We all get bored at the best of times, let alone when the whole country is locked in their own home turned prisons, and ultimately wine and food can only go so far before you’re bored of that as well, so how do we keep away from lethargy?

The most vital part of keeping your mind active would be to not treat lockdown as some sort of stay at the beach holiday, at least not for a long period of time, but instead more of a cruise like holiday.

If you go on a cruise you’ll be met with a catalogue of activities to undertake, many of which is something you’d never do in your ordinary life. Obviously there are some limits to this, for example it would be hard to translate a surf simulator into your home but don’t let me stop you if you’re determined.

Instead think of something you might like to do or a skill you’d like to enhance which normally you wouldn’t have the time to seriously consider taking up.

A perhaps mundane suggestion but is there a dish you’ve tried and liked but never gotten round to make your own variation of that dish? Look up the ingredients and add them to the shopping list next time you complete a big shop, do you always order the dumplings for a takeaway? Hone in the ability to create your very own. Your cooking ability is very unique and will be lower than some and higher than others but everybody has an entry level, whether you’re already a chef at a restaurant or more of a ready meal chef.

Perhaps cooking is just not your forte no matter how many hours you put in but you still want to enjoy whatever activity, maybe on offer on the proverbial cruise, could be a night at the theatre.

Every Friday on the youtube page ​The Show Must Go On! ​ Andrew Lloyd Webber releases a full musical on Broadway to watch on Youtube for 48 hours before it’s taken down.

A fantastic chance to dress up in your finery, open a bottle of champagne and stream the musical onto your television if you own a smart TV or an Amazon Firestick or a Google Chromecast, so far we have seen ​Cats, Hairspray!, The Beauty Underneath ​ and many more Webber west end classics. A wonderful opportunity to go to the theatre in lockdown.

Perhaps you desire something more outdoorsy instead, feel the thrill of the wind on your face as you would on the deck of a cruise ship, a way to experience that could be felt through cycling, a fantastic way to exercise whilst keeping social distance. Even if you do not own a bike.

Bicycle rentals now exist in many UK cities including Swansea and Cardiff where you can rent a bicycle using contactless payment on your phone, no membership is require just a sign up which takes a few minutes and you can rent by the half hour charging £1 for every half an hour or £10 for the full day. If you’ve fallen off the bike in recent years now is the best time to get back on with less people and cars roaming the roads and pavements.

The lockdown and social distancing has caused us to lose much of our contact with all our family especially the elder members of the family, so a way to remind our elder family members that we’re still thinking of them as we would on a cruise would be to send them a postcard, a postcard to your elderly relatives detailing your exploits locked inside might be a fantastic freedom from boredom and brightener for the recipient of the postcard.

There’s multiple websites which will send personalised postcards which already have a ready made template which can be as cheap as less than £2 on websites such as Moonpig, Funky Pigeon and Snapfish. Alternatively you could try your hands at arts and craft by making a homemade postcard, all that would be needed is a printer, cardboard, pens, a stamp and and you would be able to make your very own postcard exhibiting your lockdown escapades.

Words: Thomas Maddocks

Photos:
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