Stay home

Long time, no write. Life kind of got in the way of a lots of things last year and by the time I had time to write about that…I didn’t want to.

Anyway, I couldn’t sleep early this morning so I started putting together this post in my head. It’s going to be a list that I keep updating of nice, useful, soothing and cute things for people to access while we are at home for the foreseeable future.

Listen to

• Lofi chillhop beats – I found a CD with some of these tracks last time I was in Tokyo. This is a youtube radio station complete with a very cute animation of a raccoon getting cozy in their bedroom
• Chilled cow – Similar to above with links to listen on lots of different platforms
• CalmSounds – lots of nature themed sounds
• Headspace – Headspace have some free meditations on their website/in-app geared at helping at the moment
• Punk shows in your living room – Tonight! I can particularly recommend Fresh and Jeff Rosenstock
• I listen to a lot of podcasts – if you want something to make you laugh – try flatshare slamdown, Richard Herring’s Leicester Square podcast (RHLSP) or The Off Menu podcast. For something that is fun, sad at times but also soothing – try Made of Human
• Our Plague Year – a new podcast from Joseph Fink who created Welcome to Nightvale

Watch/Look at

• Animal Cams around the world – someone tweeted this list of streaming animal cams
• Documentary Heaven – Documentaries to watch free about all sorts of topics
• All ages art workshops being streamed on youtube (you can watch later too)
• Stay Home comedy festival – online comedy with lots of amazing people like Josie Long, Sara Pascoe and Grace Petrie
• Another online festival – links on here to all sorts of online events going on around the world (it’s a little hard to work out times on here but there are SO many events listed)

Play with

• Mandala creator – make printable mandala patterns
• Make seamless patterns
• The paperclip game – click and make paperclips, build and empire, take over the world
• I need a prompt – get some inspo for a new creative project
• Patatap – make sounds with accompanying visuals
• Weave Silk – make calming patterns in a variety of colours
• Sporcle – online quizzes about all sorts of things
• Open Culture – huge directory of free things to watch, do, listen to and learn about

To read

• Radical zine archive – Over 800 online zines to read
• Vintage knitting patterns – Collected and digitized by the University of Southampton
• Free Online Magazines – Be Kind, Vegan Life, Plant Based and Om Yoga.

Virtual travel

• Step through the Secret Door to see where you end up in the world
• A list of Museums with virtual tours
• Travel into the past with the Museum of Endangered Sounds

Self Care/Help

• You feel like shit – an online series of prompts that can walk you through some small steps to take that could help right now