little synopsis to see if you might be interested and there is usually a picture of some sort.

I will do a list of all the things I have watched; the information is in my head somewhere, but please, no questions. My selection has been rather eclectic

-          A docu/bio about a singer who was beaten and left paralysed and how he has coped

-          A documentary about taxidermy. Sounds macabre but it is quite enlightening. And it is not gross or upsetting

-          A documentary about a train that Hitler used as his headquarters

-          A movie about the Suffragette movement, focused on a few characters but loaded with stuff I never knew

-          An expose about the horrific pollution of land and water belonging to Red Indian tribes and the lies and scheming of the perpetrators

-          And my favourite: A documentary/biography of Hedy Lamar, and actress in the 1920s and 30s and an unrecognised inventor of a means of communication that was used in the war that could not be hijacked or listened in to. This also contributed greatly to blue tooth development and gps equipment.

So, when I am not entertaining the neighbours or shovelling it into my mouth I am at least giving my brain a bit of a work-out. Now if only I could remember to shave.