JENNI MURRAY

I’m doomed to be all alone until Easter!

HOW my heart sank on Monday evening as I tuned in to the Prime Minister’s address to the nation and the announcement of national Lockdown 3. I had dutifully spent Christmas and New Year alone in London, not wanting to risk taking the wretched virus and its new strain to my husband and son on the south coast. Not that I had any symptoms, but I was Tier 4; they were Tier 2.

It was very strange to be in London. No pubs, no restaurants, no sense of the season, despite the decorations. A few people were trying gingerly to get on as usual, slipping, masked, into supermarkets, but the great city felt grey and quiet. Anyone from Kent or London was considered a pariah by the rest of the country; a potential source of the new strain.

My second son was also stuck in London. We met briefly at his front door for an exchange of gifts. I had so hoped for things to ease and be able to see and hug the people I love. No chance.

Maybe I should have shot off after Christmas and risked going from Tier 4 to Tier 2, but it seemed a ridiculous idea when it was obvious things were getting worse. Now it looks as though I’m doomed to be alone until Easter.

And Lockdown 3 feels altogether more alarming and scarier than in earlier months, as the virus becomes so much easier to catch.

Yes, we’re hoping that the vaccine will get us out of this mess — and let’s pray the ‘fair wind’ Boris needs to vaccinate 14 million by mid-February prevails — but the figures are frightening.

As the number of infections and deaths rise, previously sanguine friends, and I count myself among them, are terrified. My North London neighbour who teaches in a primary school is relieved she doesn’t have to go to work. Parents I know are drawing their children close to them.

One friend, a widow my age, who lives alone, cried when she told me she wouldn’t dare to so much as go out shopping for food and couldn’t get an online delivery. Her stocked freezer would last her a week, she reckoned. Then what?

Another couple, both retired professionals in their 60s, are so afraid of the virus and alarmed by news reports showing whole families in hospital, that they won’t so much as pick up their post until four days after its arrival and then they disinfect it before opening.

During the earlier lockdowns I was careful, but far from cowed by Covid. I happily went into the BBC, had my temperature taken and interviewed people down the line for Woman’s Hour, making sure my hands and equipment were sanitised.

I was first on the list for appointments at the hairdresser

THEN and the nail salon in July. Those things really seemed to matter.

I took part in ITV’s The Full Monty, getting a test before every gathering of the cast. I even went to the Daily Mail studio to be photographed, carefully following the rigorous temperature checks, social distancing and mask rules.

This time I’m staying put. There’s more to worry about than my lockdown hair and fingernails. This virus has no intention of giving up its rampant attack on the human race and, for the first time, I am truly scared of it.

I shall walk alone with my dogs in the park, keeping a distance from those who jog too close and shop weekly, masked and gloved.

The vaccine may well show us a way out, but I will try to make sure I’m not like the young soldier shot and killed in the days leading up to the end of World War II.

This will end, but not yet. We all have to pull together. Don’t pick it up, don’t pass it on, resign yourself to Zoom. Stay well.