Lockdown Diaries 2020/21

You know what they say. You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your lockdown buddies. This is where we found ourselves when the music stopped. And we remain petrified in position as though stopped in our tracks by lava from a virtual volcano. Lockdown will no doubt be a big test for relationships. Courting couples had to choose whether to self-isolate together or separately - and then stick with that decision. I know of one young couple who have chosen not to co-habit, which means they’re no longer allowed within two metres of each other.  The man can only speak to his fiancee online or by calling up to her on her balcony Romeo-style. Their wedding is set for July, but they are understandably nervous. Personally I am happy with my lockdown housemates. Brian and Robbie are good-humoured, funny and upbeat and I love them both very much. But I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have had a female lockdown companion. I’m pretty sure tha...

  Well, I didn’t actually take my own advice in the end. Apathy set in pretty soon after writing yesterday’s blog post. The idea of cleaning the house or making stuff out of scraps of wool suddenly seemed like much too much effort. And there’s a limit to the amount of fun you can have gazing at the pots of weedy soil on your window sill. But the games and puzzles helped pass the time, and I also did some rudimentary “cooking” which involved cobbling together a few store-cupboard ingredients to make a marinade for olives to go with Saturday night drinks. The aforesaid drinks were quaffed in our new lounge bar (aka the living room) to help make Saturday night feel different to Friday night, which was spent in the Quarant Inn as usual. So all in all, a pretty uneventful weekend. Much like everyone else’s weekends up and down the country come to think of it. But what really did help us through our first weekend in lockdown was other people. On Friday night we joi...

Weekends are traditionally a time for outings. We usually fill our two precious days of leisure with trips to the shops, lunches with friends, visits to relations – or perhaps even a drive out to a beauty spot. But apart from our one permitted walk, it’s innings for everyone this weekend. So, how do we get through these two long, empty days? I have a few suggestions. Grow things I’m growing things as we speak – and not just toenails and chin hair, either. I found some old seeds in the kitchen drawer and planted them in pots on the window sill. If your kitchen drawer doesn’t happen to contain old seeds, you can also plant bits of ginger, garlic cloves, dried tomato seeds and plenty of other things. Just google “growing plants from vegetable scraps”. Personally I’m not expecting much success from my own pots of weedy soil. I’ll probably end up nurturing nettles and dandelions and thinning out the few stray tomato plants that happen to emerge. But who cares – it’s that ...

I did another of those Joe Wicks’ PE workouts yesterday morning. The world is going to hell in a handcart, and there’s me doing bunny-hops in the living room in my nightie. Joe Wicks is a young personal trainer who landed himself a job touring the UK’s schools offering PE lessons. But the lockdown scuppered his plans, so he’s decided to live-stream his PE classes for free instead.  This engaging young man wants to enhance the lives of children of all ages by encouraging them to exercise while the schools are closed. So, I hear you ask, why was this particular middle-aged woman leaping about in her living room on her own, catching imaginary stars and pretending to be a kangaroo hopping around a creek?  It turns out the classes have been attracting a much wider audience than Joe ever expected with hundreds of thousands of people worldwide tuning in every day. I even bonded about it with another middle-aged lady in the Waitrose queue yesterday when she told me ...

I bumped into my “reader” yesterday when Brian and I were out for our walk. You know who you are. Well, when I say “bumped”, I actually mean “spotted” and then stood the statutory two metres away for a chat. There were other little pockets of people doing the same thing, keeping their distance as they attempted to carry on conversations. On one occasion we had to step into the road to avoid coming too close to some oncoming strangers, which meant playing chicken with the few cars in the road. That would have been embarrassing - to have been knocked down by a car while practising “safe” social distancing. This is just another element of our strange new world. Crossing the road to avoid someone else used to be considered an insult, but it has now become a sign of respect. No, actually it’s the rules. I just wish our British embarrassment wouldn’t make us avoid each other’s eyes as we do so. Surely at a time like this when hugs and handshakes are off the table, a nice big smile w...

It’s as though we’ve all been transported to one huge Big Brother set. Okay, so we aren’t all stuck in a hot tub discussing our sex lives. Is that what happens in Big Brother? It’s years since I’ve watched it. But the fact remains, there are very few scenarios in this world that would lead to us being confined inside four walls besides Big Brother, prison and COVID-19. Mind you, unlike the contestants on Big Brother at least we have access to the news. Apparently there were several series of the programme filmed earlier this year where contestants in captivity weren’t even told about the coronavirus. In the Canadian version, one evicted housemate expressed surprise at the fact that he couldn’t hear any audience reaction when he left the house – being totally unaware of the fact that audiences had been banned by this point. It must have been tough. The winning contestant must have finally emerged at the end of the series to discover that the whole country had suddenly turned into...

  Last night we received the news we’d all been expecting – but also dreading. We’re now officially in lockdown. Here in the UK there’ll be no more outdoor recreational activities: instead we will only leave our houses to pick up essential supplies and to get some exercise (though we’re only allowed to do that once a day). So this is basically jail-time - though we haven’t done anything wrong. How did it come to this? Less than a month ago Brian and I were heading out on holiday to Vietnam – though admittedly we were nervous about the implications of travelling at a time when the virus had started to encroach on China’s neighbours.  But here we are, just four weeks later and suddenly such a holiday would be unthinkable. Not only have airlines been grounded and countries closed their borders, we aren’t even allowed to travel to the airport – let alone get on a plane.   We should be devastated. But actually, so far it hasn’t been so bad. Everyone I h...

Yesterday it actually began to feel like spring. The sun was shining, the daffs were out and everyone flocked to the beaches, the parks, the commons and any other open space they could access. But hang on: aren’t we all supposed to be social-distancing? It’s a big deal losing our cherished routines, livelihoods, freedoms and loved ones, and we’re all collectively grieving about our communal loss. But as we know, there are five stages to grief:  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. And we’re all very firmly in the Denial phase.  I was horrified to see how many people were out and about yesterday. But I was out and about to see it, right? Brian, Robbie and I met up with another couple and their son. It was great to interact with Other People for a change but at the same time, we did feel a little space-invaded. None of our three intelligent friends seemed to be taking the coronavirus threat seriously – they were walking too close to us and opening...

This weekend my hairdresser asked if I could pay her in toilet rolls. And she was only half-joking. This is what we’ve come to. The ground has shifted beneath our feet and we no longer take anything for granted as the basic necessities of life begin to disappear rapidly from our shops.  The reason why bog rolls have become such a rarity is hard to fathom. Why can’t we improvise? People used to use newspaper in the olden days, didn’t they, and leaves before that. Neither of these items are technically flushable, but we have bins and recycling facilities don’t we? Of course, I’m talking from the lofty position as (whisper it) the wife of someone who works for a tissue manufacturer. And my hairdresser is aware of that fact, which is why she made her extraordinary suggestion. She explained that while she and her husband had sufficient loo paper for the time being, her elderly mother had been unable to locate any and neither had her son and his fiancee. After several ...

Our world is becoming smaller.  We can no longer travel, we’re being discouraged from communal activities - and last night it was announced that pubs and clubs were to close. Indefinitely. So, how to cheer ourselves up during these long, dark days of COVID-19?  Well as it turns out, our son’s bedroom is more like a pub than the real thing. The results of a lifetime of collecting (he’s only 25, but he started young) are highly apparent in his over-sized room which  accommodates  four display cabinets, assorted bones, stuffed birds, ancient maps, old books, war memorabilia and countless fossils. It used to be painted bright red and white to reflect the Arsenal affiliations of Robbie’s older brother, who initially shared the room with him. But Robbie is a lover of old stuff and when Ben moved to the spare room, Robbie began turning his space into a museum.  When we finally agreed to redecorate to replace those despised Arsenal colours, Robbie talk...

Friday night is pub night. Always has been, always will be.  Not just for us, either: Friday is traditionally pay day when everyone likes to celebrate their pay cheque with an evening of revelry before the next two days of idleness. Brian and I almost always go to the pub on a Friday night. Usually we enjoy a brisk walk through pleasant countryside, then head for one of our locals where we share a couple of drinks and chat about the week gone by. On other occasions…..well, we have lots of drinks. Sometimes we meet people, get chatting and have a bit of a party. But COVID-19 has taken pubs off the agenda. Not legally - not yet anyway, since some remain open for business despite the fact that an increasing number of customers are now falling ill, self-isolating or simply staying at home to be safe.  But we’ve decided to do the responsible thing and avoid visiting our local. This has been particularly hard for me as I have a passion for pubs. So much so that I even ...

We’re an average family locked down in semi-self-isolation as the COVID-19 pandemic starts to invade even our little corner of the world.  We live in a small commuter town  – “we” being my husband Brian and myself. We’re also temporarily providing shelter for our youngest son, Robbie, aged 25.  Like everyone else, our norms have altered beyond recognition and we currently find ourselves stumbling about, trying to adjust to this brave new world in which  bog rolls are virtually non-existent and where anyone who coughs is looked upon with terror. When I say “semi-self-isolation”,  I mean we’re still in that "phoney war" period where life seems to be trundling along as usual despite the fact that we’ve all been advised to practise social distancing and to self-isolate if we display any coronavirus symptoms. So we’re still making our daily trip to the practically-empty shops, triumphantly snapping up that last packet of blancmange (why?) and the last tin...