If not now, when?

This phrase was first coined by ancient Jewish leader Hillel the Elder, then recycled by Emma Watson in 2014 when kick-starting a gender equality movement. And Boris Johnson used it only the other day during his climate change address to the UN Security Council.

 

For me, it’s all about venturing back to the Co-Op after a two-month abstention. 

 

The figures are down. The vaccine is imminent. More people are self-distancing. And I’ve run out of veg.

 

So I think today might be the day. I waited more than a month before braving the butcher’s and baker’s in February (luckily I didn’t need any candlesticks, otherwise I might have made it a hat-trick). And since today is March 1 it feels like the ideal moment to walk back into the Co-Op as though I’d never been away, ready to reclaim the chilled goods aisle.

 

At last I’ll once again be able to choose my own vegetables. No more tiny white cauliflower heads nestled in a forest of wilting greens; no more over-ripe tomatoes or tired, wrinkled mushrooms. My excitement knows no bounds.

 

But excitement is subjective. This time last year I was drinking Pho cocktails in Hanoi with Brian and the lovely Ellie, a 27-year-old friend of Josie’s. The three of us had spent the previous evening dancing in a pub with four Hungarian lads we’d met outside a bar in Bia Hoi Corner, plus a bunch of Japanese businesspeople we’d picked up in another pub. This latter establishment was a speakeasy with an entrance resembling the door of a giant fridge.

 

It was all about new experiences, new friends and the adrenaline rush of risk (we’d crossed town with the Hungarians to the “fridge bar” in a taxi, all seven of us crammed into one small vehicle with Ellie promising the driver extra cash as an incentive).

 

The night ended with Ellie disappearing on the back of some stranger’s moped –apparently that’s the way cheap taxis operate in Hanoi – while Brian and I stayed behind with the Hungarians, the Japanese and some other friends of Ellie’s who ended up subbing us the cab fare back to our hotel.

 

It was a random, spontaneous and totally absurd night, altogether inappropriate for a couple of sixty-somethings who should have been slumped in front of their telly or pottering around in the garden. Just as we are now, in fact.

 

What a difference a year makes. Just 12 months later and I’m sitting here trying to pluck up the courage to go to a grocery shop I’ve been frequenting since 1988. 

 

Back in March 2020 I’d had too much cheap “bia” and imported wine to fully consider the potential consequences of my rash actions. But even if my mind had been clearer, I’ve a feeling my attitude would still have been: If not now, when?