I have given myself my first isolation haircut.
I had thought I might go and get my hair cut this week, but that was in the days when I had an income and was not in solitary confinement. Today I got fed up of my fringe flopping in my eyes and trimmed it back into submission.
I have crossed ‘hairdresser’ off my list of things that I might like to be when I grow up.
It looks a bit peculiar if you look closely, but one of the happy features of being in isolation is that nobody is going to. In fact, nobody is going to look at all. One small cough will be sufficient to send people scrambling to distant safety.
We have unpacked Oliver’s luggage.
This was a bit peculiar, because we have got no idea when he is likely to go back. He has brought school books home in case he does not have a school after the Easter holidays. We have packed them back in his suitcase and hoped that he will not need them.
The unpacking was a huge project because he has brought everything home, including some of his sheets and quilt covers. Some interrogation revealed that this is actually my fault. They are not actually dirty, as such, but he does not like the way that school launders them. They come back crumpled, and smelling wrong, and obviously are much nicer when they are lavender-scented and smooth and flat, the way that home laundry turns them out.
It is a good job that we have equality these days, otherwise he would never have found anybody to marry when he grows up. Fortunately these days young women do not think that you need to be qualified in making clothes and sheets flat if you want to be loved and appreciated.
I shall have to show him how to use the iron.
So far I have done three wash loads, and there are another couple to go, thank goodness that so far soap powder is not rationed.
I dried almost all of it in the garden, because it has been a splendidly sunny day, you would hardly have known that outside the garden gate, civilisation as we know it is collapsing about our ears. In here everything progressed smoothly, except that I had to clean the bathroom, which I do not like doing. It is depressing to discover that even though the world has changed out of all recognition, that everything we considered fixed and permanent and immutable has disappeared, the plughole on the bath is just as hairy as ever.
Mark did some more rendering in the conservatory whilst I scrubbed grit and smears out of the bath, and washed the inevitable hints of black mould out of the shower curtains.
We all stopped at five, as we have become in the habit of doing lately, to listen to the Prime Minister addressing the nation. This was made far more enjoyable today by the addition of a glass of wine, because for the first time ever, there was absolutely no reason why we should not. In fact I can recommend this. It made for a happily civilised interval in the day, marvelling at the distant unravelling nightmare from the comfort of our sofa, washed down by Merlot.
We were not at all sorry to hear that pubs and clubs are to close until further notice, because it meant that there was absolutely no point whatsoever in trying to go back to work. Whilst there were still a few drinkers around, guilt and penury would have meant that once we were released back into the wild, we would have had to continue hanging about the taxi rank in the hope that they would need taking home. It would have meant the same number of hours spent at work for a fraction of the income.
Mark said that he has done it like that because if you want people to accept a terrible big thing, first you get them to agree to lots of little things. Once they have started supporting you then they are far more likely to carry on.
It is a very quiet world here now. I have not been out in it, but usually from our back garden you can smell the work of chefs from half a dozen different countries, and tonight there is nothing.
We are going to have to be a bit brave about this new world. It is an awfully big adventure.
Have a picture of Oliver.
