Could I repay him? Perhaps when I make my amends in Step 9?

Charlotte Cripps is grateful for the kindness of her dad’s neighbours in lockdown. It reminds her of a letter she received from her caring landlord while in rehab – until she read the last line

(Amara May)

My 87-year-old dad keeps calling me up, asking me to buy him face masks so he can go back to his office. He’s like a horse waiting to bolt out of a stable. I keep telling him that even though lockdown has eased, he has to be careful. “But I have no underlying health conditions,” he screams at me. “I’m as fit as a fiddle.”

He’s obviously going a bit stir crazy after so many weeks inside – who wouldn’t? Only yesterday when I left an open packet of croissants on his garden table by mistake, he thought the next door neighbours’ children had come through the broken fence in the middle of the night to have a picnic. He riled my sister Rebecca about it so much that when she dropped some provisions on his doorstep the next day, he got her to march over to confront them about it and why they hadn’t mended the fence.

“We have no idea about the croissants,” said the neighbour gently. “And we are not responsible for the fence – it is on your dad’s side to fix.” Then they asked my sister to send my dad their very best wishes.

Some people are just plain nice. I remember my aristocratic landlord forgave me for selling his TV and washing machine when I was living in his mews house off Westbourne Grove after a mad night when our money ran out. He even wrote me a letter when I was in rehab saying how much he admired me and that he knew only too well how hard addiction was to get kick as his brother had died of alcoholism. But when I got to the end of the letter, I nearly fainted.

He mentioned that the damage to the house was in the region of £5,000. But he was happy to wait for repayment – “perhaps when I did my Step 9”. “Oh my god,” I screamed as my therapist came to fetch me for a session on co-dependency. “How much worse can this get?”

He won’t talk to me Char, he’s moved into the music studio in the garden. I knew he didn’t have coronavirus! It was just a sniffly nose. I’m taking meals to the door and he’s been barricaded in there for days! I could kill him

Rehab makes lockdown feel like a walk in the park. But when my dad called while he was jogging around the garden to ask me about the croissant, I went into blind panic thinking his breathlessness was a symptom of Covid-19. It made me realise how on edge we all are at the moment. My dad and I had a blow-up about some Yorkshire puddings from the freezer he was planning on eating that were dated 1999 – the year my mum died.

Then I accidentally drank a whole load of blackcurrant ginger beer when I was pouring my dad a glass in the garden – that turned out to be alcoholic. Well, that’s a first – I haven’t had a drink in over 21 years. I texted my sister who texted back: “ Oh dear are you OK? Do you need help?” What is she thinking – rehab?

Worst of all are my friends who keep calling me up with all their relationship problems. I might as well be an agony aunt. “He won’t talk to me Char, he’s moved out into the music studio in the garden,” said one of them with a drained and frightened voice. “I knew he didn’t have coronavirus! It was just a sniffly nose. I’m taking meals to the door and he’s barricaded in there for days! I could kill him.”

“She wants to take that Wizz Air to Germany – I’m relieved actually that it’s over,” said another. “But you two have just had a baby!” I said, flabbergasted.

I keep telling them the same thing: “It’s intense.” But deep down, I wish they could stop going on about their partners. I don’t have one. I’m stuck in doors with the kids, the dog and Rosealee.

It’s not that I miss the arguments with Alex. They were a nightmare; he was the silent brooding type. I was overly keen to communicate with him, but he would be halfway down the road, on his way home. I’m sure if Alex walked in today back from the dead, we would have a huge row about me having had a second child, but that’s all part of a relationship.

It’s that old chestnut – you don’t realise what you have until you’ve lost it. These online 12-step recovery meetings keep reminding me that gratitude is a powerful weapon against self-pity. In recovery we are meant to write a list of things we are grateful for every night. I give it a go.

Earplugs? So I don’t hear the kids crying in the night? An overdraft? Envelopes – so I don’t have to see another bill inside it? Oh yes and a roof over my head with a whopping great mortgage. Trousers so I don’t have to worry about hairy legs?

Later that evening a fellow recovering addict reads the “Just For Today” (Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts) on a zoom meeting. But when she got to the bit that said we are “weeping tears of gratitude and joy” because we are not drinking anymore – it was all a bit OTT. OK, I’m eternally thankful I’m not on “the merry-go-round named denial” as it is called, but whoever wrote that is obviously not in lockdown.