Day Two in the Lockdown House


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 one huge Big Brother house.

Meanwhile, we’re facing increasing challenges every day during the lockdown. We’re only allowed to visit the shops when absolutely necessary, which means online orders are going mental.

The milkman delivers here twice a week and I was surprised and delighted yesterday to find my two bottles of milk on the doorstep as usual. I then went online to find out whether I could ask for bread, eggs and cheese to be added to my order. But when I accessed the Milk & More website I was told it was receiving higher numbers of visitors than usual and I was being held in a queue. I was number 24,350 - and my estimated wait was three hours. 

So I went old school and left a note in the milk bottle. 

Brian has just ordered some beer so I thought I would follow suit and buy some wine online. That was another shock to the system. Every website I visited said, and I paraphrase: “Don’t bother – we have enough on our plate and we aren’t taking any more orders, so sling your hook”. How are we supposed to keep the Quarant Inn afloat at this rate? I ended up panic-buying 12 bottles of wine from Amazon which I’m going to have to drink sparingly so that I can eke it out throughout the crisis. Fat chance.


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