Lockdown/Mental Health Brain Dump

Just some thoughts and photos from my lockdown so far.

I'm wrestling with lots of thoughts that I normally do anyway that are being triggered by that new year/birthday/new starting point in time kind of thing, "I have this lockdown period to sort myself out and become the good version of myself" and obviously that's bad, we're always changing and evolving and it's much healthier I think to work on being happy how you are than to be aiming for a different version of yourself. Not that you can't work on changing things but you're good now and you'd still be good if you achieved that thing.

Anyway, I've been thinking about how I spend my time and this lockdown situation has simultaneously triggered that whole deadline aspect which is maybe not great but within that there is that feeling of "cool, ok, I can get this done now" there are things I've already been working on getting better at and maybe this is an opportunity to move forward with it. I really want to work harder and I have a lot of mental block to work on, I hold myself back when it comes to work, a lot and I'm also working on the fact that I feel like time spent not working is wasted time. When actually, considering my work is art and being creative, doing other things feeds that and is not just useful but necessary, I mean relaxing and hobbies are necessary for everybody but I'm being self-involved here and just talking about myself.

I've been working on these things for a while but this whole staying in the house thing has taken away all the thoughts of "I need to get out of the house more" which is another thing I need to work on but for now it's one less thing in my head, maybe this is a chance to concentrate on how I spend my time while I am in the house and then when I can start going out again I'll work on that.

But I'm worried I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. Chances are I'm not going to make any magical life changes in the next few weeks and I don't want that to cause some sort of relapse and set myself back again with lots of "well, that deadline passed and I'm still useless". Or is this just me holding myself back some more?

This train of thought is all over the place. Basically I feel like I don't know how to exist properly and I've been working on it and the enforced social distancing has made me feel like I have a deadline. It's hard to put into words but I hold myself back from work I guess because of anxiety or whatever else mental problems and then I feel like I haven't earned rest/hobby time so I don't fully make use of that either. This isn't new I just feel like being stuck in the house might give me chance to make some progress? I hope so anyway. I've been working on it for a while and I do feel like I've been getting somewhere but I'm also just a bit sick of myself.

24th March UK Lockdown

The uk government announced last night that they were taking stronger measures to enforce social distancing and I just need to vent some thoughts. I almost didn't post this because I don't want to add to anyone's stress levels with my own rambling but I know I'll find it beneficial to write it down and send it off into the world so I recommend just looking at this nice tree and then clicking out of here💖

The advice to individuals is the same as it was, stay inside unless it's essential to go out, only travel to work if you have to, for food and medicine, exercise, keeping contact with others to a bare minimum. What's changed is they've given themselves and the police the power to close things down, give out fines, disperse people.
We had the opportunity to look after each other and we fucked up. I am mad. This is probably some sort of necessary evil, the virus needs to be cut off and apparently we were too stupid to just do that for each other so we need to be forced to do it but we need to remember in the long run that it is not good to give any government, let alone a conservative one, the power to control us like this.

The fact that people don't understand how viruses spread, or that they don't care, is just infuriating. Why could people not just stay inside, why did people still think to themselves, "oo the sun's come out lets hang out at the park". It's so irresponsible and now the government have more control over what we can and can't do.
Aside from the fact that people are selfish enough to not care about spreading the virus I now can't help but think about all the people put in danger by these new measures. I don't know enough to talk about these things properly and won't even be aware of all the ways people will be affected but anyone that's already at risk of profiling by the police must be worried about what might happen now when they go out for food and medicine or just to move their body, trying to stay healthy. Domestic violence is going to go through the roof with everyone being forced to stay inside. The tension of everyone having to stay in rather than choosing to stay in will have a strain on any relationship let alone abusive ones. Everyone that can, needs to stay inside, we need to look after each other to stop the spread of the virus as quickly as possible and to give space to people that need it. It breaks my heart that people are so uninformed and so selfish and it impacts people so heavily and all you needed to do was let a sunny day pass without hanging out at the park.

I also want to add that while I am mad at everyone that hasn't been taking this seriously I also fully blame the government for encouraging it. They started this whole thing with advice based around carrying on and herd immunity and then they realised they fucked up and drip fed the idea that things should close and we should stay inside but they'd already sold people the idea that it wasn't necessary. (Not to mention all the fucking war language that totally fed people's bullshit keep calm and carry on we won't be stopped from our normal lives blitz mentality.) They were too slow to act and it's put people in danger.

Like I said, I'm not articulate enough or well informed enough to talk about this properly, I just needed to vent, get it out of my system a bit so I can concentrate on staying sane while we sit this out. I already spend a lot of time at home, I'd already started only going out for necessities and my home is safe, I'm actually looking forward to spending more time with Will. I'm worried about money, I'm worried about having access to food we can afford and eventually about paying our bills (we're ok for this month) and I'm worried about other people and the situation as a whole but I'm going to concentrate on staying calm and doing what I can do and hopefully this whole situation will be over as soon as is possible.

Stay safe, look after yourself, look after each other💖

My Friend, Tufty

This pigeon has been visiting our bird table every day recently. They started off so shy, got bolder and bolder and now I can walk through the kitchen without scaring them off and even get close to the window to take photos.

I call them Tufty for an obvious reason and it's also how I know it's the same bird. I wonder why those feathers are always out of place?

Such speed,

mmm, seed (*^^*)

And here's one again but with the saturation turned right up because why not.

Three Photos ~ 12th March 2020

I went for a walk and tried to only take a photo if I thought it would actually turn out to be "good" rather than just snapping at everything.

In the end I only took three photos so I either need to get better at taking photos or looking for a photo to take.

They are three photos that I like though so the little challenge to be more thoughtful did work and I'm sure I'll get better at it too.

Not that there's anything wrong really with just snapping at everything if that's what you/I/we want to do.

Photos of Manga I've Been Reading

Here's all the photos I've taken while reading manga so far this year. It wasn't as many as I thought it would be actually, I think that's because I mostly read in bed before sleep and I often think "I'm too lazy to get my phone, I'll remember to take a photo of that in the morning" and then forget.
Sometimes I take a photo because I feel like I can learn something from the drawing and sometimes it's just a fan thing of really liking a character or panel or joke or whatever and sometimes it's a mix of everything.

Fushigi Yugi by Yuu Watase

Fushigi Yugi by Yuu Watase

Yuu Watase's drawings are just the perfect mix of so beautiful and also really extreme funny expressions. I've also been reading Absolute Boyfriend by her which has some really good examples further down this post.

Made in Abyss by Akihito Tsukushi / Yotsuba& by Kiyohiko Azuma

How Made in Abyss is drawn appeals to me so much, the story is super horrible a lot of the time though, don't be fooled but how cute it looks.

Yotsuba& by Kiyohiko Azuma

Yotsuba is my favourite, I love her so much in so many ways and just look at those copyright pages like a firework going off, it's so cool when people use interesting design for things that have to be there anyway.

Yotsuba& by Kiyohiko Azuma / My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi

My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi

I watch the anime of HeroAca and I'm now slowly working my way through the manga (slowly because I'm apparently not the only person borrowing it from the library, who'd have thought) and it's so nice to go over the story again and also to be able to go at my own speed, the anime episodes are always over too soon. I love how Horikoshi draws SO MUCH (the hands😭) and I love all the characters SO MUCH and I love getting to see all the little background bits of panels and the cover/contents page designs are so cool and yeah I just love it all ok.

Nausicaa by Hayao Miyazaki

Nausicaa by Hayao Miyazaki

Unsurprisingly considering the mangaka, Nausicaa is so beautiful, the art as well as the story. I am not articulate enough to explain how this is affecting me, I feel very touched by how she interacts with nature and all the creatures and Miyazaki's use of heavy detail and also negative space is just so good. I'm only 2 volumes in and there's 7? I think? and I'm trying to pace myself so I don't run out, even though I will totally read it again.

Nausicaa by Hayao Miyazaki

Absolute Boyfriend by Yuu Watase

Here are some of those Watase expressions I mentioned at the start, so good, right?

Absolute Boyfriend by Yuu Watase

Absolute Boyfriend by Yuu Watase / Rin-ne by Rumiko Takahashi

Rin-ne by Rumiko Takahashi

I'm having a lot of fun with Rin-ne, it's funny, he's poor so it's relatable, I'm so in love with Rokumon (the little cat in the last picture of the post), he's such a good boy and so cute. Again, Takahashi is just so good at drawing, a revelation, I know, I'm the first to notice. It's so silly but it's supposed to be and I'm enjoying it a lot. The library don't have it all which is sad but I think I might try the anime after to get more of a fix of the characters.

Rin-ne by Rumiko Takahashi

That's it for now. I might keep doing this, I collect so many images of various things and then they sit on my computer without getting looked at much but it was nice to go back over them. I'd love to know what you've been reading too!


Take care!
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Took A Walk ~ 6.3.20

I started this week feeling really down on myself. It's hard to feel like I'm not getting anywhere even though I keep trying so hard. I know the only answer is to keep living to my best each day and take it as it comes so I tried to get myself out of the sad mood.

How nice is this rose?! Even the buds are beautiful, chubby and round.

One of the things I did was to get out of the house which I don't do nearly enough or even as often as I used to. Now that we're leaving winter it should be a bit easier or at least I'll have fewer excuses.

Look at all the crocus'!💖

I went for a quick look in the Rosary Cemetery. It's so nice in there, a good combination of looked after and grown.

So fluffy!

This building is behind the railway station. I'm sure it'll be torn down at some point but I love it as it is in all it's roofless glory.

It felt really good to just walk and take photos, it felt nostalgic, I used to do it a lot and don't really anymore. I've also been listening to music that feels nostalgic too. And I started a second youtube channel that's just for fun which isn't nostalgic but I feel a bit freer now than I did 6 days ago and I hope I can keep building on it. 

End of February Start of March

Just some photos I liked. My new bags and all their colours make me smile.

Spring is sprung-ing.

Making stamps out of cheap rubbers was so much fun, I want to do more.

You can watch it here.

Our garden is a mess but that doesn't mean it isn't pretty, plus it's good for the wildlife. I prefer a mess to something overly trimmed with no character. I think I'm going to try growing something this year, sunflowers? tomatoes?