Out in the cold, thanks to Covid

Fond though I am of Nottingham, my thoughts moved to an extreme relocation this morning.

I heard a scientist on the radio – a sensible-sounding chap – saying the only places left without Covid were the International Space Station, and Antarctica.

My grasp of science barely extends to half a GCSE, and I’ve forgotten most of it since then anyway, so I think becoming an astronaut seems unlikely for now.

So I think it’s going to have to be the South Pole for me.

I mean, how bad can it be, really?

I’ve never minded being a bit chilly and you’d get to hang out with penguins a lot, which is never not going to be fun.

You’re pretty much in isolation anyway, because going outside is presumably fairly unpalatable, so you wouldn’t miss the pub, or companionship, or any of the other fun things we used to be able to do.

Many years ago, I read about “snotsicles” in National Geographic magazine – that’s when your bogeys literally freeze as they inevitably stream from your nose – and I always thought that would be fun to experience one day.

So that’s another thing to look forward to.

I’m sure they’ll have wi-fi there as well by now, so I could continue my lockdown challenge of trying to complete Netflix on expert mode.

The only slight hiccup is that Rightmove don’t seem to have opened their sub-polar branch as there don’t seem to be too many properties for sale at the moment. Presumably lots of people are moving there.

But I’m sure once a nice two-bed semi comes on the market it’ll be plain sailing, or good sledding, or smooth ice-gliding, or whatever metaphor they use in those parts.

I know it’s hardly a new or controversial opinion, but I’m just fed up with Covid now.

There was an otherworldly novelty to it all first time around and, though it was scary and uncertain, the spirit of people coming together for a common good was strangely heartwarming.

Now that’s all gone, and it feels like we’re trapped, trudging through knee-high cold mud in fading light, towards a horizon which only ever becomes further away.

Like Gavin Williamson famously said about Russia, I now just want Covid to “shut up and go away”.

And I know it won’t, so I’m taking matters into my own hands.

I’ve bought some long johns and a woolly hat, a bucket full of fish for the penguins and an Antarctica guide book, and I’m disappearing into the distance. So long, Covid.