Lockdown - final stuff
- Adrian Liley
- Sep 1, 2020
- 2 min read
OK... so we all got stuff done during the last 8 months - stuff that doesn't normally get a look in, given work and family commitments. But... I've said it before and I'll say it again - I actually liked the time in my hermit's cave. If anything, it seemed like a great excuse not to do any serious work and to concentrate on the bizarre stuff.
I actually learnt how to cook. And cook things I'd never have dreamed of attempting in the past. Take the blackberry and apple crumble (actually, not really possible - it weighed a ton even though it only occupied a small pie dish). But it looked great and actually tasted reasonably good too. OK, the pastry was concrete, but once you hacked through that layer the apples and blackberries were pretty hot in all ways.
And I learnt to do stuff in the garden... like varnishing weathered decking. Have to say that this was my crowning achievement during the lockdown because it looked good and even drew admiring comments from the neighbours. Chuffed as nuts. Only problem was that in my haste to get it done before the rain started I forgot that you need to have an escape plan. I didn't... and was stranded in an unvarnished corner at the far end having to do a world record standing jump to get out without varnishing my shoes. I ended up head down in the tomatoes... but free.
Then there was the cerebral stuff. Again... quite proud of this. I finished a book started by my dad on time travel and also completed a book of short stories on my life in China. Chuffed again. Highlight there was not so much my literary prowess, but my brother's astonishing Tolkienesque illustrations (for the sci-fi epic). Never knew he was that talented.
As for work, well, it's all still a bit of a pudding - certainly in my industry. To tell potential foreign language students that the only way forward is online learning (during the lockdown) might be a commendable marketing angle in desperate times, but now to tell them that it's actually better to get back into the classroom again, was confusing to some. What is clear is that the EFL industry still has a few more steep hills to climb before it can return to some degree of balance.
So that was my lockdown. A varnished, gastronomic, intellectual and horticultural success in nearly all ways.
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