Rain today. For most of the day, actually - the kind of day when even if it's not raining, the air is damp enough for it not to matter.
I went shopping, and for the first time during the lockdown, I felt a bit uncomfortable with it. There was no queue today. It looked as though the supermarket might just be letting everybody in. Also gone was the friendly car park attendant wiping down trolleys with disinfectant. I grabbed a trolley without thinking, just as I would have done in the year 1PC. I didn't realise until I was inside.
The store was definitely busier than last week. It was much more stressful to navigate around the aisles and corners with a 2m gap between us all. And I don't think I was the only one struggling with it; I saw quite a few worried eyes bulging over the top of face-masks as customers wheeled past the sauces and condiments.
I was quick anyway. And I tried hard not to touch anything other than the things that went into my trolley plus the trolley itself. Although thanks to not having seen it being wiped down, the rattling cage of infection felt like a sort of virus-cart the whole way round, into which I was inserting a number of things I'd eventually be unwrapping and putting into my mouth.
I wasn't going to think like that though. It was a necessity; I was there for food, and so that was my aim. I kept reminding myself of that. I can only hope in good faith that there were no undeserved curses lurking in the shop today. Certainly the shop didn't seem to think it likely.
I don't want to keep going on about it but it worries me a bit that we're all getting so loose. There's no vaccine for this, and all the graphs are still up-and-to-the-right. The mood in the nation seems to be one of relentless optimism that if we push on and get closer to back to normal, everyone will do it, and eventually we'll all be alright. Surely that, or even getting it (people must be secretly thinking) has to be better than these incessant, mind-numbingly awful days indoors?
Well I disagree. Thankfully though, I don't have to go shopping again for ten days - a time period during which I don't intend to touch anything at all that's currently not inside my house, other than tree branches, grass, a field of buttercups, and any post that gets pushed through my letterbox.
And while it's difficult, there is something good about being positive. On rainy, gloomy days like today, I guess it's nice to remember that brighter days are ahead, just as the Queen said several weeks ago. I'll happily wait for that, however long it takes.
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