We’ve been robbed of six months. How many more must we lose?

OH, come on. Not again. Not really. When the First Minister yesterday announced that we are once more banned from visiting our loved ones, you could almost hear the country’s heart drop through the floor.

All those months of doing the right thing. All those months of diligently wearing face masks, avoiding crowded places, forgoing parties, family gatherings, hugs with loved ones and all the little pleasures that make life worth living. And for what?

To be told that it’s not enough. That we have to start over. That it wasn’t worth diddly squat.

No more visiting the grandchildren. No catching up with elderly relatives at home. No popping round for a cuppa, or the glass of something stronger most of us could do with about now. It’s enough to make you weep.

Six months ago when the first national lockdown was announced, there was a real sense of fear. We were all shocked, I think, unable to reconcile ourselves with the fact that life as we knew it had been placed on pause.

Yet at the same time there was a general agreement that if we all banded together for a few months, we’d get through it. This couldn’t last forever, right? Stay at home for a while, order the shopping online, get to grips with Zoom and everything would be OK.

But it wasn’t quite as simple as that. When the world started to open up again it became clear that the country was dividing into two camps. The cautious, do-it-by-the-book folk, and the pushed-it-too-far lot.

Now it feels as though those of us who played by the rules have been cheated. I don’t know about you, but I feel like the classroom goody twoshoes given the same punishment as the school joker who spent break time standing on a desk with his tie wrapped round his head.

Nicola Sturgeon said yesterday that these new measures were not another lockdown. So why does it feel like we are being locked up again? Or perhaps more accurately, locked away from each other?

THESE new restrictions will affect us all in different ways. For me, it means not being able to see my lovely mum, a most resilient woman who has spent much of the past six months on her own yet still comes up smiling, often on Zoom, and usually with a gin and tonic in hand.

Now it seems like we may have to celebrate Christmas over Zoom too, this time with sherry and a mince pie.

When we went into lockdown back in March my father had been dead for less than a year. Now he has been gone for more than 18 months, and while my mum and I took the chance to see each other as much as we could over the summer, to make up for those lost months of companionship and grieving, the thought of a long hard winter away from each other hurts deeply.

Meanwhile, the reinstated work from home guidance means that for the foreseeable future the home I share with my fiancé operates as not one but two separate offices for 12 hours a day, as we tiptoe around each other’s Zoom meetings and try not to overload the wi-fi connection. As if that weren’t enough to test our relationship, our wedding, cancelled this summer and rearranged for 2021, feels increasingly as though it will be a pale, socially distanced shadow of the joyful, mass celebration we had planned.

I am acutely aware, however, that for many people, things are much, much worse.

The new Scottish restrictions will be reviewed in three weeks, but I don’t think any of us are naïve enough to think that they’ll be lifted then or indeed, any time soon, particularly when Westminster is talking about six months.

And it is this wooliness over time which is so galling, particularly for the older generations. For those for whom time itself is running out, due to illness or old age.

For those who want to spend the time they have left with beloved grandchildren. For those who had planned a last foreign holiday, or a visit to stay with far-flung family.

ROBBED of the past six months, they now face being robbed of who knows how long. Six weeks? Twelve? Eighteen? No one knows. Or if they do, they’re not telling.

Single people too have been particularly penalised. Shut away for months, after a brief respite they too must retreat to the same four walls. Unless they brave a trip to the pub that is, and even then they must be out by 10pm or risk turning into a pumpkin.

Then there are the families with relatives in care homes, many of whom have barely seen their loved ones for months and months. Who have had to touch hands through windows, who have been denied hugs and kisses, and who are now restricted to visiting outside for only 30 minutes per week. For them in particular, these new measures must seem interminable.

So how do we get through this? Well, as the minor meltdown I had yesterday upon hearing that weddings will be restricted to 20 people for the foreseeable future will attest, I am no expert.

But I do know that we humans are far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. We will adapt not because we want to, but because in the face of the threat of this hellish thing going on even longer, we have to.

There is the odd upside. We are not yet queueing again, Soviet style, for our bread and milk. Pasta, eggs and loo rolls are no longer as hard to get hold of as the finest caviar. We can leave our houses for more than an hour a day, although whether we will want to in winter is of course debatable.

What I will say is that the best way to get through this is by leaning on each other.

Knowing when to ask for help, or when to offer it, has never been more important. Checking in by text or telephone can make the world of difference, particularly to someone on their own.

And finally, I think it might help to remind ourselves that this too shall pass.

I just wish we knew when.