Lockdown Diaries 2020/21

The last few weeks have been extraordinary.     On April 12 came the Big April Easing. Not as big as the May Easing or indeed, the End of Restrictions Easing in June. Which may or may not happen, incidentally.   April 12 was the day when hospitality venues were finally allowed to reopen for the first time since January. This meant we could technically sit outside a pub or restaurant in the spring sunshine, enjoying a Pimms or an Aperol Spritz.   As the old saying goes: “Man plans, God laughs”. The Great British weather has put the kibosh firmly on THAT scenario.   In February when we were only allowed to meet one other person outside for a walk, the heavens opened and the mud was biblical. Then in April and May – when we’ve been allowed to socialise outside pubs and restaurants once again - we’ve had nothing but rain, hail and howling winds.   But pubs and restaurants opened nonetheless and the punters turned up in droves, desperate for a glimpse of Other P...

We’ve all been here before. Hairdressers have been closed for months again which means our collective locks are once more well and truly out of control. Boris Johnson has been in his element. His absurd blond tresses suddenly appear relatively normal and he can go about his business with his mad hair worn like a badge of honour to prove he’s one of us.   Brian has adopted the look of a crackpot professor, whereas I’ve regained my rat-peering-out-of-a-bush persona from Lockdown One.   Some people have been cheating. There were reports of people crossing national borders to circumnavigate the ban, while others have been sneaking off to rogue coiffeurs for Illegal Haircuts. You know who you are.    Most of these transgressions went unpunished. After all, do the police really have time to caution people for having unacceptably coiffed hair? And in any case, illegal haircuts are hard to prove. Who’s to say the person in question hasn’t trimmed their own hair with the aid ...

This time last year I firmly believed that Easter 2021 would be different.   I even blogged about it, complaining about the limitations of Easter 2020 and ending with the words: “I’m already excited about next Easter when we can take to the busy roads and do whatever we darn well choose.”   Well, I look pretty flipping stupid now, don’t I?   This period of our lives has been a bit like living through World War One. Only it wasn’t called WWI at the time, of course – for who could have guessed that a second world war was just around the corner?   So when we all went into lockdown last year we simply called it “lockdown” in the assumption that it would all be over within weeks, or months if we were unlucky. And from our new vantage point in the midst of Lockdown Three we find ourselves wondering: Will this one be the last?    One glimmer of positivity, however, is that this week’s minor easing is making Easter 2021 feel slightly different to last year. We’re n...

This week it occurred to me. We’re all living a life straight out of the 1950s. It struck me when I was walking along the Weymouth seafront with an ice-cream cone in my hand. I wasn’t actually wearing a kiss-me-quick hat, but I might as well have been. Though according to the government roadmap no-one is allowed to kiss me until June 21 at the earliest, and I don’t think a “kiss-me-in-around-two-months” hat would work quite as well as a concept.   Anyway, Brian and I were enjoying a newly-permitted jaunt following the March 29 “easing”, and a day by the seaside turned out to be exactly what the doctor ordered. There, you see? I’m speaking like a character straight out of an Enid Blyton book.   We’ve already experienced the wartime spirit, the make-do-and-mend attitude and the food rationing (“Only two packs of flour per customer!”) And with foreign travel now banned we’re all busily planning our summer holidays by the seaside, in the Cotswolds or at the New Forest. Just like w...

I went to visit Auntie Jean last week for the first time in six months. And like everything else these days it was a stressful and unsatisfactory palaver.   This was my fourth trip to see her since the start of the pandemic. My first took place in August, with Auntie Jean in her room and me on the garden steps outside (for socially-distancing purposes). This meant I was silhouetted against the sun and she couldn’t for the life of her work out who I was, nor why I was shouting in at her through her French windows.    The two subsequent visits were both in the garden proper. I was kitted out in full PPE and Auntie Jean and I sat at opposite ends of a long table. Unsurprisingly my aunt’s sight, hearing and cognitive powers aren’t the best at 103 and she was rather disgruntled at being wheeled outside in the cold and forced to attend some sort of Mad Hatter’s tea party with a masked “stranger”.   Auntie Jean moved into the home five years ago and wasn’t particularly exci...

Shut the front door. Something actually happened last weekend.     It wasn’t anything cataclysmic, but it was lovely all the same. Robbie came home for Mother’s Day - and also because he had some stuff to pick up.   So the three of us enjoyed a weekend together, complete with the full Quarant Inn experience. And having a twentysomething in the house again made me look at the lockdown from a whole new perspective.   It’s absolutely true what they say about COVID-19 being hardest on the young.   It’s been nearly a year since we all put our lives on hold for the first national lockdown. Brian and I have mostly been okay - when you’re in your sixties, a year passes by in a nanosecond anyway. We don’t expect anything new to happen from one year to the next apart from maybe the appearance of another wrinkle or chin-hair. But for someone in their teens or twenties, a year is potentially life-changing.    This could be when your schooldays end and your univers...

This week we passed a big personal milestone. It’s now a full 12 months since Brian set foot on a plane. And it’s the first time this has happened since the 1980s.   Of course the same could be said about most of us, since few people these days go an entire year without a foreign holiday, business trip or city break. But Brian used to travel to Sweden at least once a fortnight and between trips he would slot in meetings in Germany, the US and the Netherlands. So basically, he was a Weekend Husband.   There were pros and cons to this scenario.   Pros:    • I could take on hare-brained DIY projects and have plenty of time to clear up the mess - and repair the damage - before Brian came home   • I became more creative and would litter the floor with bags of sewing and knitted squares without having to worry about anyone tripping over them   • I was no longer bound by invisible protocols that dictated when I should be in bed. So if I chose to rise at 4am t...

Going for our jabs was actually a bit like attending a Santa’s Grotto for grown-ups. But the “elves” were all masked, we didn’t get to sit on anyone’s lap and our only gift was The Needle.   We arrived at the pharmacy ridiculously early, determined to make the most of our outing. After a half an hour’s wait in the car we trotted along to the shop where we were greeted by a “vaccine marshal” in a high-viz jacket. “Here for the vaccine?” “Yep”. We waved our NHS letters smugly – we’d been told we would need to bring these along. But the marshal ignored them and asked instead: “Do you have your NHS booking references?” Luckily these were on our phones, but they might not have been. However, this was the only part of the operation that wasn’t supremely slick and efficient.   We were then ushered through to the first room of the “grotto” where our details were checked (name, address, date of birth, allergies). Once we’d been deemed fit for jabbing we were shuffled along in the socia...

Well, today’s the big day. The one we’ve both been waiting for since news of the vaccine first broke in November 2020.   Brian and I are off to get our jabs this afternoon. Brian has spent all week referring to me as the Vaccine Queen while I’ve been calling him Jabby McJabface. I think we’ve finally lost it.   You’d think we were kids heading out on a big school outing, wouldn’t you? Mind you, the vaccination centre is six miles away so that more or less counts as a “big outing” these days. Yep, readers of my previous post: you’re right. We’re having to schlep to Watford or Northwood to be vaccinated after all.   The official NHS letter arrived earlier this week, instructing us to visit the very same “loophole website” that I complained bitterly about only a few days ago. Turns out it was bona fide.   We were then urged to book ourselves in at one of their “centres” which in today’s weird world can be anything from a town hall to an Asda car park. We chose a pharmac...

I don’t feel particularly vulnerable. I don’t have an underlying health condition. Not as far as I know, anyway. But I still feel disgruntled whenever I hear of people younger than me who’ve already been called for their vaccination.   I look at them closely, checking them over for subtle health flaws. They’re not overweight – in fact most are annoyingly fit. These are the people I go walking with, who end up striding ahead of me uphill while I puff and gasp behind.   This feeling of malaise is exactly what happens when queueing is embedded in your DNA. There’s a recognised order of things, and queue-jumping is an anathema to us Brits. And since we’ve all been told that vaccines have so far been strictly limited to the over-65s and the vulnerable we expect that to apply to everyone.   However, this week we were told that the over-60s are up next – our own age group, in other words. So Brian and I have been checking our phones from minute to minute for The Call.   How...

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 tom...

When was the last time you had a stimulating conversation?   I’m not even sure what I mean by “stimulating” these days. Conversations usually begin with an exchange of news, don’t they, and develop into a sharing of details about the interesting people we’ve met, the places we’ve been and the experiences we’ve had.   But if there aren’t any trees falling in the forest, and there’s no-one around to hear them ….well, you get my drift. There’s absolutely nothing happening in our lives and while we’re all desperate to connect with one another, there’s only so much traction you can get out of your latest Zoom call or Netflix box-set.   Actually that’s not strictly true if you consider the elephant in the room. COVID-19 is the main topic of conversation on everyone’s lips - from the moment we wake up in the morning to our nightly check on the latest figures.   I went for a walk with one of my best friends yesterday – an intelligent lady with whom I regularly exchange views...

It was nine months ago when I first wrote about lockdown easing in this blog. NINE MONTHS. We all thought COVID-19 was virtually over at that stage and easing would mark our first baby steps back towards a permanent return to normality.   How little we knew. One year on and we all feel thoroughly bitten and cripplingly shy. And we’re also hugely fearful that we’ll end up back at square one if we get it wrong this time. So we're taking things slowly.   But there’s slowly, and there’s the pace of a geriatric snail on cannabis.   This week came the announcement that from March 8 - two weeks from now - children will be allowed back to school. That’s great for them, but the only impact it will have on us will be that gaggles of schoolkids will once again be hogging the pavements when we’re out on our afternoon walk.    Then three weeks later on March 29 we’ll be – wait for it – allowed to meet up with other people outside. Well, we do that anyway, but in five weeks f...

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 60 th birthday 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. ...

The other day I did something different. Something that thousands of people all over the world have been doing every day for the past 12 months, but was nevertheless new to me. I took a COVID test.   I haven’t had any symptoms and it would have been pretty annoying if I had, seeing as I’ve been more or less self-isolating since December 2020. But I was picked at random to take part in an Imperial College trial to help them assess transmission levels.   I’ve never really fancied doing one of those tests. I have no desire to rediscover my tonsils, or to find out exactly how far up my nostrils go. But in the global fight against the pandemic it seemed like the least I could do.   But now that I’ve done it, I can’t help wondering how accurate these tests are. Not because of any conspiracy theories or an innate scepticism about the abilities of the scientists who develop these tests.   No, it’s the fallibility of people like me that I’m concerned about.   My self-swa...

 .. …except when it isn’t.     We all like a bit of variety from time to time, whether it’s a tea-time treat, an unexpected outing or a change of scenery. That’s why phrases such as “ringing the changes” and “a change is as good as a rest” trip so easily off the tongue.   Of course, variety is no longer feasible in our current monotonous existence when it’s all a question of bed, wake, work, walk, eat, TV, then bed again.   But I’ll tell you when variety ISN’T the spice of life – when it becomes a “variant”.   That’s the word on everybody’s lips at the moment and it’s striking dread into all our hearts. Turns out that the good old COVID-19 we’d come to know and hate has now morphed into thousands of new variants and we’re struggling to keep up. Ex-president Trump referred to COVID-19 as Kung Flu (racist and preposterous, albeit somewhat cleverer than most of his other epithets. I suspect he had help). But if Trump were still in office he would probably now ...

That’s a line from American Pie* – one of the least incomprehensible lyrics from the famous 1970s Don McClean song. Though February doesn’t usually make anybody quiver: quite the opposite. It encourages lassitude on the sofa in front of the TV. But in 2021, February already feels miles better than January.   I’ve been saying all along that January 2021 will be a lowlight, not only of this current year but potentially of our entire lives. Poor Brian – he’s been having to co-exist under my little cloud of gloom since New Year.   But I think we can all agree that January was not a month to look forward to. After the damp squib that was Christmas coupled with the news of another impending national lockdown we had to prepare for 31 days of post-festive fallout with bad weather, no social interaction, no change of scenery and escalating cases all around us.   But it is now February and a corner has definitely been turned. Well, it might actually be more of a bend in the road or...

….The tough make pizza. That’s how the saying goes, right?     Actually, it’s not - but that’s what I did the other morning when January became too much for me.    It wasn’t a well-thought-out decision. It’s true that I’d been missing pizza, the only ones I’d eaten over the last few years having been either a) doughy American-style jobbies topped with what tasted like tomato ketchup and Monterey jack cheese or b) trendy, hipster-style thin ones with right-on toppings such as rocket and avocado. In other words, salad served on an over-sized water biscuit.    So when I went into the kitchen the other morning and spotted some flour spilt on the units, I thought: “I know. I’ll compound that mess and make a pizza”. And the project was a qualified success because the result was edible and it helped to pass a few hours.   However, the fact remains that the going is indeed getting tough in this overly-long winter that feels like wartime.   I used to wonde...