Sarah Halliwell, Beauty Editor

Spritzing … Though I’ve just started Hilary Fannin’s The Weight of Love, a love triangle set in Dublin and London, I find I’m too restless to quite be in the Tolstoy and Dickens-conquering mode I had hoped to be. Nor have I yet learnt a new Chopin piece or mastered basic Italian. So instead I’ll talk about uplifting scents – I’m finding that a bunch of daffodils or a drop of mandarin in the diffuser is more than usually brightening, while spraying on a good perfume is a treat for the day. A recent joy is Samui’s signature room scent, a gorgeous green fig fragrance that makes your room smell wonderfully sophisticated – I love its crisp, ripe vibe, which makes you feel like you’re somewhere sunny, shaded by green leaves and overhanging fruit. €50, at Samui boutique, Cork; www.samuifashions.com.

Drinking … We’ve all had to reassess our daily takeaway coffee habit and work out ways to make a decent coffee at home. Ordering good beans helps: try www.bearmarket.ie, 3FE and Mullingar’s Bell Lane Coffee – Bell Lane do whole bean or ground coffee subscriptions from €15 a month. Plus there’s a sale on over at www.cloudpickercoffee.ie with free shipping on orders of 1kg plus. The question is will we ever go back to our expensive daily takeaway habit? With the wonderful Hatch coffee (currently in Glasthule) set to open a branch in Blackrock in the near future, we may be tempted …

Watching … Anything funny. I’m re-watching all of Dylan Moran’s Black Books, still one of the funniest things ever to be on TV, and enjoying Richard E Grant recite lines from Withnail and I over on Instagram @richard.e.grant. And I’m very happy that London’s National Theatre is making some of their great stage shows available via YouTube every Thursday evening at 7pm; they kicked off in style with a screening of One Man Two Guvnors last night, a sublimely silly farce starring James Corden, and it was a great way to be transported from Dublin to a virtual West End.

Sarah McDonnell, Editor

Making … Ice cream with fresh eggs courtesy of our in house hens – we had to wait until they deigned to lay three eggs yesterday to start! As if two large pots of espresso a day were not enough (as well as the Coca Cola addiction of my two kids) we opted for coffee flavour … we used our old Gaggia machine which had been put beyond use last summer – no time! The tub is nestled in our new freezer, delivered just before #lockdown.

Becoming addicted to … David Chang’s Instagram account. The NYC Korean chef is in lockdown with his wife and toddler son – and surviving on random deliveries of ingredients – they order and some will arrive in random order – a sort of Ready Steady Cook… Watching him cook plain white rice in what he calls a “NormalPot” is suddenly worthy of our attention – this is what it has come to … Watching his brilliant Ugly Delicious shows on Netflix too…

Reading … Brilliant Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (Vintage) the 1967 story of the disappearance of Australian schoolgirls in 1900. So beautifully and brilliantly written, it captures the heat and atmosphere of the days before and after the disappearance, telling the back stories of every character and kept me reading well into the night… 

Síomha Connolly, Digital Editor

Reading … The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I picked it up in the office a couple of months ago as an advanced copy and it’s been sitting on my bookshelf (front-facing) ever since. I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I always do! It’s a story which explores the underground war on slavery set on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, America in the late 19th century, before the Civil War. Will report back next week with my review after reading!

Watching … Unorthodox on Netflix, a new series based on Deborah Feldman’s memoir of the same name. It tells the story of young ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman, Esther Shapiro (played expertly by Shira Haas) who runs away from her husband and community. I was hooked by the first episode which gives an insight into a largely unseen community, and completely captured by Haas who brilliantly plays Esty, a girl who is so desperate to escape her community and culture – one which places huge responsibility on its women: to be a good wife, to provide and care for children. But as this life is all she has ever known, its culture and practices are so ingrained in Esty that she will find it challenging to adapt to “normal” life when she eventually moves to Berlin. These days especially it’s very easy to binge watch and get through a series within a couple of days, but I’m limiting myself to one episode of Unorthodox per night to stretch it out since it’s only four parts.

Listening … To the birds outside my window. I have spent the last two weeks inside my small one bedroom apartment. Before this confinement, I had never spent so much time at home. I would go to work Monday to Friday, leaving early in the morning and coming home late in the evening to cook and read and clean. On weekends I would often be out meeting friends, visiting family, going to yoga classes or wandering around town. Brigid Delaney, a writer for The Guardian Australia, wrote a poignant piece about rediscovering her home during this time: “I’m getting to know my own house. It’s like it just stood here patiently, waiting for years for me to properly inhabit it. To move in fully, to finally stay put.”

My home is in an apartment block with sometimes-noisy neighbours, music and television sounds drifting through the walls and children playing in the courtyard outside or balls being hit back and forth on the communal tennis court. But early in the morning, before the rest of the block wakes up, it’s the birds’ time to shine. They chirp and tweet for at least an hour outside my bedroom window as the sun comes up. I like to imagine the conversations they’re having with one another. A rowdy group of seagulls flies overhead occasionally, which tends to silence the smaller birds, but they always come back. I don’t know what type of birds they are, I don’t want to look out, so as not to disturb them – though even if I did look out it’s unlikely I’d be able to tell what type of birds they are. My mam can often tell just by the sounds they make, but I haven’t got that ability. For now I’ll lie and listen to their comforting voices as I drift in and out of early morning sleep, at home.

Penny McCormick, Deputy Editor

Writing … Letters. It felt good to get out my under-used fountain pen, fill it with ink, sift through a hoard of stashed notelets and take time to write to friends overseas. I’m also burning a Lovato candle this week – a small Irish luxury candle company based in Cork. I particularly recommend its Mandarin and Sandalwood votives which I’ve given to friends as gifts, and are now on sale: www.lovatocandles.com.

Reading … Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, a story she has apparently wanted to write “for over 30 years”, ever since learning at school that Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet – thought to have inspired the title of his greatest play, Hamlet. This is a reimagining of the Shakespeare family history and, eerily, it is set against an outbreak of plague. I’ve only started and though there is a sense of foreboding, O’Farrell’s storytelling is compelling.

Cleaning … with my new SilverCrest Handheld Steam Cleaner, which I picked up at Lidl last week and is great for those hard-to-reach places. It looks like a kettle and comes with all sorts of nozzles and brushes. I’ve found it very effective for cleaning grouting and skirting boards. How my shopping habits and hobbies have changed in just a few weeks!