For the first time in her life, despite waking up at usual time, Leila decided she wasn’t going to start work straight away. She woke Alex up to check if he was okay (he hadn’t been well in the night) and hadn’t realised he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep after. They both lazed about for an extra hour and a bit, before Leila started work at 9.40am. No one at work really even noticed or cared. Leila wasn’t in the mood to work so she took the morning super slow, and wondered if this is what everyone does on Fridays/on normal days. It often feels like people put work second to enjoying life, but Leila doesn’t do that despite knowing that isn’t that important to her. It felt quite nice to take it easy and it was much needed. Alex made coffee using the Round Hill roastery beans for the first time. It was tasty but a little sour. Leila then ordered 1kg of Press beans because she couldn’t not take advantage of the £10 off offer which she’d been thinking about for the last 3 weeks. She also subscribed to Oddbox because they had just started accepting new customers again (and because there was 50% off) and ordered a fruit and veg box to arrive next week. They stopped writing the blog mid way because it was a little sad and Leila was second guessing herself.
Alex spent the morning doing some metrics and then made lunch of vegetables, eggs and vegan cheese (which he regrets adding) but it was still nice. He then started reading on the bench. Leila decided to go get some rhubarb from the communal garden to make a rhubarb crumble. On her way, Katy (one of the neighbours), she passed Katy who was sitting in the garden sketching. They hadn’t really spoken much before but she’s in the gardening crew so they know each other a little. She had a really nice conversation with her and Alex joined. Turns out they have a lot in common – Zanzibar, Ismailis and Joe Hazel being her nephew and also one of Alex and Leila’s former classmates at Cambridge who then worked at Goldman and now lives in Cambridge MA. It was a nice conversation and it made Leila happy and for some reason made her feel better about the last 24 hours. She dialled into her 2pm call and started making the rhubarb crumble whilst she waited for Helen to open the line, using no recipe and weird ingredients. She then joined a 1hour call whilst Alex sat opposite researching West African countries’ response to COVID and their testing strategies – Ghana had done really well in testing but Nigeria was the opposite. After the call, the crumble was ready and they sat outside eating it in the sun together with some decaf tea. They then did a little more work and took a break to do yoga outside on AloMoves. Alex didn’t enjoy her motivational and sensual chat and kept laughing but she was a good teacher (recommended by Misha). After 30mins, a baby from next door spotted them and then immediately started crying on sight of the poor yoga techniques on show. They giggled and then stopped and went back to work for a bit before realising both of them were flagging and really tired. At 7pm, Alex called Ali and Leila took a long shower (for fun but also to give him space) and then he started cooking dinner which was a repeat of his marinaded chilli tofu from a few weeks ago. Leila finished off the cooking whilst he showered and then they ate outside with a candle and a beer.
After dinner, Leila made popcorn and Alex added chilli to his. They sat in the living room briefly before going to bed early in the attic. There was a really bright star outside which Alex tried to identify using his app. It felt like a bit of a holiday being in a different room and they fell asleep early.
Coffee, Wine and Isolation 