What we’ve learnt in 7 short weeks

• We’ve learnt to live at home and make it our social hub
• We’ve learnt to cope without cars, buses, and tubes
• We’ve found our feet and walked, cycled, and scooted
• We’ve noticed the blossom, the birdsong, and the silence
• We’ve learnt new etiquettes of waiting in line, of standing back to let others pass, and that there is a right and wrong side to crossing a bridge
• We didn’t know we shared our world with so many dogs
• We’ve noticed the air is clearer, the sky not cluttered with planes
• We wear athleisure kit for business meetings, we wear slippers under the table, and who cares what the back of our hair looks like
• We’ve adopted new ways of arranging our work around childcare, home-schooling, the breakfast things being at the end of our desk
• Home deliveries find us at home, parcels are a real excitement even if it is only the delivery of a new mop head or a tube of grout
• We make our own coffee, the reusable cup gathers dust at the back of the shelf, if we want to drink water, we turn on the tap
• We pay for everything, even a bar of chocolate, with a credit card
• We join virtual classes for all sorts of instruction from boxing to knitting and from meditation to car mechanics
• We discovered we can cook, all those cookery programmes were not wasted, but we long for someone else to prepare us a meal
• A glass of wine is no longer a treat, it is the line in the sand that marks the end of the working day and the start of downtime, we guard against it becoming medication
• We make our peace, we say our prayers in places other than churches, mosques, and temples
• We know the lonely and the mentally fragile are finding it tough
• We’ve learnt that to even hover near a park bench will deliver the cavalry and park bobbies are hiding in every bush
• We’ve come to terms with not getting on a plane to somewhere lovely, our own outdoor space has become sandy beaches in our imagination
• We’re not saving for exotic trips, just longing to meet our friends and family again
• We’re richer, no amount of online shopping compares with the temptation on the high street, the pub, or the restaurant
• We miss our sport, we try and create our own, it doesn’t compare to the Olympics, the Euros or Wimbledon
• We struggle to comprehend we may not go to a concert, see a play, watch a film in the cinema this year, or maybe not even next
• We daydream about a future we had always taken for granted; we vow never to underestimate how much we will value that freedom when it returns
• If we have a job, we are grateful because so many haven’t
• If we have financial security, we consider ourselves unusually blessed