Corona Journal, 1 June: Day 77
9am Wake up. There is a bag of flour on the table. Does this mean Corona is over?
10am Is it weird that I recognise all the people in the 6 houses directly opposite our living room window? I see them all washing up on a daily basis and to be honest, I’ve probably seen them topless more times than I have most of my closest friends.
10:15am Strikes me that maybe they think the exact same about me. This is slightly worrying.
12pm Walking to Hampstead Heath for a socially distant picnic with a pal. Stop off for cans of g&t, obviously.
3pm Loved having a picnic with gorgeous friend who I haven’t seen since February! Was so brilliant to see her. We ‘foot tap’ rather than hug which is weird and cute. Feels very strange not to be giving her a big hug, but so good to have a catch up in the sun. Lie on my back and look at the sky, completely free of vapour trails.
4pm Call another pal on my walk home. Definitely feels as though there is a bit of malaise in the air this week; she reminds me that we are entering our eleventh week of lockdown, so is it really any wonder we are all feeling a bit sad and listless? We miss each other. Horrible things are happening in the world at large and in our personal lives and we can’t be together to console and comfort, to discuss, to strategise, to laugh and distract each other. It’s a tough time. The days of drinking through the corona briefing, building towers out of pots and pans and dressing up as pirates to watch Pirates of the Caribbean are gone. This just sucks.
5pm At least it’s sunny.
6pm Speaking of sunny – I have been sunburnt in awkward zig-zag patterns where you can clearly see finger marks as I attempted to put suncream on my own back – obviously I couldn’t ask my pal to help me as we were socially distancing. Now I’m left with the weirdest burn marks that, knowing my luck, will probably tan and be there until next year. This was a side effect of lockdown that I hadn’t anticipated.
7pm Back home, lesson planning.
8pm Boyfriend gets home from his shift. I make an emergency trip to Sainsbury’s for wine, chocolate, kale, milk and tin foil. You know, the essentials.
9pm Boyfriend makes a delicious dinner of ham, chips and kale. I spend most of the evening scrolling the news and trying to read Song of Achilles for book club on Wednesday, but can’t concentrate. I do find a reference to The King of Argos, though, which at least gets a smile from me as I imagine a monarch sitting on a throne of Argos catalogues.