I think the sound of disinfectant spraying across multiple surfaces will leave rent-free in my brain for the next ten days. We may be more than a year into the pandemic, but our obsessive scrubbing, sanitising and obsessive disinfecting feels like a return to the first day Boris made the dreaded briefing.
It’s Saturday 12th June, it’s 26 degrees and we are trying to keep spirits high. Georgia seems to be getting progressively more ill with migraines, shivers and the exhaustion; Finlay and I feel continue to feel helpless and fear that no matter how much we scrub, we are at risk of catching Covid-19 too. We’ve each done our rapid tests – and to our relief, the two of us are negative for the time being. But will it last?
With all the uncertainty, we decide there’s only one way we’re going to get through the next week and a bit: with an excessive amount of food (and drinks). Queue the £100 food shop (white Magnums are essential, right?), a Deliveroo order later and a lot of tongue-biting when someone re-wipes the area you’ve just cleaned.
On the Friday evening and in a bid to lighten the mood, we decided to get a takeaway from the restaurant we were supposed to be dining at that night. We showered (I even put makeup on), we hit play on the Italian playlist and we settled into the evening sun streaming onto the balcony. Three fried Arancini balls, two stone-baked pizzas and two humungous puds later, our bloated bellies could be fooled into thinking we’d dined at Gloria Trattoria itself. We felt pretty damn grateful all things considered.
Lockdown diet. 
A little snickety snack after our mains. 
Business on top, comfort down below for Finlay’s outfit…
Saturday soon comes around, and I get a text from my friend Annie to say she’s dropping off a goodie bag along with her boyfriend Sam. We wave from our balcony and attempt to hear their questions over the sound of my neighbour’s jet washer. Soap, alcohol and Monopoly (along with other essentials) land contact-free on our doorstep – they truly are good friends.
We realise there are many ironic factors at play within our situation. Firstly, Georgia was due to get her vaccine just 24 hours after she went down. Secondly, my boyfriend and I had agreed we weren’t ready to live together yet (although here we are in the same cramped flat for a sustained period). Lastly, I’d half-jokingly said just days before to my flatmate ‘imagine if one of us gets Covid-19’.
Although a little miffed we were missing out on potentially England’s hottest weekend of the year, we of course agreed how lucky we were to have even a slither of outside space. I can’t imagine how tough this must have been on other families. By Saturday night, we were even getting into a slight groove of people watching, rating dogs being walked on the street below and seeing what positions we could contort our bodies into before the last of the morning sun disappears from our outdoor patch (adios sol at 12:05pm).
In a kind of dystopian waiting game of seeing if we’ll fall into Covid’s mocking arms, we decide to make a list of things we are certain of:
- Tomorrow, on Sunday, it is going to be one of the hottest days of the year (roll on 28 degrees)
- England will be playing Croatia tomorrow and the surrounding balconies will be brimming with boozy Brits, sunburnt bodies and boastful chants
- We are going to come out of this a little plumper all around, unless we start doing laps of the flat
- We’re going to need more wipes, asap.
End of day two:
- Fallouts: 0
- Takeaways: 1 (although Friday was day one technically)
- Positive cases in the flat: 1 (hopefully).
Stay tuned to see how our lockdown life progresses as the days roll closer to Monday 21st (a.k.a. freedom central).
Spill the Tea 