Corona Journal, 25 March: Day 10
11am Struck with an inexplicable desire to clean everything. Google ‘how to clean your dishwasher’. Slightly embarrassed by my other recent google searches.
11.10am Website says to run the dishwasher with a container of plain white distilled vinegar and another of bicarbonate of soda inside. Don’t have plain white distilled vinegar (who does?), but sure white wine vinegar is the same thing.
11.20am On a roll now. Also am going to descale the kettle. Website says use vinegar, bicarbonate of soda or lemon juice. I use all three for good measure. Mixture fizzes satisfyingly. Imagine Kim and Aggie smiling proudly down on me. Don’t actually think either of them is dead but that’s beside the point.
11.25am Think I will do some yoga while I wait.
12pm Ommmmm. I am so productive and zen.
12.15pm Boiled the kettle with the mixture still inside and it started spluttering boiling foamy vinegar water everywhere, so I ran away until it stopped.
12.30pm Apart from slight vinegary smell lingering in the kitchen, everything looks good and clean! Doubt flatmate and boyfriend will notice, but feeling pretty smug anyway.
3pm Time for my state-sanctioned hobble-walk round the park. Think about jobs and how my career (academic or otherwise) has always made up the majority of my identity. Wonder if that will change after all this. Wonder about my identity post-corona. Decide I am doing too much thinking, so put on a podcast called So I Got To Thinking which analyses every episode of Sex and the City in turn.
5pm Fucking birds tweeting outside, having a great time with all their freedom. Little show-off bastards.
5.30pm Annnnnd that completes my final working day. Still no news on getting 80% of my wage, so as it stands, I still don’t have an income come April. Was anybody else the closest they’ve ever been to having their life together before this started, or was that just me?
6.30pm Boyfriend arrives home after a day of learning to use PPE equipment. I tell him about my exciting cleaning extravaganza. He tells me flatmate already descaled the kettle last week. Feel bad for thinking neither of them would notice my efforts; clearly should have included myself in that.
8pm I make a curry for boyfriend, flatmate and myself before we pop open a bottle of prosecco and toast to health and unemployment, then settle down to watch The Hunger Games 3, with which we have become maybe a little bit obsessed.