We both continued to wake up early despite the weekend, Alex especially headed upstairs to play games while Leila lay in (lazy right?). We chilled and had a coffee in the garden as usual. Alex attempted latte art for the first time (see below) and the result was a cloud- like looking thing. Coffee itself was better than the previous days and atmosphere was 10/10 (we still don’t understand why we seem to be the only people using the garden). Leila baked cookies to take for her mum’s birthday.
Alex went to see his sister Misha who hadn’t seen anyone but Matt for the last week. They had a very socially distant walk with Charlie around Southwark, Alex wore bright yellow gloves the whole way and kept a socially extra-distant 3 metres from Misha. They chatted about how she was finding isolation and how she’s getting overloaded with crazy amounts of work, so is Alex, they really haven’t had time to get bored. Time is super weird when we’re in lockdown. Charlie was happy though and was running around like crazy. Alex also picked up all his chill clothes and some trainers, as well as all his frozen fish cakes.
Leila also went to see her mum for her birthday. She walked an hour to get to Highgate Cemetery (which was closed) and met her mum and sisters there for a walk. She walked through Kentish Town on the way and observed socially distant shopping for the first time; security at the entrance to every store and max limits on the number of customers at a time. She also walked past a Gails which was open (surprisingly) and bought sourdough for family and for herself and Alex.
Alex got back first and had a large salad lunch with falafel and fish cakes (it was awesome) and called into ‘Unfiltered’. He then started learning about the Greek debt crisis and writing a policy memo telling the IMF how to intervene. Meanwhile, Leila begun researching local council community support initiatives across the UK, with a focus on areas where lot’s of Ismailis live. It was surprisingly hard to navigate local council websites and there wasn’t much practical support.
We then tuned into Leila’s dad using the speech to the UK Ismailis. He was giving an update on the week and what the institutions are doing to help. Alex and Leila both fed into the speech the day before, and it went really well which made Leila feel particularly proud.
After that, we both continued working on the sofa and had a break for some Gail’s sourdough and a Pri’s Pudding. Leila begun feeling a little unwell so we headed to bed really early.
Coffee, Wine and Isolation 