IT’S March tomorrow, which means it will soon be a whole year since you did all these things you used to take for granted. Here’s a timeline:
MARCH 7th: A year since you went for a nice pub lunch with your family, followed by a country walk which was a fun chance to see signs of spring, not the only way to leave the house and a trudge around the prison yard Britain has become.
MARCH 10th: A year since you went to a packed, sweaty gig in a city centre, pogoing around like a nutter and singing lustily along to the songs you knew, before spilling onto the street saying ‘Music’s always better live, isn’t it?’ to an attractive stranger.
MARCH 14th: A year since you went to the cinema with a couple of friends to see halfway-decent horror movie The Invisible Man. It wasn’t fantastic but the cinema’s a cheap, easy night out, isn’t it? There’s nothing special about going to the cinema. Or there wasn’t.
MARCH 17th: A year since you met a mate for a quiet pint at your local, where there were significantly fewer people around than usual and you cut the evening short after three pints because it was all rather eerie. ‘Still, there’s always next week,’ you said.
MARCH 19th: A year since you popped round to a friend’s house to return a DVD you’d borrowed and had a mug of tea in his kitchen while chatting about how all this was a bit worrying but apparently we’d be turning the tide in 12 weeks.
MARCH 23rd: A year since you sat uncomprehendingly staring at the TV as the prime minister effectively sentenced us all to be confined to our homes indefinitely. And what’s more, you were glad.
MARCH 28th: A year since Zoom drinks and a quiz with your shell-shocked mates where you all said ‘It’s different but it’s fun’ and ‘Shall we do this every week?’. You’ve not even seen them on screens since Christmas.
