Real Life Can Wait

The only place I really want to be at the moment is home. I love to travel, in this country and abroad, especially where it’s warmer and sunnier. But since it became clear that coronavirus was likely to become a thing, I’d be happy to stay here until it’s all over.

I appreciate much more the sense of safety it gives me. I like it when the sun goes down and I can draw the curtains, lock the front door, light a few candles and leave the rest of the world behind. The coming shutdown of our normal society fills me with fear, especially over the well-being of others, and I would have no problems staying at home until it all blows over.

I can read the Everest-like pile of books I appear to have saved for not a rainy day but a sunny one. I wondered whether I would get around to reading them all. The time, it appears, is nigh. Similarly, all the music I have bought this year. I can now play it to death and learn some of the words, too.

In the absence of sport on TV, we can make us of our subscriptions to Netflix and Prime, as well as catch-up on everything we’ve been recording in the last few months. And when I get fed up with that, I can carry on writing.

And I can listen to wall-to-wall BBC 6 Music and never miss a moment of Lauren Laverne’s brilliant breakfast show, Huey Morgan’s Huey Show and the magical Radcliffe and Maconie. All these things and more.

At least this virus is arriving just as spring is here. Early stages, granted, but at least the days are getting longer and if they could get just a bit brighter too, things could only get better.

So, tonight, the door is locked, the curtains are drawn, I’m working my way through the Guardian, Mojo and the Railway Magazine, I have a bottle of red with my name on it and, for a few hours at least, real life can wait.