To be fair, I’m a little fed up now

TODAY’S the day when the Prime Minister will announce what’s happening next. But it seems unlikely that afterwards you’ll be going off to the pub to celebrate. What people keep calling the “new normal” – which is what’s in store for us as the lockdown is slowly lifted – sounds horrible.a life of looking at the floor to see the sticky tape where we’re supposed to stand. A life of taking your temperature before you leave the house.

Yes, I admit it. I’m fed up. Not – let me stress – that I have anything to complain about compared with those who have lost loved ones, or those who have seen a lifetime’s hard work obliterated as a small business folds. I have a house and a garden, plenty of food and a telly. Even so...

Neither can I dignify my fed-up-ness by saying that I’m suffering from depression. The lockdown is grim for those already suffering from poor mental health.they are as much victims of the pandemic as anyone with the virus.

But me? Only fed up. Nothing more serious. Nothing that requires intervention or pills or counselling. Just fed up to the back teeth.

It passes of course, if you keep busy, talk to someone on the phone, read a book, have a drink, wash your hair.we have ways of keeping the blues at bay. And if anyone asks how you are, you hear yourself saying: “Well I’m so lucky compared with people living in high-rise flats with small children.”

I’ve lost count how many times I’ve said that.and I mean it. But... still fed up.

I’m also suffering a chronic sense of humour failure, weary of cheery TV commercials and jolly items on the local news attempting to persuade us that lockdown is a blast. Sorry, it isn’t. My loathing is off the scale for that couple who were pretending to have fun by sipping cocktails in front of a flat screen that’s showing a tropical sea. And please stop telling me to “stay safe”. Do I have a choice?

A few weeks ago I wrote about meeting friends on Zoom. Well, that novelty has well and truly passed. I’d like to see them in the flesh, like in the olden days. And I don’t want to hear another word from anyone who’s making sourdough bread, has discovered the joys of nature or learnt to speak German.

Worried as I am about getting ill or passing the virus on, I’m still surprised that polls say 60 per cent of us would be fearful of

■ venturing out, because we’ve become so used to staying in. I’ve been following the rules carefully but I can’t wait to be let out of my comfortable cage and regain the life I used to take for granted.

Because I’m fed up. Did I mention that? And before you have a go at me, I know I’m completely undeserving of sympathy.

I HADN’T thought about Millie Small for a long time. She died last week of a stroke, aged 72. But when My Boy Lollipop hit the charts in 1964 I adored her. So pretty, such fun, I’d have liked her as a big sister. My parents used to dance round singing the daft lyrics, “My boy Lollipop, you make my heart go giddy up”. Her obituaries have reminded me that this single introduced Jamaican ska music to a white, British audience. We didn’t know that at the time. But we loved the song.