10am : Woke up to my alarm, which at the moment is the woman next door who likes to make very shout-y calls around the time I should be getting up.

8h10 : Of course it would be today, after a late night and too much wine, that I wake up bright and early just after eight.

y 24th March

9h39 : Amazingly, I find myself showered, dressed, and at my hobbit desk, on which sits coffee and orange juice. Those who joined us yesterday might well note the absence of a bowl of porridge in that list of achievements. Haven’t quite gotten around to making it yet. To all of you joining us in lockdown from the UK, Welcome to the party. The worst party you’ve ever been to in your life.

9h : Wake to up to my alarm and am struck for the first time by a dangerous thought. Oh what difference does it make? Hearing this, an alarm bell rings in my mind. This thought used to occur to me daily when I was a full-time freelancer and getting up at a decent hour was a daily battle I often lost. (Always lost.) I just love sleeping. I love it. For me, going to sleep never gets old. In fact, upon laying my head down I regularly say, “I love you, Bed” and never am I ever more sincere. People talk about a bad night’s sleep, of hours of tedious wakefulness, and I nod sympathetically, utterly uncomprehending. When I go to bed, I sleep for as long as I possibly can and then I wake up. The hours in between are a contented Nothing. Wherever I am when sleeping, I clearly like it there very, very much.

10h45 : Woke up. Well it is Saturday. It’s so quiet I can hear that whistling in your ears you get when you’re trying to hear something but there’s nothing to hear. It’s actually a bit of a relief when the buzz of the fridge kicks in. The sky is big and white. My dad would say, “It’s that low-level white cloud again in Paris,” because he likes to check the weather in Paris every day from home and then tell me what it is, even though I’m under it, a habit I find so lovely I almost can’t bear it.

8h42 : Woke up and knew immediately from the quality of the light that it was raining. That and I heard it on the roof which is about a foot away from my face. I have one of those massive bunk beds that would be amazingly cool and totally wicked if I were 12, which I’m not. Given that lots of people live in tiny, tiny studios in Paris, these bunkbeds are quite common for space-saving purposes. Of course, in that space saved under the bed you feel like Gandalf at Bilbo’s. Adults with bunkbeds try and call them mezzanines. They know as well as I do that the platform in question has to be attached to the walls and not have four orange-pine legs and a child-rail to be legitimately called a mezzanine, but I do understand the impulse. They don’t want to contemplate the life choices that have led them to be climbing a ladder to a bunk bed aged 30+. I certainly don’t. 

9am - Actually woke up to my alarm today. Reassuring. I was getting a bit unnerved by all that Getting Up Early malarkey. Blazing sunshine. A vitamin D kinda day.

Wednesday 18th March

8h01 : Don’t know what’s happening but I woke up an hour before my alarm ready to get up. This never happens in real life.

8h05 : Draw the curtains and spot the rotting chicken in a bag outside. We stare at each other for a long moment. The chicken is accusatory, I’m confused and then ashamed. I have to take it down to the bins today. I know that if I fail I will be a truly revolting human being. I also won’t be able to read on the balcony and the sun’s due out, so.

Tuesday 17th March

8.50am - Woke up ten minutes before my alarm, which I’d set for 9am because I’m absolutely determined to be a functional human being for the duration of the lockdown. I know what I’m like. If I’m not careful, three weeks from now I’ll be in food-stained pyjamas with nothing but an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Netflix offering. Must be strict with myself (this has never, ever worked). Have to get up no later than 9am and be doing something productive by 10am.

10am - Watching Eddie Izzard clips on YouTube.