My house is crumbling in lockdown... and so am I!

WE’RE all nearly a year older than when we first went into lockdown. And it’s not only policeman who seem youthful to me these days.

When I heard Grant Shapps was the first Cabinet Minister to have the jab, at the age of 52, my first thought was: ‘Gosh, the rest must all be so young.’ Now that’s ageing for you. But my growing older is in slo- mo compared to what’s happened to our poor house, which has been falling apart over the past 12 months.

In normal times, I confess to having someone help with the cleaning once a week. She dashes around with a mop and vacuum, keeping the place professionally spruce.

But over the past year, her presence has been intermittent – it didn’t seem fair to ask her to travel to us when the virus was raging, and even though she was officially allowed in the house, her presence was clearly an added risk factor.

Falling back on our own domestic expertise has taken its toll on the old place, as have the many more hours, days and weeks we’ve spent closeted at home.

Hence our floorboards, which with my immaculate eye for practicality (not) are all bare and painted white, have a new patina of ingrained dirt from so much more time spent traipsing up and down the stairs – spilling tea and coffee as we go.

Taps drip, limescale gathers and sofas sag. The dials on the hob have broken, and there is an unnerving crack in the sitting-room wall.

I know there are some who have used lockdown as an opportunity to get into DIY, alphabetise their spice jars and label the linen cupboard – but sadly I am not one of those. Unlike my own appearance, where I fear additional wrinkles and creases can’t be reversed (at least not without the cosmetic interference I don’t subscribe to), most of our home’s signs of age can hopefully be dealt with quickly, once life opens up.

Technically we are already allowed what are quaintly termed ‘tradespeople’ inside, so there is nothing to stop home rejuvenation taking place right now.

But it’s hard to get the enthusiasm for fixing things when we are still so many days from real freedom. Instead, I sit here spending hours looking at the scuffed skirting and discovering ever more evidence of wear and tear. A bit like my face.