Greetings from Grimsby

I had a call from the Grimsby Fish Lady last week.

That’s how she introduces herself on the phone, anyway. I think she thinks it’s cute. 

She represents a company that delivers fish – wait for it - from Grimsby. I only signed up because a jovial northern chap once turned up at my door, called me “love” and persuaded me to pay over the odds for goods I didn’t particularly want.

The fish is excellent as it turns out, so I have no regrets. However, I’m still faintly irritated once a month when the self-professed Grimsby Fish Lady phones me up to flog me haddock when I’m in the middle of a work assignment or a game of badminton.

Not this month, though. I greeted her like my best friend and saviour. Here was a lady – a Fish Lady, no less – prepared to deliver me actual food. And from Grimsby! (I’m not altogether sure where Grimsby is, but it’s definitely further than Watford which makes it positively exotic in this travel-restricted era).

Having items delivered to the door is no longer a simple matter of convenience. It is also immensely reassuring because it represents “business as usual” in these highly unusual times.

Whenever I find three bottles of milk on my doorstep I want to run out and thank the milkman for continuing to deliver during the lockdown. Though he’d probably run a mile if I did so.

I was also pathetically glad when my weekly newspaper arrived as usual on Saturday morning. Since the paper boys are all at home watching Netflix I strongly suspect the newsagent delivered it himself, which is above and beyond in my book.

In a world where pubs are closed, travel is banned, shops are empty and the Prime Minister is in intensive care, a pint of milk or a fish delivery offer a glimpse of life on the other side of this weird looking glass we have all blundered through. And they are welcome reminders of what life used to be like – and how it will be again.