Are we nearly there yet?

When I was a kid, we had a pink bathroom: pink bath, toilet and basin, pink tiles, pink bath mat, pedestal mat and toilet seat cover - and, for a long time, a pink carpet. It had a towel rail over the radiator, and our four pink towels hung on it, identical but neatly initialled by my mum -T, D, J, P - and always in the same order, so you would never use the wrong one. 

I used them all. I would get out of the bath and wrap my towel round my middle, then another round my shoulders, one round my head and the last one round my knees and feet so I was basically more towel than human. Then I would lean against the radiator, and think. Sometimes I would read. But I loved it in there, in the towels, with a hot back, with the door locked. We had to make our own fun etc. 

And my love of a good bath has never left me, nor of a good towel. By the time I left home bath sheets were a thing, and I still have the two I went off to university with. I own other towels, but I always default to these. These days I don't have a hot radiator to lean against, and it is one of the disappointments of eco-home living: no towel scorch. But on the bright side I get a very hot bath any time I want one, and I wrap myself in my bath sheet for a bit while I brush my teeth, and then fold it onto the pillow and lie on the bed to steam gently. 

So, baths. Baths are one of the things getting me through. At least one a day, and quite often two. Morning baths have Badedas in them and the main light on, night time baths have something by Kniepp or Neals Yard and have the little light on. We've painted the room dark blue. It's good. 

We did Dry January (madness, I know, but December was very wet, what with the not being able to travel to Oxford as planned and only actually realising this wasn't possible the day before we were supposed to go, that was all a bit shit, especially as we'd eaten everything in the fridge). The evening bath first made a regular appearance then, as did Yoga with Adriene. We did that every single day: yoga, dinner, Netflix, bath, bed, or sometimes yoga, bath, dinner, Netflix, bed, for a change. I had wild insomnia to start with, but it's fair to say my body has remembered how to sleep. What it's struggling with is remembering how to wake up. 

There are also books. I lost the ability to read books for about a year after my mum died. It felt extremely weird at the time, as I am generally a voracious reader. But I just couldn't make the space, even though space is what I really needed. It came back, the ability, but then it went again when M got cancer and I got made redundant and our next door neighbour died in a way that seemed to require us all to be a part of it. I lost more than the ability to read books that summer. And recovery takes time. 

During Lockdown 1 I couldn't read much (well, I read all the time, but mostly in 280 character bursts)... too much bandwidth needed to just try and make sense of the world. But by Lockdown 3 I think I'd realised that that is one of the jobs that literature does. There's nothing new under the sun, not really. Or at least no new feelings. Find the right book, and you will feel seen. 

I had a wonderful time with Convenience Store Woman -- I don't yearn to work in a convenience store but I do spend a lot of time totally baffled by people around me (#notallpeople) and I love how she works out that okay, this is how you're supposed to do it, but also entertains murderous thoughts. But I had an even better time with Housekeeping -- I got fully lost in it, a world where honestly, why would you do the things you just can't see the point of doing? It all ends in the lake anyway. I'm now reading Ducks, Newburyport, which is a full thousand pages long and I've enormously enjoyed the 150 or so I've got through so far, so I think it's safe to say I'm back in the reading game. For now at least. 

I had a lovely lockdown birthday, with a Thai meal kit from Dishpatch, which was *amazing* (also vegan, don't tell anyone), and my beloved bought me a big glass vase, into which I put flowers that arrive every month. We've got a new season of Unforgotten, we're eating as well as two people in rural Lancashire can, and we've got the broad beans in. I've started listening to Radio 3, which has surprised no one more than me, though I do remember saying years ago that there was time for classical music in my old age. I said the same about Europe though, and look what happened there. 

But it all feels very... holding pattern. I've got my first vaccine dose booked, 21 million of my fellow citizens have already had theirs, we should be landing soon, yes? 

I don't know how it's going to feel when we do, this is my current worry. I am pretty misanthropic at the best of times (though wildly fond of many people, obvs), what will it be like when we can go places? I haven't been on a bus or a train for over a year now. I've been to Lancaster maybe three times, not counting the click and collect spot in the Sainsbury's car park. I literally can't imagine going to London. On the one hand I desperately want to, but on the other, I have squirreled away into my house and my tiny list of places I go, and ... it's actually fine? 

I do realise that I am absurdly lucky on the housing front (though more on Lockdown Ecoville soon, it's making me crazy), and on the work front, and on the relationship front, and on the regularly visiting cat front -- and I am very much in need of a haircut and in want of a swimming pool, but we don't actually *have* to go anywhere, you know? When I was a teenager I met a man in Lytham who'd never been further than Preston. He was probably in his 50s, he wasn't planning to change that situation. All those people who don't have passports, even now. Imagine never having left the country. Thinking this is it. 

But I have left the country, of course. I have a mind to travel in. Maybe that's the difference. I have excellent pyjamas and a big imagination, I can go anywhere. But we just booked a weekend at Center Parcs (postponed significant birthday celebration for one of M's children) in June, and it feels absolutely momentous. Center Parcs! I am not sure this year is going to be any less weird than last year, frankly. We need to be easy on ourselves. Although my god, that first pint of real ale is going to be good. 

joella