Januaries don’t come much dryer than this one


I’m finally getting the stir crazies. It’s now late January and Brian and I haven’t seen anyone else or been inside a shop since December 29. And I’ve had enough. I want OUT!

 

Brian, on the other hand, is rather enjoying the challenge and has likened our current situation to doing Dry January. Well, I’ve done Dry January, and I didn’t like it one bit. It was actually No Booze November in our case, and it started off fairly okay. In fact it was a bit of a novelty at first having to come up with things to do that didn’t involve drink. 

 

The first weekend we headed out for a curry which was fine, though there was an awkward moment when the waiter offered us a free drink after our meal and we had to refuse.

 

On the second weekend we went to the cinema – again, a reasonable option. But on Weekend Three we went to Twickenham to watch a rugby match, and that was definitely not a good idea. 

 

A dry rugby match feels wrong in so many ways. For one thing we were completely at odds with the happy, raucous crowd around us. And the stadium barman actually laughed in our faces when we asked whether he served tea. 

 

Once we had found our seats we were forced to watch with longing as other spectators weaved in and out of aisles, slopping their delicious beers as they did so. And after the match we had to wend our long, cold way back to the station – a walk that took us past a whole lot of cosy-looking pubs. However, there was no point in stopping for a soft drink which would only have made us feel colder and further removed from the whole sporting experience.

 

Four weeks in and I’m ready to throw in the towel and head back to the shops. I realise this is tantamount to spoiling the ship for a ha’penny-worth of tar, but it’s MY ship. And a ha’penny-worth of tar is a bargain in any case.

 

Having said all that, I will probably last the course - just as I did begrudgingly with No Booze November. But I’m not going to enjoy it, and I’ll be willing the days on until Freedom February with the microscopic amount of liberty it will hopefully bring.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let’s play nicely this time

Image
Change is in the air. You can feel it on the streets, in the parks and on the common. Things are gradually easing up and the excitement is palpable. Everyone has responded gleefully to the decree that we’re now allowed out to exercise as many times as we want. People to whom the word “exercise” was once an anathema are now swarming to the nearest open-air space to jog, walk, throw frisbes, kick balls around, ride bikes and generally run amok.  Meanwhile the garden centres have opened at last - to the boundless joy of us older folk for whom the urge to grow stuff seems particularly strong. I went to a nursery last week and joined the queue of happy seniors snaking around the perennials, scooping up bedding plants like gasping nomads who had finally happened upon a water source in the desert. And socially-distancing friends are now allowed to meet up in pairs, provided they walk two metres away from one another. Ha. Doesn’t work. My friend Sue and I tried it the other da
Read more

Google sees inside our soul

Image
Regular readers will be aware of a few facts about our little lockdown bubble. These are a) that I’m exercising online with Joe Wicks; b) Brian and Robbie are working out regularly with weights and c) I’m trying     - not altogether successfully - to grow vegetables. Turns out everyone else is doing pretty much the same thing. According to recent Google search data we’re a resourceful nation with great plans for using this lockdown time to good effect. The gyms may have closed, but not to be thwarted we’ll carry on exercising the best we can in the space we have available.  Not surprisingly, then, the search term “rent gym equipment” is going through the roof. In fact it has mushroomed by a whopping 3,600 per cent over the past 90 days while “yoga online classes” has risen by 800 per cent and "home workout” by 700 per cent. Google also reveals that we won’t be put off by food shortages in supermarkets: instead we’ll grow or bake our own. The search term:  “grow pl
Read more

VE Day takes on a particular poignancy

Image
Tomorrow is the 75 th  anniversary of VE Day. By the time World War Two officially ended, people had been struggling for years with food shortages and restrictions. Their love-lives had stalled and their careers had been put on hold. And many had lost family members and friends.  So VE Day marked a bitter-sweet occasion when some were able to celebrate the return to a new normal while others reflected on what they’d lost. Sounds familiar? It seems entirely fitting that we’ll be celebrating the 75 th anniversary of VE Day in our own homes, under lockdown and with our careers and lives on hold. And weirdly, the occasion also happens to coincide with the expected easing of lockdown conditions due to be announced on Sunday. Every November we observe a two-minute silence for our war heroes before immediately resuming our Sunday routines. We head to the shops, go to the pub or get together with friends. So until now we have had little in common with the wartime generatio
Read more