March feels like it was a lifetime ago now doesn’t it? Those early stages of lockdown feel like such a distant memory. I laugh to myself when I think about our first home office on the dining room table which felt so makeshift and temporary. I also laugh when I think of the Beast from the East which saw us both working from home for, wait for it, three whole days. And it sent us stir crazy. How bonkers that seems now right?
One of the nice things about writing this kind of lockdown diary is when people tell me they’ve been feeling exactly the same as me, whether it be an up or a down, or I’ve articulated something in a way they haven’t thought of. It’s nice that people see it as a way of bonding over this crazy experience, one that, let’s be honest, is probably the biggest thing to ever happen in some of our lifetimes.
So what’s nice is when I’m able to return the favour, when someone says something that resonates with me, or explains something in a way I never thought before. My very good and brilliant friend Carly (yes, the beret girl on Twitter) posted a draft newsletter about the stages of lockdown that she didn’t feel was good enough to formulate into a full blown article. I completely disagreed so am sharing it with you here, because it’s astute, clever and brilliantly funny. And the world deserve to see it.
I hand you now over to Carly Marilyn Flood and her observations on the early stages on lockdown:
This will be 3 weeks, 6 weeks max. Those were some nice early days marred with the belief that we would do a 30 day ab challenge an finally paint the hallway. What stupid fuckers we were.
Houseparty! Download. Meet pals. Screenshot. Put on the socials. Rad half a headline that it was a major data leak. That was like a 6 day arc for everyone
Actually I am really enjoying it. Joe Wicks is a nice boy. Sometimes the only way through is with demented positivity. People started reaching for things with the grasp of a just born gibbon – banana bread, couch to 5k, feeling free of the commute and the slavishness to pret coffee. These takes are my least favourite. I much prefer the ‘I hate this, inject a £12 beer in my veins and let me feel alive’ people. The freelancers who started crowing ‘this is what my life is always like, LOL’ could do one anyway
The clap was very emotional. I like the clap. Remember that? No zealous obsession evident in that first one. This was the equivalent of the Italians singing on their balconies. Boris is in the ICU. We have to face this. Clap. Clap like you’re day drunk at a wedding and you’re in a competition for last clap.
I’m saving money – Brilliant side effect, it has been literally impossible to waste as much money. Might start a blog about my financial prowess.
Tiger King. Baskin. Exotic. Big cats. We thought this was peak madness. Stupid past us.
Takeaways are actually a great way to support the economy. Keep this up.
Quiz on ITV – Lockdown but with easter eggs
I’m secretly sick of the clapping.
Laptop riser – My shoulders have become locked in to a position I refer to a The C Montgomery Burns or Extreme Posture. There is possibly no way back
I’m wasting a lot of money buying things of Amazon and always being in. That surplus of cash was too tempting by far.
Driving to Durham. The collective rage. The absolute gall of the man. Never forget that. Never. Absolute asshat. I got so drunk I forced a Motown disco into the living room because I like to make lemonade.
I am not secretly sick of the clapping. The entire system is screwed. The clapping is for you to have a deaks at you neighbours.
Who cares anymore? Life has become one perguatory of emotion. The shops are open. The pubs are open. You can get your haircut. Loads of people are still dying. Oasis has gone. 8 million redundancies. Comedy is dead. You can go to Pizza Express. All the same vibe. Homongenous vibes.
Cake. Everything is cake. I need to be less online. Too many things have been sliced and are now cakes for my brain to be ok.
