‘What I’ve missed in particular has been keeping up with new friends’

Nicky Haslam, interior designer

I’ve got no great desire to rush back to restaurants and things like that, because I quite like opening a tin of Fray Bentos. A good bit of corned beef and cheese slices – what more could one want?

But I miss the man in the corner shop who I buy cigarettes from. I miss having my hair cut – it would be nice to do that again. Actually trying on the clothes rather than ordering them wrong. Just little things. At home, I can still decorate, paint and write without it being a strain or a bore, but in lockdown things come up short in a funny way.

What I’ve missed has been keeping up with new friends. I’ve spoken to old friends on the telephone, but there are people I met in the year before lockdown who I’d love to see again but don’t dare ring up.

When one meets someone one gets on with, one thinks, “I’d like to see them again. I wonder where”. With any luck I’ll see them again when we start socialising. nh-design.co.uk