Day 33 Saturday 25th April

We have now been in lock-down for over a month. What things do I like about it? What things do I hate about it? What things am I missing most?

I’ll start with the things that I am enjoying.

I am enjoying spending time with Diane. Before the start of the lock-down we realized that if we were going to follow the guidelines, while both living in our own houses, we wouldn’t be able to see each other until the lock-down was over. However, if we moved in together then we became one household, so there are no problems seeing each other.

Diane’s allotment has been a great place to escape to, and, may yet provide us with food to survive the apocalypse.

The lack of traffic has made getting to and from work a doddle.

Work itself seems easier to get completed, customers appear to be more co-operative.

Life in general appears to be more easy paced.

What about the things I don’t like?

First up is queuing to get into a supermarket. I am British, I like a queue as much as the next person. Queueing is one of the things that made this country what it is, but standing two meters apart, in a queue that snakes all the way round the car park is getting to me. It is probably just as well that it has hardly rained since this lock-down started.

I am a bit worried by some things that I see posted on social media. They make me think that a significant minority of people would have loved living in East Germany under the Stasi.

I don’t like constantly having to wash / disinfect my hands, but I will do it. I have used more hand cream in the past month than I have in my entire life up to now.

What am I missing?

Football is one obvious thing. It isn’t as central to my life as it was a few years ago, after Grace died. I still miss my ninety minutes of escapism though. I should have been at Shrewsbury today. It is one of the away games that I usually go to.

I miss being able to get out in the Big Green Bus. We were going up to Scotland to look at wedding venues at the beginning of April, that obviously didn’t happen. Our trip to Spain and France next month will also be cancelled. On top of that it is the ability to disappear off for the day that I miss.

I miss being able to go out to the pub, or a restaurant, but I think that the thing I miss most of all is being able to go into a coffee shop between jobs, to check my emails, do my reports, or just to sit, have a coffee and watch the world go by.

Other things that happened today.

Duster went off me today. My sister phoned in the morning and I went through to the study to pick up my phone, which had been charging. Duster has taken to sleeping on one of the chairs, (Duster sleeps almost anywhere but in his basket). I answered the call and sat down to talk to her, and landed on top of our pussy-cat. He was not best pleased and let me know about it. A few extra Dreamies before bed got me back in favour.

Social media has its plus points. A friend, who does a lot of work with refugees, posted on Facebook today looking for computers to enable refugee children to continue with their schoolwork during lock-down. It didn’t matter how old they were as long as they worked they said. Grace’s laptop and iPad have been sitting at my house gathering dust for the last four years. They both fitted the bill. I haven’t known what to do with them, but didn’t want to throw them away either. But I couldn’t find a use for them. I am sure that Grace would have been very pleased that they are helping some refugee kids with their education.