Stop the lockdown – I want to get off


OK, I’m bored now. I’ve done my chores, I’ve no imminent work deadlines and I’ve planned out all our meals for the weekend. 

 

The sun is shining and spring is around the corner with its promise of longer days, bulbs, blossom and the easing of restrictions.

 

But I want it NOW.

 

I suspect I’m not alone in periodically becoming very, very fed up with this whole sorry business. It’s tragic when one reflects on what one was doing this time last year. Brian and I had just spent a weekend away with Ben, Josie and Robbie to celebrate Brian’s 60thbirthday and we were about to set off on a 10-day trip to Vietnam. This would involve us eating in restaurants, mingling with happy crowds and dancing in pubs with strangers.

 

How alien it all feels now. 

 

It’s in times like these that I console myself by a) remembering that we’re finally on the home stretch and b) by looking more closely at the nitty gritty of what life was really like this time last year.

 

I have my 2020 diary to hand. Exactly one year ago this week I spent the Monday afternoon at my weekly spin class. This involved a trip to the gym where I joined a vaguely hostile group of people on a 45-minute cycle ride to nowhere while being egged on by the lithe instructress.

 

On the Tuesday I went to the dentist to have some teeth filled. On the Wednesday I drove to Barnet to visit Auntie Jean at her care home – something I did every week. She would become anxious if I were even a minute late, which made the M25 journey pretty stressful. I then had to stay 90 minutes (any less and she would complain) making conversation with a 102-year-old who didn’t want to be there. 

 

And on the Thursday I went walking with a group of women who weren’t really my friends, but who provided some company on a week when Brian was away from Monday to the Thursday. Hmm. Doesn’t sound so great when you look at it like that.

 

Like many people I’ve reassessed my life and have realised that I’d been sleepwalking into a bunch of activities without stopping to think how much I enjoyed them. So in these last few months – maybe even weeks – before lockdown ends I’m going to try to appreciate my relatively stress-free existence, which currently revolves around my home, my friends and my omnipresent husband. 

 

And when things return to normal I’m going to give up the spin classes and go out walking with people I actually like. But I’ll definitely be resuming my visits to Auntie Jean, who is now approaching 104 and will probably outlive us all.

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