How To Spend Your Covid-19 Lockdown Time – Free Things To Do

Join Jess Gillam’s virtual orchestra. Whatever your level (or lack of it) and whatever your instrument, here’s a chance to play together. 

Learn a language

Learn a language for when we get to travel again. I personally don’t like Duolingo, but my 84-year-old mum loves it (she’s already tackling German, Norwegian and Mandarin). Plenty of other apps for phones and computers. 

Open University

The Open University has a big range of free courses. They’re at a range of levels and lasting from a few hours to a few weeks. Polar biology to beginners’ Chinese.

Open Culture courses

Open Culture has masses of free courses from the world’s top universities. 1,500 online courses from universities like Stanford, Yale, MIT, Harvard, Oxford and more – from history, philosophy and literature, to physics, biology, psychology, and computer science.

YouTube tutorials

Our woodshed is the result of a free YouTube tutorial, so are my rag dolls and my box cushions. Crafts, DIY, art, cooking…there’s no end to the options.

Do something for someone else

I’ve called my mum almost every day since my stepdad died a few years ago. Now, I can’t get through. She says she’s never had so many people calling her every day – and she LOVES it!

The simplest way to help is to call someone you haven’t spoken to for a while. Do you know of anyone who might be on their own at home? Then call them too. And remember that it’s not just older people who’ll be feeling isolated now.

Good Samaritans

If you want to do more, the NHS needs volunteers to help vulnerable people (at a safe distance). You can find out more and sign up at Good Sam. They need patient transport drivers, community response volunteers and people to ‘check in and chat’ over the phone.

Mutual Aid groups

Within days of the crisis really taking hold, hundreds of Mutual Aid groups had been launched in local communities. They’re a local focus for volunteering help (whatever’s needed) and for getting help for those self-isolating or ill. Find out more and check if there’s already a group in your area here.

What’s App and GoogleGroups

Staying in touch with family and friends

If you’re finding it difficult to talk about anything other than Covid-19 when you speak over the phone, here’s a tip from Carla – play a game with them instead or as well.

She recommends a Scrabble game, either an app or on Facebook. WordFeud is good, Puzzlr is good. But any multiplayer game that allows you to select friends to play will work too.

Other online game sites we’ve tried include Board Game Arena and Trickster Cards. Browser-based games (rather than phone apps) are clearer for many people to use, by the way.

Get stuck into crafts, art, writing, anything creative

Now’s the time to get out the sewing machine, paints, notebook and pens.

I’ve made some Tilda dolls, Sashiko-darned a sock, restored a chair and my next project is a best-selling novel…or maybe I’ll just laze in the hammock.

As mentioned earlier, there are lots of tutorials on YouTube and many crafters and artists are running livestream sessions. Hobbycraft, for example, is hosting a daily craft club for kids.

Read and listen for free

Audible is making hundreds of titles available free for as long as the schools stay closed. There’s something for every age and every taste. Just visit stories.audible.com to begin. Logins and bank details aren’t needed.

Thanks to Sally H for the reminder that local libraries usually have an online service or app that gives you access to digital books. Just visit your local council’s library service online.

The National Emergency Library has free access to 1.4m digitised books, largely aimed at studying, but with an amazing array of subjects. 

Have a laugh

The Stay at Home Festival has comedy, science and more. It’s been put together by Robin Ince to keep us all smiling now that there are no festivals to go to.

Daily shows plus catch-up.

Visit a virtual museum or art gallery

The Museum of Broken Relationships.

Lots of museums and galleries have opened their doors online for virtual tours. Here are just a few suggestions.

Practise putting up the tent in the garden (or even the bedroom), reorganise the campervan or caravan, check through your camping gear to see what’s never been used and what’s missing.

I’ve been poring through the Wild Guides and I now have a BIG list of places I’ll be heading.

A brilliant series of guides that help you discover lovely landscapes, places to swim and camp, unusual and special places to eat and more. There are guides to Scotland, Central England, the Lakes and Dales, Wales, Portugal, Cornwall and the South West, Scandinavia and wild swimming in the UK, Italy and France.

Have a look at the Ordnance Survey website and get yourself some maps for planning walks and camping trips.

Plan your next walking routes on the great Viewranger app (we’ve negotiated a discount for you!).

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