I’ve created a post-lockdown bucket list – but are my ambitions too limited?

Where some are booking grand foreign holidays, Will Gore has his mind on simpler pleasures

A quiet pint in a pub... bliss (Getty/Stockphoto)

It is a faint irony that the easing of coronavirus restrictions is always discussed with reference to roadmaps – while simultaneously we’re reminded that staying at home remains the best option. It’s certainly enough of a paradox to interest Alanis Morissette, once she’s picked the fly out of her chardonnay.

Still, last week’s signalling of a staged exit from lockdown came as a relief. If you listened hard enough, you’d have heard the sound of cheering from homes currently in use as classrooms. By summer, legal restrictions might be at an end. (“Might” being the operative word perhaps, but let’s allow optimism to reign just for a moment or two.)

People are already making grand plans on the back of Johnson’s announcement. Bookings for foreign trips jumped by 500 per cent in the 24 hours after our tousled prime minister spoke to the nation, according to Britain’s biggest holiday firm, Tui. Indeed, it’s clear from conversations I’ve had in the last few days that, for some folk at least, foreign sun is the number one aim for post-lockdown life.

Others have declared themselves in desperate need of attending whatever major music festival might be going ahead. For some, live sport is the priority.

On Thursday, I happened to bump into a friend at a local park where we had each taken our children to kick footballs. We talked of our hopes for the coming months and he mentioned that he was keen to spend a few days in Snowdonia, to complete the 100km mountain race he had been due to compete in last year, until the pandemic intervened.

All of this ambition – whether to bask in overseas climes or undertake athletic feats of endurance – rather put my post-lockdown objectives in the shade.

It’s true that I wouldn’t mind a holiday, but it isn’t top of the list – and frankly, I’m not going to go abroad until it feels completely safe to share an aeroplane with a hundred other people. A trip to a cricket match would be pleasant. But I won’t be crying into my cornflakes if it doesn’t happen this year.

Really, there are three things I am longing to do. The first is to visit my parents – hopefully to give them a hug, but mainly to see their joy at having their grandchildren race around their garden for the first time since October.

Number two is to eat out at a restaurant with my wife, which is something we haven’t done for a year. It needn’t be fancy; but I’d like it not to be a drive-thru.

What I have missed the most over the last 12 months? The ability to live life without the constant background worry; without a sense of always having to think twice

The last item on my bucket list may seem a little selfish. But I wouldn’t half like to go to a quiet pub on my own for a couple of pints of beer and a packet of crisps. I might have a book with me, or perhaps I’ll be following a cricket match on my phone. The pub will be somewhere local; it won’t be too full; I’ll pass the time of day with the bar staff and fellow customers, but otherwise will have no need to think of conversation.

And above all, I want to be there without feeling tense. Just as I want the meal out with my wife to feel relaxed, and just as I want to see my parents without anxiety.

For really that’s what I have missed the most over the last 12 months – the ability to live life without the constant background worry; without a sense of always having to think twice, to remember masks, hand wash and distancing, to consider the consequences of every action, however seemingly insignificant.

Maybe these fairly mundane desires reflect the general lack of ambition that has run through my life. But I suspect many other people have similarly prosaic activities in mind for the post-lockdown period. Simple pleasures become momentous when they have been absent for so long.

Likewise, I imagine I am not alone in wanting to feel calm in public places, which is why the prospect of attending major sporting events, or gigs – as well as the prospect of travelling in crowded trains to get to them – is likely to remain unappealing for a while to come.

As it happens, I do have a ticket for a concert in October; a gig rearranged after being postponed last year. There may be no irony in the fact that it’s to see Alanis Morissette. But whereas she was forever going on about having just one hand in her pocket, I’ll be doing my best to keep both of mine (and my face) well-covered.