‘I want to be hospitalised from hospitality. I want to laugh, chat and flirt till my lips fall off ’
My social life is normally one fabulous, fun-filled blur of book launches, opening nights at the theatre or the opera, classical concerts or dinner parties with banter being lobbed back and forth in the Wimbledon of wit. No night is complete unless I’m swinging from a chandelier with a cocktail between my teeth.
But not for the past year. Every time I open my diary now, I get snow blindness from staring at those endless empty, white pages. I need a St Bernard dog to come rescue me from the Arctic wastelands of social Siberia with that brandy barrel around its neck.
I’ve been hibernating at home in London with my boyfriend and two kids (Jules, 30 and Georgie, 27). Normally I spend half the year in each hemisphere, but the flight caps have prevented me from boomeranging back to Oz to visit my cherished 89-yearold mum, three sassy sisters and dearest Aussie chums.
London lockdown has been long and strict. Basically you’re only allowed out of your house to attend your own wake. Consequently, whenever I run into even the most vague acquaintance on my daily walk, I greet him like a long lost lover. I’m so enthusiastic and attentive, that he then presumes that I’d like him to be my lover; when in fact, I’m just suffering from CCD – Chronic Conversation Deficiency. Even dreary know-all blokes who put the bore into Bordeaux I’m suddenly finding totally fascinating, because it’s just so lovely to chat to an actual human, in the flesh.
When lockdown ends, I’m leaping straight into the social deep end. I want to be hospitalised from hospitality. I want to laugh, chat and flirt till my lips fall off. Besides hug-a-thons and swinging from chandeliers swigging champers, boomeranging back home to Oz to see my friends and family is top of my postpandemic priority list. And of course, travel in general. One thing this Covid catastrophe has taught us is to carpe the hell out of diem. Adventure Before Dementia – that’s my motto – and the name of my travel column in this very paper.
But after the horrors of the Spanish flu, the world rejoiced with the Roaring 20s. So, that’s what I’m looking forward to – kicking up my high heels in the Roaring Twenties, mark 2.
But at least at the moment we’re not suffering from Fomo. I mean, it’s hard to have any Fo, when there’s no Mo, right?