The perils of Lockdown…

There’s been a lot of talk about the effects of Lockdown and the seriousness of confinement and lack of socialisation amongst adults and children alike.

For some of course, and I include husband and self in this, we’ve been quite happy as it’s really just been an extension of the kind of life we live anyway. A bubble – a family bubble to be sure, but a bubble nevertheless. We’ve never been big on café culture or the restaurant roundabout.

We’ve also been lucky enough to see our family quite regularly and legitimately through this period, and haven’t had to experience the pain of separation.

But there are other aspects of this Lockdown that may be rubbing us up a little. When Lockdown began, about 7 weeks ago, we made an enormous list of things we wanted to complete about the house and garden before the restrictions were eased. Keeping busy is something both of us like to do and it seemed a good way to spend time forced upon us. The to-do list were things that needed doing anyway.

Early this week, we finished the last job on the list – pruning the orchard and garden. But we still have a month to go before we are free to come and go or to have day-trips away. (Although, I guess that’s very much a ‘wait and see’ situation.)

So in order to keep busy today, we lifted all manageable furniture, steam-cleaned the carpets, washed and polished all the timber floors, damp-wiped all skirtings, window ledges, furniture and cleaned the bathroom.

And herein lies the problem – my Covid problem.

I’m now making other lists – clean the oven and stove top, defrost fridge, polish brass, wash the windows, clean the inside of my car.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I have become more than fastidious.

I ask myself if this all started with hand sanitiser and singing Happy Birthday while disinfecting.

In this plethora of cleaning, have I been writing? Yes. But tying myself down to make sure the folk in the 12th century don’t overgroom their horses or polish their harness and boots to an unrealistic shine. At best, everyone can wash their hands…

… and the men are allowed to take up a wad of sheep’s fleece to clean their blades. The women are allowed to launder their clothes and hang them on aromatic bushes to dry. As to filling mattresses with herbs to keep the bed-bugs and evil airs away – it actually sounds like something we should be doing now.

On that note, there’s some rosemarinus in the herb garden and lavendula in the long border.

Then again, I might just go and get dirty, just to balance the scales

See you later and cheers!