It occurred to me over the weekend that we have now spent longer in lockdown than Jesus did in the desert, though to be fair to him we haven’t been fasting nor have I personally been faced with much temptation beyond finishing off the kids' Easter eggs and the tacit agreement that it’s now acceptable to drink on a Monday.
After his little sojourn, JC had proven he was worthy of his vocation (I am paraphrasing, please don’t write in), and it is with that in mind that I am now wondering how many of us will emerge from this period of exile having seen certain things from a different angle.
While there’s plenty we are looking forward to leaving behind upon our release - wearing a bleach-stained hoodie at all times, only being allowed to listen to George Ezra on Spotify, having to haggle with a four year old to use my own computer - there’s a few things I reckon we’ll integrate into our lives more permanently once this is over.
One step at a time
I always love the idea of a walk but somehow, in the normal course of things, we don’t get round to it as much as we probably should. However, in the last 44 days I think we’ve only missed our daily walk about three times. Admittedly I’ve yet to go for a walk that is a) any real length b) any real speed c) does not involve someone falling over or getting stung d) does not involve stopping for snacks, but nonetheless I'm seeing very real evidence of the mental health benefits that I always knew walking offered.
The question is, of course, will we still be out gamboling when it's two degrees with sideways rain and howling winds? Ask me in November...
The irony of all this time leaving us with absolutely no time
Since I’ve lost those precious six hours when the kids are at school, I am making the most of Every Single Second. Working from home, I’m used to putting a wash on between calls, getting dinner in the slow cooker while the children eat breakfast, or doing the supermarket dash as a reward for filing a piece of work, but I would also fall down Twitter rabbit holes, read the weekend paper while I ate lunch and sneak off to meet someone for a coffee if I didn’t have any pressing deadlines.
But, these days, with three people demanding my attention at any one time, I have become expert at using every minute effectively, the idea being that I might then end up with a block of time to myself once they’re all in bed. (If time to myself means wiping baked bean juice off the kitchen table leg, crawling around retrieving felt tip lids from under bookcases and washing dog sh*t off trainers.)
So I now tidy the playroom in the 25 seconds rest between each HIIT exercise, task Henry with ensuring Xander stays above the water at bath time while I put away laundry, and surreptitiously email my accountant during particularly boring work video calls. Just imagine all the spare time I’ll have if I can carry these habits through to Life After Lockdown...
Channeling my inner Ainsley Harriott
Before lockdown I did try and vaguely plan meals - and by plan I mean mix up the bolognaise-sausage-jacket potato frequency - and only occasionally had to ad lib with any other vegetable when I found we were out of broccoli.
But now there is no such luxury. My cooking - while never terribly thrilling - has become completely functional. I will look at what we have in the fridge and rustle up something only slightly questionable in the manner of 1990s staple, Ready Steady Cook (regrettably I've yet to catch the revamped version fronted by Rylan Clark-Neal).
I no longer pay much heed to whether I’m making something the kids will like - in fact just last night I went to put two plates of chicken and chorizo stew (with chickpeas to supplement the slightly pathetic amount of chicken) on the table and actually said to Andy “Listen to this…” in anticipation of the protest. (In the event they were so preoccupied with the red onion that they didn’t much notice the ‘funny baked beans’.)
No food is wasted. There is no pandering to preferences and fads. I am completely resilient to the howls of despair when I tell them what’s for dinner. In fact if I don't get them I assume they've not heard me.
And if in doubt I just serve it to Xander, who spits everything into his bib regardless.
Putting up with them never shutting up
It’s hard to gauge day-to-day but I’m certain I’m becoming more tolerant of the children. I’m still pretty sure they’re not in any way capable of reading the mood of the room, they will ALWAYS interrupt a conversation with a terribly urgent question (today’s favourite from Henry: “How long will Xander’s tongue be when he’s older?”) and the words ‘stop that, someone’s going to get hurt’ may as well be said in Japanese for all the notice they get.
BUT, I am convinced my blood pressure takes longer to be raised by their wittering, bickering, ridiculous requests and incessant noise. I think we are now in the best possible shape to take them all on a long haul flight without wanting to give them away by the time we land. Would that we could put that theory to the test...
Never put off till tomorrow what you will massively regret ignoring come lockdown
The only consolation to not getting round to booking a bikini wax until what ended up being two days into lockdown is that I have no cause to go anywhere near a bikini for the next few weeks (by weeks I obviously mean decades).
And the haircut I unwittingly rearranged into Week One has just given me the chance to cut my fringe with nail scissors, which is something everyone should try at least once.
Plus of course there's the date nights we never got round to, the Sunday lunches with friends that somehow drifted in and out of the diary and never happened, and the launch of my company website that I kept pushing back until it finally went live at the start of March when everyone else had a multitude of more pressing issues demanding their attention.
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As I read this back I'm disappointed there's not more I can add to this list - a few more insightful thoughts about how this time has given me cause for reflection and the introduction of some new, wholesome habits but, no, if I go for a walk, don't scrape dinner into the bin and haven't sent someone to sit on the stairs by 10am it's a Good Day.
Let's hope I dream up some more substantial ambitions once this is all over.
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