‘I lost my libido – and then found it again’

Time was, when I ached for more time with my husband. I dreamt of a no-commute life: no morning rush or skipped breakfasts, more suppers together and more time for sex.

I severely underestimated the actual reality of lockdown. Suddenly all three of us (me, my husband and our six-year-old daughter) were trapped at home, all the time. But my libido? Libidon’t more like.

Our daughter’s home schooling timetable was fuller than a festival schedule, and we were squeezing full-time jobs in the margins, as well as trying to source lesserspotted bags of flour and keep up with Joe Wicks and endless Zoom invitations.

The days and weeks between sex ticked by. To be fair, we’ve always been a little sporadic, so, to begin with, I didn’t see any issue with sexual distancing. Then I became quite hard on myself. Now we were blessed with all this time together, why weren’t we using it to have the most passionate sex of our lives; ticking off our adventures like some kind of kinky bucket list?

Eventually we settled into the smallness of lockdown: being at home, baking, gardening, board games. It turns out that diving into retirement activities can really relight your fire. I’d forgotten how hot my husband is, and vice versa.

Being around each other more also meant that we were a lot more hands-on – rediscovering the magic of a cheeky passing bum pinch was our lockdown triumph.

Date nights were out so we had some “early nights” instead.

As soon as we were able to, we booked a night away and relished every blissful second.

It turns out we’re a pretty good team – when you’re nice to each other, you might just want to jump each other more, too – and thank Covid we remembered that.