Small mercies. That’s what I live for at the moment. The excitement of finding out whatever it was I ordered last week on Amazon, possibly after a glass too many of something red and alcoholic, has been right up there. And at the moment, it’s the prospect of a hair cut that occupies far too much of my thinking time. That and getting a replacement dishwasher, ours having passed away quietly last week. This is as good as it gets at the moment.
I can only imagine how I’d be feeling if I lived in Leicester where a new lockdown has been imposed. My mental health has been on a slow but steady downward spiral for around 101 days since Boris Johnson told us we “must stay at home” and much is hanging on a visit to the barber’s. I am not trying to impress anyone – those days are long gone – but all this hair is getting on my nerves. I haven’t combed my hair for some 30 years and haven’t washed it with anything other than water throughout that time. Now, I am having to rearrange random sticky-up bits and weird curls, often giving up and just wearing a baseball cap instead.
I am grateful to have a fair bit of hair at my age, so I suppose I should be grateful, but this is more of an obsession with something different that’s about to happen and something that used to be completely normal. And despite the fact I will be wearing a facemask, and my barber will probably dressed in full PPEs, it’s the most important thing in my life at the moment.
At the back of my mind – actually, rather near the front of it – is the possibility that South Gloucestershire will suddenly get locked down again when I am halfway down the road to the barbers. I know we are very low in terms of infections and deaths and unlike Leicester we don’t have too many dodgy garment factories where it appears the spike in Leicester started, but my newspaper informs me today that 36 more parts of the country are in danger of being locked down within days.
So, next week, I’m going to get all my social activities in before we get locked down again. I’m having a hair cut on Monday morning and that evening I’m going to the pub. On Tuesday and Wednesday I am meeting friends and on Thursday I am going to look at my new haircut in the mirror, all day. (Not true, really. Mirrors have always been my pet hate because I always see me in them.)
I can’t help thinking from ‘Super Saturday’ and ‘Independence Day’ onwards, we’re on our way to a) another spike, b) another lockdown and c) a second wave. Our numbers in terms of deaths and new infections are still horrendous when compared to other countries and I can’t see large social gatherings doing anything other than hastening more bad news. And when I see ‘more bad news’, I mean more infections and more deaths.
Still, there’s a new dishwasher on the way, Private Eye has just landed on my doormat and next Monday, wonder of wonders, I’m having a haircut. Small mercies, indeed.
