LINIAN Staff Picks – Lockdown Entertainment
Our top picks of the books, shows & hobbies keeping us going through the lockdown.
1 March 2021
As we are entering into yet another month in lockdown here in Glasgow, the message is still to STAY AT HOME. Throughout the whole pandemic we’ve been busy working from home, looking after kids, and generally keeping the business going (& growing!). We’ve also had a lot of free time to kill. So, we thought it would be fun share our top picks of books, shows & hobbies that have kept us entertained throughout the lockdown(s) so far.
Here are a few the LINIAN team's top picks for lockdown entertainment:
Jean (Operations Director):
I learned after 36 years of early rises, late nights and traffic jams, it’s much more fun to Zoom in my jammies sometimes. I watched Jack Reacher and the Crown among too many other things and read a Graham Norton Thriller which was a nice easy read. During lockdown I tried baking for the first time ever, and even baked a guitar-shaped birthday cake, only to discover my son and our MD Ian was much better at it than me. I did some mindfulness every day and have now joined a walking group, now the roads are free from ice. Most of all I took a deep breath and was grateful we were all healthy.
Ian (Managing Director):
I’m in a Guns N' Roses cover band, and obviously due to coronavirus, all our gigs have been postponed. However, during the lockdown, I treated myself to a new guitar, and I've used my free time to practice a lot more than usual. I've definitely noticed a big improvement in my ability over the last year. I’m looking forward to the time when venues open up again and I can show off my new skills. Tv-wise, I really enjoyed Cobra Kai on Netflix, any fans of Karate Kid will love it too. To be honest, I’ve mostly been playing way too much X-box though! My puppy Rosie, has been also been keeping me busy.
Louise (Marketing Coordinator):
Over the past year, I’ve been reading a lot more than usual. One book I haven’t quite managed to get through is David Wallace-Wells's ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ which I started last March, just before we went into the first lockdown. It’s about climate change and the future of the planet. It’s supposed to be incredible, but the opening line “IT IS WORSE, MUCH WORSE, THAN YOU THINK” was enough to make me set it aside for now... One global crisis is enough to be dealing with at a time, thank you! I started a 1000-piece puzzle last year. It sat partially finished until Christmas when I finally realised if I wasn’t going to finish it over the holidays, it was never going to happen.
Things I have really enjoyed are online art classes and workshops through the London Drawing Group, and Artlink, and learning new recipes with Six by Nico and Hello Fresh/Gousto. I’ve been making chocolates, which made handy gifts over the holidays too. Definitely recommend hobbies that involve eating and drinking over puzzles anyway!
Lynne (Sales & Export Director):
At the start of the last year, I made a conscious decision that one of my New Year’s resolutions was to learn how to cope with things that I could not control. A global pandemic was certainly a great way to get flung in at the deep end. It was challenging for everyone but when I strategically broke down all the component parts that I could manage, change how I reacted to the one’s that I couldn’t and channel the excess anxious energy into something positive, I discovered Hill climbing and running. I started with the Couch to 5k app with another friend who has young children and a demanding job like me. I started in April and graduated in July.
Since then, I have climbed two Munros and have also completed a half marathon and a running challenge in December to run 5k every day of the month achieving a total distance of 160.4km across the month. We even started a blog on Instagram and Facebook to remain accountable and to document our journey. We have friends from the USA, all across the EU, UK and Ireland who share our love of running. It has been a great community for tips on how to motivate or challenge yourself but also, sometimes more importantly, how to be kind to yourself.
This January I raised money for Sport In Mind, “the UK charity that uses sport and physical activity to improve the lives of people experiencing mental health problems” through competing the Red January challenge. The best bit about this challenge was that it doesn’t matter what level of fitness you are at and you didn’t even have to run. It asked you to complete one activity every day for the month of January to turn the blues into Red and to raise money for a great charity at the same time. I’m hoping for better weather to conquer more hill climbing challenges in 2021 and to keep advocating for mental health and mindfulness during these challenging times.
So, there you have it, proof that it’s not all work and no play at LINIAN. We’d love to hear what you have been up to and hear your recommendations too. Let us know in the comments.
Team LINIAN
