I can’t be the only person craving some non-Covid news.
Gone are the days when we had something to talk about in the evenings. When I could look to Andy to distract me from a tedious day, an annoying email or a boring assignment with talk of his day. The chance to decompress, recalibrate and let off steam (there’s every chance I am turning into some sort of engine).
And in turn I could witter on at him about work issues (the joys of working alone mean he is my chief brainstorming partner), relay information about the children's days, update him on all the news and views of the village (he is massively disinterested but I don’t get out much).
Wow my life sounds dull. The poor man isn’t even a willing ear, just a captive ear. But my point is, we used to have things to share with each other. New information, however boring.
I think I even miss him moaning about the trains, recounting the details of whatever fancy restaurant he went to for lunch, and asking me if it’s ok to play golf for six hours on Saturday.
I miss my walks home from school with the kids chattering 19 to the dozen about this and that - who said what to whom and what terribly complicated game they played at lunch time and who wouldn’t or didn’t let them play something for whatever very important reason.
My friend Natalie popped over yesterday to drop off a couple of bits. She stood half way up the drive and we stayed in the hall having a shouty chat. But for the first time since this started, seeing her made me as sad as it did happy. When I saw her my instinct was to hug her. I used to think I wasn’t a very tactile person but maybe I’m softening with age. Or maybe being touched by the children all the time has made me crave human contact whenever I’m not physically attached to another person. Whatever the reason, I developed a physical reaction to seeing my oldest friend standing a few feet away.
When we went walking yesterday Andy and I had a weird moment of synchronicity when we simultaneously said ‘Ooh I could murder a pint’ as we passed the Old Palace pub. One of our happiest evenings together in recent years was when his mum was staying and we snuck out to the pub on a summer's evening, sat in the garden until long after it got dark, drinking cider and eating dry roasted peanuts and putting the world to rights. The sort of evening usually reserved for a second date, not over a decade, two kids and a mortgage.
I miss putting on lipstick, wearing shoes that aren’t trainers, and packing my handbag - a treat these days only reserved for solo trips into London.
I miss being in the car alone, listening to what I want on the radio with no one talking over it.
I even miss TV shows filmed in front of a live audience, for goodness sake. Graham Norton and Have I Got News For You don’t work when you’re the only one laughing.
And I miss work calls being conducted on the telephone when I can adopt my usual work call stance: leaning back in my chair and putting my feet up on the window sill. I’ve decided it’s my thinking pose. I am so bloody sick of seeing my own face on my computer screen. I knew I looked a bit rough yesterday but didn’t realise I hadn’t brushed my hair till I got a glimpse of myself on a Zoom call at midday.
I read back through some of my early blog posts the other day and some of them seem months ago, not weeks. I can barely remember how difficult I found those early days of home-schooling and confinement. They are still hard but those struggles are just part of our normal life now.
Today, as we sense tiny glimpses of greater freedom, it’s the small aspects of normal life I’m starting to crave. The challenge now is to continue to pace ourselves and not let the frustration win.
Meanwhile Andy continues to enjoy peaceful evenings as I fail to muster up any decent conversation whatsoever. That second date feeling is definitely a distant memory.
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