Home Alone

The dog is looking at me in a strange way. “Something funny is going on,” she says. Well she doesn’t say but that is what her face tells me. “Where are all the people,” and “Why is Roma cleaning the house.” Now I would hate you to think that I was a dirty little minx — whatever that is — but I do tend to put housework near the bottom of my agenda. That is until now – and by midday today I had already done 2 washes of bed linen (from the boys who vacated a few days ago) vacuumed the house, washed the floor, walked the dog, completed an online Pilates session, and put in an online food order.

Actually, the food order was by far the highlight of the day. Working out what I wanted to eat – for one – and checking cake recipes for ingredients. Sadly, Tesco doesn’t have any yeast, so it is going to have to be Soda Bread. Note to self: You have no money to buy any more clothes so lay off the sugar.

Any takers for a virtual Bake Off? I am already in a virtual bridge game, a virtual book club and virtual scrabble. I might just become so virtual that by June I won’t be able to return to the real world. Shades of The Truman Show. I have always had a sneaky suspicion that maybe we are just one big Truman Show and none of this is real. Backed up by an article I saw about a technology company who was making virtual reality products and planning for a time when actual life and virtual reality are indistinguishable. Which of course, depending on how long we need to isolate, just might be the new norm.

So we are no longer a time poor nation. I remember reading a poll of 2000 people which said that almost three quarters wished they had more time to relax, 54% said they needed more time in the day with the average adult saying they needed an extra 3 hours a day to get everything done. Would be interesting to see how these people used their leisure time post coronavirus. I also yearned for more time when I was juggling children, work and parents. I used to recite the poem Leisure by William Henry Davies, and long to be able to ‘stare as long as sheep or cows’. So be careful what you wish for!

There is a silver lining to all this though: Trump is about to combustulate (not sure if that is a word – or just a malapropism) and hopefully the Americans will realise that he really is just full of hot air. Greeta Thunberg has finally got what she wants. And there is some great humour going around.

Please do send me your comments and tell me what you are doing to keep yourself amused/busy/stimulated.