Six things no one tells you before you start a 'holiday quarantine'
I can't deny I feel just a little Covid-smug right now. As Croatia becomes the latest nation to become party to the UK Government’s surreal, global quarantine version of ''Bob's Full House' (unlucky for some – South Sudan'), I’m experiencing a priggish sensation that is punctuating my genuine concern for the hordes of holidaymakers currently dashing to airports and ferry terminals across the Balkans.
Because that was so nearly me. This summer I've managed to get to France twice. Once for a short work trip to Nice which, apart from my hotel only having pink face masks, went remarkably smoothly. My second was to a friend’s summer house in Arras, Normandy. Insert your own middle-class box ticking insult right here.
Fortunately, I booked my tickets home in advance, getting the ferry from Calais on Saturday morning. So while there was no hiding from the ‘welcome home’ quarantine fortnight which I’m currently half way through, at least I got home. No scrambling among the masses for a berth at the port for me. (See, told you I was smug.)
If you’re about to embark upon 14 nights of Government sanctioned post-holiday shielding, then I have news for you. It’s better, yet also somehow worse, than those far-off early days of lockdown.
1. You become Joseph K in The Trial
Kafka's hero was imprisoned indefinitely for a crime that was never disclosed to him. The sensation I'm having right now, of counting down the days until supposed freedom, feels similarly futile.
Knowing, as we do, the vicissitudes of government policy, time has taken on an elastic quality. Will there be a local lockdown in my area starting tomorrow; or maybe an entirely new kind of lockdown that I hadn't foreseen but nonetheless requires me to stay put for another... oh who knows how long? Should I order more milk from Asda now, or wait until my supposed freedom this weekend?
I'm sure Joseph K had similar thoughts on his mind.
2. You must banish all conceited thoughts of noble suffering
I’ve caught myself having thoughts of martyrdom this week, as if plonking myself in front of Bargain Hunt for a fortnight with a family bag of Quavers makes me akin to a freezing conscript, shivering in a fox hole in North Korea. Luckily, a solution is at hand for such hubris. I’ve been finding that reading a few pages of concentration camp literature each day (particularly Slaughterhouse 5 and Koba The Dread) does the trick nicely in terms of easy removal of head from derriere on this matter.
3. FOMO no longer exists
Expect yourself to become increasingly satisfied with the growing knowledge that you’re definitely not going to be missing out on theatre premieres, restaurant tasting menus and Bacchanalian party nights at friends' houses over the next two weeks. Since I started quarantining I've so far missed out on nothing except a group picnic in Kennington Park where three people got sunstroke and one person got stung by a wasp. I'm dealing with it through a veil of tears.
4. There are some household tasks so boring that you still won't get them done
I entirely ran out of excuses during spring lockdown as to why I hadn’t engaged in the joys of shed building, kitchen cupboard fixing, and bathroom shower curtain replacing. These two weeks of isolation are merely the post-script to my lassitude.
A true joy of the new normal is that no longer will you guilt yourself about this being the best opportunity you will ever have to alphabetize your bookcase and mend that dodgy bed spring. My own Protestant work ethic cannot compete with my lockdown ennui. I must now accept that, just as the Elgin Marbles will never be joined together again, the presence of both myself and a DIY completed house will never occupy the same space.
5. You will be thankful for all those times you’ve been less than gregarious to your neighbours
I don’t intend to break my quarantine but I also know that, if I chose to, the other residents of my building won’t be tempted to shop me in to the authorities. Why? Because I don’t know any of them well enough to have bored them with my holiday plans. As far as they’re concerned, I went to Forfar, not France for my hols. (If you find yourself scared of breaking quarantine because people on your street know you’ve been abroad, then consider it your punishment for all those posts you wrote on the neighbourhood What’s App group, detailing the thread count of the mattress in your villa and the sheer cheapness of olive oil in the local market.)
6. Nothing much changes
Ultimately, was my Normandy mini-break worth it? Frankly, no. The sepia tinted memories of the Arras flea market and northern French vin de table don't sustain for long. But yet I can’t help but feel my robustness at enduring haphazard, spontaneous, oft-irrationally imposed limitations is improving in this, my second helping of lockdown.
In fact, it is almost reassuring to find that, after time on the Continent, the same old British Covid-realities are still with us. Boris Johnson doesn’t seem any slimmer, Ocado still won’t deliver to my house before Halloween, and Bargain Hunt remains irredeemably bad television.
It’s good to be back.
