We are learning a new vocabulary and I don’t like it!

The year 2020 will go down in the history books and not in a happy way.  We are learning a whole new vocabulary and completely changing our way of life.  Given our seemingly advanced age (I don’t feel very old inside) we have been “socially distancing” for about two weeks. The only time we leave the house is to go for a walk – we are fortunate to live in suburbia where and we are seeing very few people and if we do we are all being very polite and giving each other a wide berth.

No one comes into the house. We can go to the pharmacy and for occasional food shopping. The delivery services are fully booked and are not taking on new customers.  Our weekly vegetable delivery from which you could pick what you wanted has changed to a set box – this will stop me from cooking the same things over and over again. We have adequate supplies.

The pubs and restaurants have been closed by the government and many department and other stores have closed: still there are people who don’t feel that any of this applies to them – some of the parks were very crowded today – children still going on play dates and older people “just popping in” to the neighbour.

I suppose the next stage will be lockdown…

I am not going stir crazy – I have TV to watch, books to read and music to listen to.  We can FaceTime or talk to family and friends on the telephone but I feel some sadness knowing that I can’t just pop in and see my son and his family in London or get on a plane to see my daughter and her family in Switzerland. We flew to Switzerland at short notice once when our granddaughter went into hospital and have travelled to our son in the early hours of the morning when someone has similarly had to go to hospital. I know in the big picture of things this is minor and we speak every day – but it saddens me to know I can’t.  I suppose that is being a parent.