The world was a different place five short months ago. Those months have been the longest ever due to 'lockdown'. I'm conscious that I'm beginning to forget what life was like at the time and want to make a few notes to help me remember.
My front door was the only thing between me and the seemingly dangerous world outside. What can I touch? What can I be close to without worrying? Soap became a close friend with endless hand washing.
The official lockdown started on 23 March. Some people, the most vulnerable, were told to 'shield' and stay isolated. Others were told to stay at home at much as possible, work from home if you can, stay two metres apart. People and businesses had already started doing this before the government pronouncements - they were too slow on virtually everything.
I'm vegetarian so always have packets of pasta, rice and pulses in my larder so my main worry was about having enough fresh food. I was lucky enough to have a groceries delivery slot booked with Tesco so I could get food delivered without venturing out but what about when that runs out? That's when I discovered the new game of food delivery roulette and trying to get a slot for a delivery with the main supermarkets when new slots became available each midnight. Trying and failing most times and every now and again getting a valuable delivery slot, generally three weeks apart. Better than nothing. And rainbows became a thing.
If you needed to go into a shop you had to queue to get in as places inside were limited and everyone queued two meters apart. We're good at queuing. The only shops that were open were 'essential', mainly food shops They started putting up perspex screens at tills and trying to organise how you shopped with signs on the floor showing which way to walk to keep away from others. I got into the habit of visiting the small Sainsbury's round the corner early on a Sunday morning to pick up whatever I needed. I didn't mind running out of milk or bread on a Thursday and waiting until Sunday to get more since that was the new life. How quickly we adapt.
We were advised by the government to only go out for essential shopping and for one hour of exercise each day. I'm lucky enough to live near Tooting Common, a huge expanse of greenery with a lake and my favourite geese, but other people discovered it. Having the Common on their doorstep encouraged the joggers to get out and stay fit or use the opportunity to change their life-style. Good on them but it meant that the paths were full of joggers who stayed on the paths and ignored social distancing (the two metres rule) since they wanted to beat yesterdays' time for their daily run. If you see them coming you can walk off the path but if they come up behind you and almost brush your shoulder you can't really do anything other than shout at them angrily as they run away. That put me off going out.
I started doing lots of little jobs around the flat to fill in the hours. I realised that I had lots of things in frames dotted around so I spent a morning hanging them on my bedroom walls on the basis that if I caught the virus and spent a lot of time in bed then I might as well have things to look at. The walls are crammed with things. I pinned posters to the walls of my kitchen - why not? I started listening to CDs to decide if I wanted to keep them or give them away to a charity shop after lockdown, starting at one end of a shelf and working my way along it. I have a lot of CDs so that job is still going on. I've now got a healthy pile of CDs for the BHF shop stacked in the kitchen.
And then there were masks, or face coverings as they started being referred to. The masks available to buy online all took weeks to arrive so videos started popping up on YouTube on how to make a mask without any sewing. It was a new trend. After initially tying a bandana around my head I moved to the handkerchief and elastic bands method before settling on the no-sew tee shirt sleeve method.
And then it was Easter.
My front door was the only thing between me and the seemingly dangerous world outside. What can I touch? What can I be close to without worrying? Soap became a close friend with endless hand washing.
The official lockdown started on 23 March. Some people, the most vulnerable, were told to 'shield' and stay isolated. Others were told to stay at home at much as possible, work from home if you can, stay two metres apart. People and businesses had already started doing this before the government pronouncements - they were too slow on virtually everything.
If you needed to go into a shop you had to queue to get in as places inside were limited and everyone queued two meters apart. We're good at queuing. The only shops that were open were 'essential', mainly food shops They started putting up perspex screens at tills and trying to organise how you shopped with signs on the floor showing which way to walk to keep away from others. I got into the habit of visiting the small Sainsbury's round the corner early on a Sunday morning to pick up whatever I needed. I didn't mind running out of milk or bread on a Thursday and waiting until Sunday to get more since that was the new life. How quickly we adapt.
And then there were masks, or face coverings as they started being referred to. The masks available to buy online all took weeks to arrive so videos started popping up on YouTube on how to make a mask without any sewing. It was a new trend. After initially tying a bandana around my head I moved to the handkerchief and elastic bands method before settling on the no-sew tee shirt sleeve method.
And then it was Easter.
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