As the nationwide lockdown continues, people are putting their spare time to increasingly creative use, whether disco dancing, gravestone cleaning or enjoying the headliners at Glastonbury (the Lego version, of course).
Disco on the dock
Residents on either side of the River Tyne are staging a daily isolation disco, to boost spirits and light up the sky with a colourful display each night.
Scott Miller and Graham Moralee, residents of Smith’s Dock in North Shields, started the daily 8.30pm event as they were missing their usual social gatherings and parties, and their neighbours were quick to join in.
“Smith’s Dock was just lit up like a Christmas tree by all the flashing disco lights and we had so many apartments and houses involved that honestly, it really helped to show off how wonderful our community is here,” said Moralee.
Their neighbours across the dock in South Shields soon joined in on, and now isolation discos have spread across the globe, with people in Belgium, Australia and the US posting videos of their own mini raves.
Glastonbury recreated in Lego form
A festival fanatic who was supposed to be heading to Glastonbury this summer decided to recreate the event in his back garden – using Lego.
Adam Hardman, of Warrington in Cheshire, recreated the iconic Pyramid stage complete with flags, strobe lights, smoke and a crowd of Lego figures.
He then filmed famous Glastonbury sets, from the likes of the Killers, the Arctic Monkeys, Coldplay, Dolly Parton and the Chemical Brothers, broadcast via iPad on to the stage.
“It’s so bad that it’s good,” Hardman told the Warrington Guardian. “I just thought that if someone watches this and smiles then we’ve achieved something.”
Song from Troubles becomes NHS fundraiser
A Top 20 hit from the 1980s about the seemingly never-ending Northern Ireland Troubles has been resurrected to raise cash for a coronavirus medical project.
Broken Land was written by Belfast exile Pat Gribben for The Adventures in 1988 and was a lament for his native land as the conflict in the region raged on.
Now the song has been rerecorded, with 20 different Irish artists singing the tune, for a research project that will develop a care programme at Queen’s University Belfast for recovering Covid-19 patients.
The singers include Brian Kennedy, Duke Special and the Eurovision winner Niamh Kavanagh, as well as the original Adventures frontman Terry Sharpe.
“I’m delighted the song has gained a new lease of life and hopefully it will help in the battle to save more lives in this crisis,” Gribbin said.
Family use daily exercise to clean gravestones
A family in Cheshire have been using their daily exercise to clean gravestones, some more than 100 years old, in their local cemeteries.
Ryan van Emmenis and his children, from Winsford, have cleaned more than 20 gravestones since the lockdown began in March, using “patience, care and attention and a soft-bristled brush with a bit of soapy water”.
Van Emmenis, who owns a cleaning company, said: “I had some feedback from people saying they were really grateful for what I’d done because it was family members and they hadn’t visited the grave for 20 years, they’d been unable to.
“Once you’ve cleaned up one of these graves, it’s really noticeable, which means people are stopping and taking a moment to read and remember these people.”
And finally … hundreds of pebble stacks transform beach
Walkers have covered a north-east beach with hundreds of pebble stacks during their daily exercise, including one colourful display for the NHS.
The stacks now stretch for more than a quarter of a mile on the beach at Whitley Bay.
