Going out ...it’s what life’s truly all about

IAM attending a wedding this weekend, the first since our own, and no less exciting for that. I have planned my outfit with military precision, borrowed a stylish hat from my mother and made ready choice anecdotes about our own nuptials should polite inquiries arise.

It is one of a number of social engagements our diary appears to have filled up with this autumn. Last week I was at an awards ceremony. Next weekend we are attending a party, and the week after that we are off to a ball. In fact, by my calculations, we won’t have a weekend at home until we reach the dark, gloomy nights of November.

Oh, do stop showing off Emma, I hear you say with a slight roll of the eyes... And really I’m not (not really, maybe only a smidge), except to say that while I feel exceptionally lucky to have so many occasions to attend, I also feel a little, well, fatigued.

It’s not the events themselves, nor the lovely people who will attend them. It’s more that over the past 18 months I have become used to weekends as a vast, empty space, the diary resolutely blank, the calendar gaping back at me, cavernous and bare.

Weekends required planning, but not of the social sort. There would be a walk to the park with the duck pond one week, a stroll to the one with the walled garden the next. A new recipe, followed to the letter and eaten with a bottle of wine on the Friday night, a takeout from our favourite burger joint on the Saturday.

Films, painfully selected after much scrutiny of streaming services and watched on the sofa while sprawled in pyjamas. Games of Trivial Pursuit over a glass (or two) of brandy.

And while there were occasional Zoom catch-ups with friends and family, they were, as we all knew at the time and perhaps feel even more acutely now we are back to ‘normal’, supremely different from the simple joy of seeing a loved one in person.

All this socialising then, this new concept of being out, and sometimes ‘out out’, feels rather alien. The past is indeed a different country, and they always did do things differently there, but returning to a life which involves the social whirl, small talk and introductions feels like an exceptionally dim and distant land.

In fact I have almost forgotten how to make small talk and, like so many of us, have fallen back several times on polite questions about how people got through lockdown, as if there were still nothing else to talk about.

Then there are the practical considerations. I have become woefully inadequate at wearing heels since lockdown, and the one pair I bought over the past 18 months are, I have discovered with some horror, so high as to be almost unwearable outside my own living room. There’s the squeezing oneself into a nice frock, instead of a comfy pair of joggers, and spending the whole night worrying you might spill something on it.

There are things to remember – keys, wallet, phone, face mask. In recent weeks I have almost left all behind, so unused am I to being out and about with them.

TRANSPORT is another issue. The number of taxis available in Glasgow has decreased enormously since March 2020, as many drivers, finding themselves with hardly any fares, have sought work elsewhere. I waited 40 minutes in vain for a taxi the other week, before finally calling a (much more expensive) black cab. It’s nobody’s fault, but it adds an extra layer of anxiety to the whole outing.

Perhaps, like us all in lockdown, I have just got older. Maybe I am reaching the pipe and slippers phase somewhat earlier than expected. Except that I’m not ready to settle down by the fire for good just yet.

And so, in the coming weeks, I will squeeze myself into the nice frocks, don the unwearable heels, and get out and about for a good time.

Because what I have discovered, once you get past all the fiddly practicalities and swap the lockdown anecdotes, is that nothing beats a good night out. Nothing tops personal interaction, seeing old faces and meeting new, forging connections over a dram or a dance and reminding yourself that this, really, is what it’s all about.