RELAX THE LOCKDOWN OPEN THE BARBERS SORT MY HAIR OUT
CAN the end of lockdown – a madness we have endured for almost a year – really be almost upon us?
In truth, part of me is dreading entering a supermarket without wearing a mask. They’ll know I’m the bloke with Tourette’s.
It’s one of the many concerns I have about adapting to the “new normal”.
Will I still remain two metres away from members of the public I meet in the street?
Probably. There are relatives I kept at a distance of at least 20 miles before the pandemic.
Soon I won’t have a disease as a convenient excuse and will again have to blame decorators.
Will my wife continue to trim – that’s a gross understatement, akin to describing an earthquake as a property makeover – my grey, thinning hair?
Probably. The current, savage cut looks like it should belong to an inhabitant of some far-flung monastery. There’s even a bald patch atop.
It may, however, earn me a seat on crowded trains and buses.
And will I continue to drink copious amounts of lager during hours that, pre-pandemic, were alcohol-free.
Almost definitely. The damage is done. It is too late.
According to an alarmist Daily Mail article, just two pints of lager can shave five minutes from your life.
I, therefore, died in 1827 and am only present in spirit form. Make that wine and spirit form.
After reading the harrowing medical piece, I vowed there and then to stop... reading the Daily Mail.
No, I’m nervous about being liberated from the shackles of lockdown.
I’m nervous about the Government’s much-trumpeted “roadmap to recovery”. If my wife does the navigating, we’re still well and truly up the junction.
While driving to a Devon break, she scrutinised the AA map on her lap and shrieked: “Hold on, I think the thin blue squiggly lines may be rivers.”
We were a mere five minutes away from plunging into the Avon.
Despite my trepidation, Boris Johnson has dubbed Monday’s development as the dawn of a “summer of hope”.
He said: “Thanks to the vaccinations there is light ahead, leading us to a spring and a summer which I think will be seasons of hope, looking and feeling incomparably better for us all.”
I watched the individual behind him and thought: Is he really conveying the message to the deaf or just humiliating our PM.
I watched Boris and thought, there’s a man who desperately needs the barbers back in business. He now appears to be sporting two hairstyles. Both remind me of two hamsters fighting. Possibly to the death.
To some, the key points were lost in a tide of gushing PR prose about the vaccine.
All you really need to know is: Pubs and restaurants can open from April 6 but customers will have to sit outside. Thank goodness pubs are opening; my drinking was getting seriously out of hand. Dining outdoors is so delightfully Continental. My wife and I once visited a Parisian pavement cafe. It rained. The soup course lasted all night. Kids will return to school on March 8. That cannot come soon enough for our neighbours who are carrying the mental scars of home schooling. Yesterday I heard the Dad bellow at his nine-year-old daughter: “For the last bloody time, David has five apples, if he gives...”
During an emotional phone call, I
» WITHOUT sounding bigheaded, I’ve already got a date for New Year’s Eve. It’s December 31 » FOR Lent this year I just gave up » WHAT do we want? An end to religious brainwashing. When do we want it? Easter would be nice AFTER a 300 million mile journey, a Rover has landed on Mars. It was touch and go if the one I had in the 1980s made it to the newsagents » THE Covid ‘rule of six’ will come in at the end of March. That gives me a month to find five friends
asked the fraught father: “What has she learned while at home?” I asked.
“How much alcohol it takes to be a parent,” he replied.
n Hairdressers and gyms can open on April 12. My wife says the first thing she’ll do is get “pampered”. Her hair has not been cut by a professional for nine months. She has not been waxed. Her nails have grown wild.
It was getting ugly in lockdown. I should make the most of fitness centres reopening – it’s important to stay in shape during life’s twilight years. My uncle, a sprightly 82-yearold, ran a mile a day during lockdown. If anyone knows where he is, please contact me as a matter of urgency.
n Breaks at “self-contained accommodation” can be made from April 12, while holidays abroad may be given the green light a month later. That means we may yet fulfil our ambition of camping abroad, or “tentin quarantino”, as my wife calls it.
The announcement is also good news for those who have seen their jobs in the airline industry mothballed. We gave my cousin, a pilot, a helping hand by offering him painting work at Chateau Lockley, aka Dun Caring.
The landing’s faultless.
“At last,” said my former drinking companion Colin, “light at the end of the tunnel. For the last fortnight, my dog has been giving me a ‘this is why I chew the furniture’ look.”
He added: “I’ve learned one thing from the pandemic. You know our living room - the one I’ve wanted to decorate for years, but just didn’t have the time?
“I’ve discovered that isn’t the reason.”