ISOLATION DIARIES PART 71: RETURN OF THE LOCKDOWN

 I see the new year hasn't stopped the Phisher Folk. I just had an email to tell me that my "Apple is locked."

So. I went to check the fruit basket, and happily all my apples remain accessible, not to mention my fully authenticated satsumas, unencrypted bananas, and my last password-protected pear, which no-one else has any use for.

Meanwhile in the UK, we're in Lockdown 3.0 as expected. After going on TV and saying the schools are safe, the Prime Minister then changed his mind, followed the Scots, and did the right thing by putting us all back at home. It's scheduled to last for six weeks, but I don't think anyone's holding their breath for mid-February.

This feels so different to the first time. It's winter for one thing, so our daily permitted exercise is a freezing excursion. Also, the virus is more transmissible now so the danger is higher than it was in the spring, plus it seems we're all a lot less stringent, probably due to the utter tedium of it all and desperation for this poxy thing to all be over.

But we can't force a way back to a free world by pretending it's not happening.

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"Short of taking his car keys off him, there's not much more I can do," sighed a lady on the radio this morning. Her son had packed his things and was determined to head back to university to 'see his mates'. I crackled with fury.

But honestly, that young man was probably thinking with a different head on his shoulders to me. For one thing, these students pay through the nose for their accommodation and tuition - their contracts are probably not reversible, and they're currently paying for rooms and resources they're simply not allowed to use. To a young person who's pretty sure that they won't be affected by the virus, that they won't pass it on to people who could be... to someone whose life and identity are definitely not enhanced by living out of their childhood bedroom... the equation is probably quite a simple one. I might crackle with fury about it, but who knows- maybe I would have done exactly the same thing aged 19?

This situation has really wedged open some of the tensions in the way we all see the world, hasn't it? Cracks have opened up that we didn't even know were there. It kind of makes you wonder what other cracks there are between us that have yet to be seen.

Anyway, that's all very negative. I'm trying to be much more positive this year, so I'll not keep going on about how depressing a third national lockdown looks as we embark upon it. There is another difference - this time we have vaccines, and every day more and more people are shielding behind them. That's a good start.

What's more, those of us who have a faith have the access to prayer, and so far I've been believing that the virus will not come near my tent. Perhaps that's an interesting prayer, one that lodges me in the tricky gap that's opened up between faith and wisdom. I think life can be lived in the tension. That's why I'm still washing my hands. But I'm also on my knees.