Day 6

Friday 20th March

My whole body is aching!!! I woke up aching this morning and I ache even more after this morning’s workout. Remember those bottles of water I bought yesterday to use as dumbbells? I didn’t need them today as the workout was all floor-based, which made for some entertaining slipping about on my living room rug. Of course I don’t have a yoga mat, why would I have one of those? So I’ve repurposed my rug but it isn’t quite long enough for my tall body to have both my feet and hands on it during plank-type exercises. Which means, of course, that my hands and feet slide away from each other during the exercises, picking up speed as they go. Think of a baby giraffe on an ice rink…

Our complex was hosed down with bleach this morning. I’m sure that’s not good for marine life but apparently that’s the thing to do with Coronavirus on the loose.

Last night the Spanish government ordered the closure of all hotels and touristic accommodation by the end of next week to reinforce the state of quarantine. However this situation pans out we know it’s going to take a long time to recover from it when the whole of Spain basically kicks out the tourists and closes the door behind them. Additionally flights between the Canary islands and Spanish mainland have been cut down to a minimum for emergencies only and passengers will have to justify why they need to travel.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that the convention I have booked to attend in London at the end of April has been postponed. I’d already figured it would have to be called off with so many lockdowns and travel restrictions around the world, and with our quarantine set to be extended it was looking highly unlikely I could get there anyway. But having the postponement confirmed is a relief and it’s only postponed, not cancelled, which means I have something to look forward to when this is all over. The new dates haven’t been announced yet but as soon as they are I’ll get on to Easyjet about changing my flights. They have removed their flight change fees during the current situation so I just have to hope the new flights aren’t much more expensive.

By this afternoon I had, quite frankly, had enough of reading about the latest coronavirus developments and quarantine rules, and seeing all the quarantine-related posts on my social media feeds. So I made a hot cup of green tea, snuggled down on the sofa and caught up with Tumblr.

Tumblr is a social media platform too, right? Yeah, but Tumblr is different. It’s a strange place at times and it took me a while to get used to it, but it’s become a welcome oasis of calm in the middle of all the madness. I’m sure there must be people talking about masks and toilet rolls on Tumblr too but not in the corner where I hang out. My corner of Tumblr is populated by other fangirls (maybe some fanboys too) sharing images, animated gifs, artwork, random thoughts and long analytical essays related to their particular fandoms.

My Tumblr feed is a gallery of talent and dedication. These people don’t grab their gifs from Google, they make them themselves from video, painstakingly cleaning and colouring the clips to make sharp, beautiful animated images. They share their artwork and their fanfiction and they discuss the concepts and symbolism in their favourite shows. One of my mutuals (On Tumblr when accounts follow each other they are called “mutuals”, not “friends”) is currently in the process of remastering, by herself, a whole television series to bring out the colours and details that are hidden behind gloomy shadows in the original show. With around 28 hours of video to remaster, much of it shot by shot, that’s going to be an epic labour of love!

I mostly just “reblog” (share) other people’s content and interact with them in the comments as I produce very little original content of my own. I have shared a couple of my own fan videos there and have been blown away by the positive responses I’ve had! On the whole everyone is very encouraging and supportive and they seem to be a much more mature and sensible crowd than other fan communities. I’ve neglected my Tumblr account for the last couple of days so it was just nice to escape from reality for a while and catch up on everything I’ve missed.

Before I go to bed here is an important public service announcement: