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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Letters

Still bored in lockdown? Here are 57 more activities to keep you going

A woman knitting with wool.
‘Knit with large needles and chunky wool. Find a free pattern in Ravelry online.’ Photograph: Andr Stapf/Getty Images/EyeEm

Inspired by your feature (Lockdown cabin fever? 56 tried, tested and terrific ways to beat the boredom, 27 January), a friend and I thought we would try to beat you at your own game. We came up with 57 varieties of things to do during lockdown – but not in one day:

1. Turn old postcards into cards. Just to say “Missing you”, “Remember this day last year” or other greetings. Get your cards from craft shops, The Range, The Works etc.

2. If you are a letter hoarder, type them up, add photos and turn them into a book.

3. Start learning a new language to prepare for that next trip. Duolingo is free online but you can pay for a better version if you’re a keen bean.

4. Stencil and paint a favourite quote on to a boring wall.

5. Make cheese and onion pie like your gran used to make.

6. When you’ve read and enjoyed a book, send it to a friend with an instruction to pass it on when read.

7. Bored with family video quizzes? Start a masterclass in something one of you can do well.

8. Knit with large needles and chunky wool. Find a free pattern in Ravelry online.

9. Using a lovely notebook, write freely for 10 minutes every morning. Record dreams, memories, thoughts.

10. Every time you visit a supermarket, buy a couple of ambient items for your local food collection.

11. Collector of magazines that you don’t want to keep? Cut out cute images and frame. Or turn into cards – see 1.

12. Take your phone when you go for a walk. Aim to take a street name for every letter of the alphabet. It will help you get to know your neighbourhood.

13. Buy packets of seeds, staple to a card (see 1) and send to friends. Seeds represent hope in the future. Add a suitable (spring?) poem.

14. Use Brushes Redux on the Apple store. A free app that allows you to create artwork, like Hockney paintings, with your fingers.

15. Learn calligraphy.

16. Google “virtual trips” to visit places you want to see one day.

17. Organise a Zoom scavenger hunt.

18. Make your own terrarium (cheaper than completed versions).

19. Contact a local primary school and ask the headteacher if you can donate children’s books or make a donation for books or technology.

20. Light a candle and remember a friend who needs support at present. Tell them you have done this.

21. Send games and jigsaws to a local homeless charity. Some residents have neither the money or the resources to buy things to occupy their time.

22. Volunteer to befriend people who are isolated. Contact your local council or a charity such as Age UK.

23. Put together a family video for a relative celebrating a special birthday. It doesn’t have to be professional. In fact it is more entertaining if it isn’t!

24. Type up a favourite recipe; ideally provide a simple illustration and send to some friends with a short message.

25. Watch ‘Spiral’ from series 1. (Series 9, the final one, is currently on BBC4, Saturdays). Enjoy the suspense and test your French. Learn some Parisian colloquialisms too!

26. Send a text saying “Thinking of you’” to, well, anyone you know.

27. Brush up your French by reading the original Maigret.

28. Buy a copy of the Poetry Pharmacy and send to a friend who is finding the lockdown difficult (that’s anyone).

29. Learn how to make Zoom more diverse, less intense. (Used Jamboard anyone?)

30. Sign up for Heather Cox Richardson on Facebook to find out from a US professor of history what is really going on in the US.

31. Sign up for Audible UK (£7.99 a month for one credit) and get one book a month, usually read by the author. Try Barack Obama’s latest book – silky voice!

32. Read Wintering by Katherine May to make those long winter nights more endurable.

33. Discover podcasts, starting with the Guardian’s own.

34. When you are out for your daily walk, take photos of small things to document the changing face of nature.

35. Use YouTube to learn to crochet (in fact most things). Make squares and join them together to make a dog blanket, baby wrap, prayer shawl.

36. Make soup from bottom-of-fridge scraggy but still edible veg in that slow cooker you’ve never used.

37. Take a neighbour’s dog for a walk (but ask them first).

38. Buy an embroidery kit, make a simple picture (cross-stitch) and turn it into a card or picture to frame.

39. Rediscover a classic author. Try Eliot, Dickens, Hardy.

40. Learn the etymology of some new words from Marina Hyde’s columns.

41. Complete the RSPB survey this month.

42. Get rid of old (but decent) stuff by doing an online auction with friends.

43. Try an alternative to a family/friends Zoom when nobody has anything new to say… Write a limerick involving a family member or friend.

44. Sing along with others online. Try thesofasingers.com. First session free.

45. Murder Mystery party on Zoom. Great fun. See red-herring-games.com.

46. Hold a pyjama and jewellery Zoom party.

47. Start your own family tree. The Ancestral File booklet is a great tool. Available from Invicta Books.

48. Learn to play bridge. Bridge for Complete Beginners by Paul Mendelson is a good place to start.

49. Sign up to be in a virtual audience on a BBC show.

50. Listen to talks online. Try mirthy.co.uk. Some are free, others cost £2.99.

51. Write a letter to your younger self.

52. Declutter and sell on eBay or Facebook Marketplace.

53. New Manchester Walks do a series of talk-tours, eg Manchester’s Northern Quarter, Underground London, Secrets of MI5, and many more. See their website and book tickets through Eventbrite.

54. Make a themed collage with your photos, either for a clip frame or photobook – eg people wearing hats (the sillier the better), birthday pictures, restaurant outings.

55. Treat yourself to a pedicure. Chemists are open so you can buy some pampering products for your feet.

56. There are plenty of creative workshops around. The Lowry theatre in Salford is running free drawing and creative writing courses.

57. Write to the Guardian.

Catherine Brady
Loughborough, Leicestershire

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