A Less-Sexy Craig David...

Not since I was in 1R at high school have I been structured so restrictively by a weekly timetable. In September of 1989 I kept a cellotape-laminated copy of my week in my blazer's top pocket. These days there's no need to go to such lengths. My day to day activities are imprinted on my brain. Tattooed on my memory through repetition and the lack of anything unexpected or novel. 

I know. I'm as surprised as you that I dug this up.
(Cellotape-laminate for the win!) More surprising,
 however, is that a timetable was handwritten,
and that ass was celebrated in the chapel every
Wednesday. Different times, people.
Different times.

This time it's not Games on a Tuesday that's set in stone. There are other anchors that pinpoint which day of the week it happens to be. Monday, for example, is Only Connect night. If you had mislaid your phone, your calendar, or your etched wall markings, and had no clue what day it was, you'd know it was Only Connect Monday by me shouting NEXT at the screen whilst throwing out random words that bear no relation to any subsequent quiz question. Monday evening is when I stretch my brain but still come up short. 

Tuesday is less clear. I don't shout at the TV on a Tuesday. It's still early doors in the week and there's no real fun to be had. Those evenings usually see me rewatching something of old. At the moment it's Taskmaster. I'm working my way through from the beginning as I listen to each episode's podcast that drops weekly. A Taskmaster rewatch is an activity that was made for lockdown. Silly, fun, fascinating, and in plentiful supply. There are currently seventy-two episodes to be streamed. They liven up Boring Tuesday considerably.

A dramatic reconstruction
 of my Wednesdays.

Wednesday is the point when things get a little more hopeful. It's Food Shopping Day for starters. Also known as The Day I Leave The House And Go To A Place Where Other People Are, although that's less catchy. Wednesday is only two days away from Friday and Friday means wine. So compared to Tuesday, Wednesday is the more glamorous sibling. Wednesday is the Princess Margaret. As well as food shopping, I usually batch cook and spend a happy afternoon away from my laptop. Because Wednesday is my official non-writing day, my brain gets a rest. So come the evening, I've got the mental bandwidth to watch something requiring a little more concentration. Sometimes it's an old Vera from ITVPlayer. A two-hour whodunnit could never take place on a day I've been looking at a screen for hours. Other times it's a film. Most recently I've been working my way through Russell T Davies' back catalogue and so last Wednesday saw me box off several episodes of Cucumber. I'm going backwards chronologically so my next RTD is Doctor Who. I know. There's loads of them to work through. Lockdown schmockdown. Wednesday evenings are a delight.

Perfect lockdown viewing. BBC3 on the iPlayer.

By the time Thursday kicks in, the mood is even lighter. Thursday is Almost Weekend Night. It's Drag Race UK night too. The second series is well underway and is exactly right for these times. Upbeat, supportive, escapist, and the complete antithesis to the more polished, less fun US version. Thursdays are when the wind of change is in the air. Thursdays are when an evening not sat in front of the telly is nearly here. Thursdays are when the bliss of delayed gratification is disguised as a day of a week. Thursday night's TV is the amuse bouche to the following day. Have I built up the tension enough? Because suddenly it's here. It's Friday! 

It's a fisherwoman's platter, no less!

Friday is when unhealthy food paired with lovely booze gets a look in. That's the first change from the norm. The second is that the dining table - also known as the storage place, the jigsaw area, or the dusty wooden thing in the room I never use - gets rolled out. Not literally. It stays where it is but I sit there to eat. Friday night food is spread out, picky, and involves small dishes or a platter. It is never a knife and fork job, and it flies in the face of people that balk at licked fingers. The evening usually ends with me YouTubing songs I haven't heard for ages. This tradition started several weeks ago with the shock of Morton Harket being outed as a Viking. (If you know you know.) Every Friday since, I've listened to his unplugged version of Take on Me. This leads me into my favourite game -  DJing with Alexa - where I play all my favourite singalong tunes. Did I say there's wine? There's wine. I belt out all my faves until the bottle is empty. Try it. It's fun. 

Of course by the time the following day comes along, it's all lies-in and leisurely loafing. I get up late. I have a bath. I shave my legs. Do tell me when I've shared too much, won't you. I listen to podcasts and do the crossword as I drink tea and chillax. Then I cook something big for tea that takes more effort than usual. And there's more wine. Hurrah. A proper film is required for Saturday nights. The kind people watched in cinemas. You know, in the olden days? The last three weeks have seen me watch the To All the Boys trilogy. Because clearly I am a fourteen year old girl deep down. Anything heavier than an upbeat rom-com isn't welcome these days. I'll be back for heavy hitting realism when I can come and go about my business willy nilly, and not a day before. By the time Sunday comes, I'm hungover but unwound. I stay in PJs and use the day to sleep, slob, and watch anything on the planner that needs boxing off. And that, dear readers, is my timetable. 

Even this involves more movement
than I'm used to.

This routine has been in place for weeks. Seven and a half, to be exact. Ever since 2021 began. As we (in the UK) know from experience, lockdown months last approximately 465 times longer than normal months. So even though this one's less than two menstrual cycles long, it's hard to remember what came before. I've forgotten there was a time I left the house in the evenings. I've forgotten there was a time when basing a whole week around the television wasn't standard. When things eventually open up a little, I'll have to carefully reintroduce out-of-house activities at an incremental rate. I'll be exhausted and overwhelmed if I try to shower and leave my home on the same day. I might strain a muscle. Perhaps I should start working out now; getting myself ready physically and mentally for the time I'll need full stamina to face the day. Yes. That's a plan. I'll start upping my game. Maybe I'll have a bath on a Tuesday. Perhaps I'll have a picky tea on a Wednesday. By the time everything's open, I'll be up for a fourteen-venue pub crawl, no mess. 

Have a lovely week, folks.