Anna Meredith: what got me through lockdown

Audiobooks
I’ve struggled to get back into reading in the way I’d hoped I might these last weeks, but I’ve had an audiobook on most of the time which manages to slightly stem the rising panic in my head. There is something so comforting about someone reading to you. I’m currently listening to Martin Sheen reading Philip Pullman’s Secret Commonwealth.

Video Games
I’ve been playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on my Nintendo Switch for about a year now. I’ve never really played a long console game like this before, and despite my staggering ineptness as I sprint around Hyrule (where the game is set), accidentally blowing myself up/gamely leaping off turrets to my death and losing almost every fight I take on, I’m totally addicted.

Board/Online games
Sort of cheating to have double games but there we go… I’ve done a lot of old school card games at home but also remote games, like the very excellent Plymouth Point Escape Room with my (sob) estranged band as well as a LOT of Ticket To Ride over Zoom with a bunch of composer pals and fiercely competitive games of Drawful with my parents and siblings.

Vaguely Exercising
This would irritate me if I saw someone else saying this as a thing they’ve done during lockdown, but I have somehow managed to do some kind of video workout thing everyday since this all began. Despite astonishing and unprecedented commitment to lacing up my trainers on my part, it appears not to have got any easier and I still wake up with a sense of dread of the sweating ahead of me. But the smugness once finished and fact that on many days it’s remained the single constructive thing I’ve managed to achieve has made it worthwhile.

Food
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to make my life revolve around food any more than it already did, but meals have taken on almost mythic importance of late and I have made THE most elaborate and humongous meals since lockdown. I’ve mastered vegan meringues, a really good daal, an unappealing sounding but surprisingly tasty sweet potato and carrot cake and explored the furthest reaches of the carb and pasta spectrum. It’d be remiss not to mention the alarming increase in wine consumption and ‘creeping ever earlier’ first drink time too…

Watch the one-shot masterpiece video for Paramour from Meredith’s latest album Fibs below.