Like many, I suspect, I have watched a number of old films again since March 2020, but somewhat ironically not Groundhog Day. No real reason why not, I enjoyed the film, but maybe the fact that we are living our own Groundhog Days makes it less appealing?
For us a typical day is: get up and sort the animals out, go back to bed to watch news/cricket, tidy the Cottage, have some breakfast, walk the dogs, so some “work” stuff/see my parents in support bubble, do some exercise, video call my parents (if haven’t seen them), eat, watch some TV.
Makes no odds if it is a weekday or a weekend, the routine remains the same.
To be fair life BC (I don’t have to explain that do I?) wasn’t too different: the odd trip to Formby to see Sands mother, a meal out with parents, friends round to eat, live sport, theatre, concerts. I think we have been “lucky” because after 20 years in Spain we were not used to theatre, concerts or live sport so don’t really miss them that much. Another thing that we did in Spain was change our TV habits. Partly the one hour time difference, mainly the better weather and different culture (eating late, siesta etc), but we rarely watched any live, in real time so to speak. With the exception of Sport (which I can’t watch after the vent) everything was recorded, or in later years we would use Catch Up.
Obviously I am not saying living in Spain was like living in Lockdown, although I certainly think it “prepared” us well in so much as we were very used to spending a lot of time together (but never alone because of the animals), and having a lot of freedom as to what we did and when – which is certainly a strange comparison to make with the lack of freedom Lockdown imposes – but what I mean is that we had a lot of freedom to fill a lot of time as and how we wanted.
Anyway, before I go round in anymore circles I will get to the point, hopefully!
I have never been a huge watcher of TV, and even less so Films. Our first year back in the UK we went to the cinema quite a lot, but more for the novelty of being able to than any huge enjoyment from going. We have had Netflix, Prime and Sky Movies for as long as I can recall, but again never really used them that much, especially Netflix and Prime. I think this is because I was so conditioned to looking at the Sky Planner over the years that it rarely crossed my mind to search through the streaming services, and when I did I usually gave up pretty quickly, daunted by the sheer volume of content.
During COVID-19 many people say they are watching more TV than ever, and regularly my social media has friends asking what to watch next. I am next to useless to them: have never watched Games of Thrones for example, and only watched Downton Abbey this year when we binged on it over Christmas. I don’t watch any of the soaps or reality TV shows, and with no new mini series being made or old staples my TV viewing time has reduced even more over this last year, except ….
Flicking through both Prime and Netflix I was somewhat surprised to see that somewhere along the line I had “tagged” quite a lot of stuff to watch: Queen of the South, New Amsterdam, Queen Gambit, The Crown, 4 Blocks, The English Game ….. it was as if overnight I had inherited an understanding for a foreign language and I could now make sense of what was passing before my eyes on Social Media.
And how convenient! I often download onto a tablet or phone to then Smart View with my parents, I love been able to watch a whole series without waiting for a week, which may be a long time in politics but is even longer when you can’t remember what happened the day before never mind last week.
I have all but given up on checking the Sky Planner now. Pretty much everything I want to watch is on series link, anything I miss I can catch on Catch Up, and whilst I still find the sheer volume available to stream daunting to search through I have found a decent red, and an hour with the remote tagging what I am interested in can provide months of viewing.
This old dog has learnt a new trick, and found yet more freedom at the same time.