Lockdown Diaries

Well, to quote every email I have received since mid March, we are “living in uncertain times” and “learning to navigate our new normal”. That last one does throw me. I am unable to determine my left hand from my right, and often lose our vehicle in the supermarket car-park, so sadly I am unlikely to be navigating anything very effectively; let alone a new normal, particularly when I didn’t really have a clearly established vision of my “old normal,” but undeterred, I will muddle on.

If you are feeling a little jarred by being out of the house and actually reading this column, just imagine we are discussing it in a Zoom meeting. I’ll set the scene for you. I will be really struggling with the technology. The probability of accessing both audio and video simultaneously is very, very low. My husband will be swearing at his motorbike in the background, you will be able to hear every toe curling (and might I add, creative) word, and I will be desperately trying, unsuccessfully, not to look at myself in the little box on my screen. I will not be wearing pants. As I haven’t paid for the full Zoom experience, we will be unexpectedly cut off after 45 minutes, doubtlessly at a critical part of our dialogue and the monitor will be frozen in a horrifying screen-saver of my face gurning, with one of my eyes closed and my mouth open, in a convincing reproduction of “The Scream.” Ahhhhhh 2020, you cheeky wee minx you.

The past few months really have been, as I’ve heard it phrased, a Coronacoaster. Like many a defining period, my Covid 19 lockdown journey has had a distinct trajectory. The first two weeks were what I call, “The Poppins phase.” Just like our beloved, umbrella toting nanny, it was all, a “spoonful of vodka helps the loo paper shortage go down” and tequila is “super-for-what-makes-you-sad-in-generous-regular-doses.” This is the period when my husband and I did cute, fun things like name the parts of the house. We had the Fat Plonker, our bar/restaurant and The Spitoon, our brunch cafe. We had theme nights and uploaded videos to Facebook of us taking out the rubbish in our wedding attire and gumboots. Then week three arrived and even the day drinking didn’t help. By week four and five, I had completely given in, to what was basically Stockholm Syndrome, and things were on the up. Around this time my husband had an exciting social coup. Our septic tank burst and was leaking raw sewerage all over our back yard, but you know what they say, every waste overflow has a smelly brown lining (maybe just I say that?) and to my husband’s delight a man in a truck with tools turned up to help remedy our stinky problem. To be completely honest with you, I think he would have been thrilled to see anyone but me at this stage of our confinement. Apparently being incarcerated for six weeks with someone whose only hobbies are murder and vintage doilies plays havoc with a man’s will to live. Anyway, the husband was in his element and socially distanced himself whilst helping to dig holes and share stories about soil fields. I, on the other hand was not so lucky on the new, sceptic tank friend stakes. I did briefly begin to question my sanity, but I went out to the neighbouring paddock and spoke to the herd of cows about it. With a compassionate ear and clever rhetoric, they convinced me that I was perfectly stable and had nothing to worry about (Fresian #239 was particularly reassuring).

I had hoped that given all this time at home, I would actually be driven into a creative frenzy (I had also hoped that I would finally begin to follow a healthy eating and exercise regimen, so to be fair, my hopes are not worth hitching your caravan to) but alas, alack, other than devising some creative ideas for cocktails using my left over Easter eggs … nothing. There were a bevy of great lockdown suggestions on the internet. “Gwyneth Bloody Paltrow” suggested writing a book, or learning a new language – of course she did. She is my nemesis – healthy, beautiful and a go getter. Not to be outdone by Gwyn, I wrote an apology note to my husband for calling his motorbike an unroadworthy death trap and picked up some passable prison slang “(if Gwyneth was my celly, I would likely shank her even if she wasn’t a snitch”). It was also hard to get anything constructive done when Netflix threw up little gems like, and I think you all know what I’m going to say …. Tiger King. It was the perfect storm; the world is lockdown in their own homes, with only their family for company, they are feeling anxious about the future and to add insult to injury, the pubs are closed. Enter Joe Exotic, his two husbands and a cast of misfits that make me look classy and well adjusted. If you haven’t seen it, scrap that, everyone in the free world has seen it. I also picked up some great tips about how to use up excess sardine oil if I’m ever locked up for six weeks with my husband again (we don’t have big cats, but we do have a couple of German Shepherds with unsophisticated palates.)

If nothing else, this time of doing less has taught me some useful lessons. I will never again under appreciate essential workers – let me take this opportunity to thank all the supermarket workers, septic tank fixers, truck drivers, nurses, doctors, police and everyone else, that kept on keeping on, while we kept safe in our homes – you guys are awesome and I wish I could make you all one of my Easter egg cocktails! Other notable takeaways would be: after cutting my fringe four times during lockdown, it is now glaringly obvious that I am unable to either cut hair or learn from my mistakes, when standing in the line at the Four Square, it is impossible not to touch your face when you are trying not to touch your face, the elastic waist band of a pyjama or tracksuit bottom can really lull you into a false sense of security and perhaps most importantly of all, you can blame almost anything on that b**ch Carole Baskin.