So, how’s your Lockdown going? I mean, really going? Are you enjoying a quieter, more meaningful pace of life as you munch on your homemade banana bread, beached on your sofa with your partner as you play a board game or binge on a box set together? Are your kitchen surfaces gleaming and all your old bits of paperwork filed neatly away? Is it a whirlwind between another prosecco fuelled Zoom party and online Pilates? oh, you’re having all this great local produce delivered, are you? well, good. Good for you.

I’ll be honest.  Mine isn’t going so well.  Yes, I have batch cooked, I have cleaned, I have used WhatsApp video, Zoom and Skype, read a bit, sent gifts and cards to people to try and cheer them up. I have been for my government approved walks and runs.   I don’t think my laundry basket has ever been so empty. But what I’ve mostly done is drink coffee, eat too many carbs, drank too much wine and cried.

I have cried a lot.   Perhaps I should point out I lost my Dad less than a year ago and my Mum was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in February.  The rug has been pretty much pulled from under me in the last year and every time I feel like I’ve got a firm purchase on it, off it goes again. Stupid rug.

The only way to deal with all that shittery was going to be to have fun! Meals out, the pub, gigs and festivals were booked, there were some good exhibitions coming up, holidays and trips away had been discussed and there was still gym classes to fill the void.

And now what?  I’ll tell you what.  Too much thinking, too much staring out of windows, too much wine.  And yeah, too much crying.  This limbo period has put me back to how I felt after Dad died and it was a struggle to do anything except watch rom coms and drink wine.

But also feelings of guilt.  At the time of writing this I still have a job and have not been furloughed.  I’ve a roof over my head and food on the table (a metaphorical table as I’ve still not bought one).  Thousands in the UK have lost their lives, the NHS are on their knees and you had a cry because you couldn’t get any carrots.  Perspective helps.

As does buying shit.  A box of craft beer, a dress, a necklace, a new television. Yay – you’re helping the economy.  Yay – you’re filling your already packed house with a load of meaningless shit you don’t really need.

Maybe I will eventually learn something about myself at the end of all of this.  My observations so far are that I can’t make very good pancakes, that my neighbours can’t pronounce Kerouac,  that maybe I’m not quite as introverted as I thought I was.

But I’ve also learnt there are more tigers in captivity in America than there are in the rest of the world.  So there’s that.

Stay safe, stay sane and don’t be too hard on yourselves in all of this (yep, easy to dispense to others not so easy to practice) and we will get through this.