Charlie in Astley Park

Where could you even begin in trying to generalise about how the lockdown has affected us? Some people who I thought would go crazy in isolation seem to be adapting to it quite painlessly, whereas others are quite the reverse. Is it a different experience for men and for women? How has it been for families that haven't spent so much time together since the children were small? Can one reasonably talk about different experiences for different age groups?

Anecdotally, I can take a stab at that last question, not least from my conversations with Dan on our daily walks. He says that it is tiring just being the guy he is around the family all the time and not being able to be the person he is with his friends. I get that. (Sidebar: Mark Zuckerberg's idea that FaceBook would help us to be the same person with everyone we knew seemed to show a basic lack of understanding of the human condition and offered an odd insight into how he sees relationships.)

Both Abi and the miniMinx are around that age - fifteen/sixteen - where they are tremendously focused on their friends, so I think the lockdown has been particularly hard for them. I think it was a much bigger relief to them than anyone else I know to be told by Johnson on Sunday that they could start to meet up with friends, albeit socially distanced and one at a time. Abi met up with a friend on Wednesday, as soon as it was permitted. 

The miniMinx's friends are not in Kirkby Lonsdale, though, so it seems only fair for her and the Minx to return to Chorley, thus bringing to an end what has actually been a very lovely few weeks of living as a family, despite being locked down. 

Today, we took both cars so that I could help ferry down all their stuff. It also gave me a chance to meet up with Charlie in Astley Park. I last saw her just before her birthday, which is a few days before mine, so this was our first chance to exchange presents. There was no hugging, of course, but it was lovely to be with her for real and even though we chat most days we still found plenty to talk about. 

And it wasn't so bad saying goodbye knowing that we can do it again, unless things go really tilt. Mind you, God knows when we can all get together again properly.

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-9.8 kgs
Reading: 'Underland' by Robert Macfarlane