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Six signs you're a middle-class Super Saturday cliché

Pubs are set to reopen on Super Saturday... but will you be first there? -  DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/ AFP
Pubs are set to reopen on Super Saturday... but will you be first there? - DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/ AFP

By now, you’ve probably heard that life is edging back to normal. Pubs, hairdressers and museums are opening, and that means swathes of the UK gearing up for their first outings since lockdown began. The middle classes, who up to this point have mostly hibernated their way through lockdown, now find themselves booking staycations and organising socially distanced dinner parties with an unprecedented urgency.

No matter how much you may try to resist being bracketed into this homogenous mass, clichés exist for a reason; they are incredibly common and tend to be true. From decorating the garden to exiting the city, here's all the ways you might be a Super Saturday clone:

1. You’ve booked a hair appointment

You were first in the (virtual) queue, heart racing and headphones plugged in for maximum focus. You may have even signed up for priority access. Twelve weeks of email alerts led to this moment. Yet just as your salon was about to open their booking system, you experienced a Deborah Haynes situation - that is, your child, pet or partner entered the room at an important moment, and demanded your immediate attention.

After tending to said domestic dilemma, you managed to wangle an 8pm appointment (the only one left) and are forced to cancel your first pub trip for that evening as a result. You spend the rest of the weekend brushing up on small talk and preparing self-deprecating comments about the state of your lockdown tresses.

2. You’ve organised a dinner party - and now regret it

Two households may be both alike in dignity, but what about in antibodies? That was the question on your corona-cautious partner’s lips after you revealed that you will both be hosting a dinner party with one other family to celebrate your new found independence. The government guidelines state that two households can meet up indoors from this Saturday - but the reality of organising a socially-distanced soirée isn’t quite so simple.

From the choice of wine to disputes over the choice of household (“Why did you choose the Parkers over the Rowlands?...), you find yourself so exhausted from planning the event that on the night you can barely muster the energy for dauphinoise. Staying in with a Deliveroo was so much simpler.

3. You’re debating a trip to your second home

You tutted at the pictures of Gordon Ramsay brashly strolling around the streets of Cornwall and marveled at the audacity of the Beckham clan retreating to their Cotswolds ‘bolthole’. But with caravan parks, hostels and campsites all set to open as part of Super Saturday, then surely a quick pootle down the M5 to your coastal retreat won’t hurt? You’re going to have to commute under the cover of night to avoid a hostile welcome from the locals, but it’s a small price to pay to finally feel the sea breeze.

4. You've booked your pub visit

It's David's birthday, and Sandra's half birthday and Harry's belated graduation celebration - and so, the excuses for being the first people in the pub on Saturday continue. But really, the only reason you want to sit in the pub is to get tipsy off something that isn't one of your partner's home-brewed 'quarantinis.'

5. You’re styling your garden

Forget sanitiser and toilet roll; the hot tub has been one of the most sought after items of lockdown. In June, sales of bubbling outdoor baths were up by 490 per cent on eBay. Those in this cliché bracket may also be shunning the newly re-opened cinemas. Why? Because you’ve built one in your garden, of course. If you’re very up to speed, you may have a pizza oven ready for the occasion, too. With socially-distanced gatherings now allowed in gardens across the UK, and the 1 metre rule relaxed, there’s no reason why your garden shouldn't look like something straight out of Glastonbury.

6. You’re complaining about the day

No, those of you who have resolutely booked nothing for the day are also not immune to being a cliché. In fact, you social Scrooge’s are much more common than you may realise. “I just don't feel ready to go back to how life used to be. It's too soon," you mutter resentfully. You have a Whatsapp group with all your fellow 'corona-phobes' where you share the latest figures about the increasing R-rate, and can frequently be found sharing statistics about Leicester. Very loudly.