Sandy Thomson

Sandy's Daily Diaries: 101 days of social distancing Sandy Thomson

In March 2020, when social distancing was brought into operation, a pensioner in a Scottish village began to write a daily blog on social media for family and friends. Sandy's wry and amusing descriptions of his day to day life quickly caught the imagination of readers worldwide, and became compulsive reading for more than 1600 followers. Sandy's diaries are filled with gentle humour and sharp observation. Here you will meet Sandy and his wife M, along with the rest of their family, and read about their interactions with each other, with friends and neighbours and with random people. There are encounters with birds and animals, airlines and insurance companies - some of it friendly, some less so - but always light hearted and thoroughly entertaining. As the diaries start, Sandy charts his daily activities, such as shopping and housework, and laments the downturn in his social life as events are cancelled. As the story progresses and lockdown becomes a reality we learn that M is isolated at home with Sandy and the interactions between her industrious nature and his relaxed outlook lead to some entertaining situations. Painting and decorating, gardening, DIY, all lend themselves to Sandy's sense of fun. And as we progress through the diaries, past the milestones of twenty, fifty, one hundred days, we meet more characters including El Gato the stray cat, Angry Dog and Percy the persistent crow. There are encounters with the Hoover from Hell, the garden shed of doom and the dreaded Times Crossword. All punctuated with regular supplies of scones from the Lovely Italian Neighbour. There are 101 of these daily diaries, and every one of them will make you smile. The Covid-19 pandemic was a devastating experience for many people and Sandy doesn't trivialise that, but he manages to find humour in the most ordinary of situations and to see the funny side of a very serious situation.