The five things we will always associate with lockdown, and may even miss

Ask us what lockdown was at the start of the year and we may have hazarded a guess at a daytime quiz show, or what you do when a submarine has a leak, writes Konnie Huq

Who knew that being appreciative could be such a brilliant family activity (AFP/Getty)

Spring has sprung and it’s kind of passed us by. We’re hurtling at a rate of knots towards summer already – what happened?

It’s been exactly three months now, a quarter of a year, since lockdown commenced. Ask us what lockdown was at the start of the year and we may have hazarded a guess at a daytime quiz show, or what you do when a submarine has a leak, or something that happens during a prison break. But this?

Staying at home 24/7, squashed on top of our families, wiping down groceries and washing our hands obsessively was not part of the equation. Will the divorce rate go up after this thing? Will we hate our children? Have we already screwed up their lives by shouting at them one too many times?

And what about after lockdown? Will we treat other people with suspicion forevermore? I can’t imagine willingly shaking hands with strangers or brushing past people on the street or (worse still) being squished against them on a rush-hour Tube. What if that evil microbe is lurking somewhere? Stay Alert! Boris Johnson told us so. Mr 19, the invisible microscopic virus, is waiting to pounce: be on the lookout for it. The reality is pavements aren’t wide enough to continually give people a wide berth. Hopefully we won’t become anti-social, aloof, introverted post-Brexit, post-Covid 19 folk.

Yet already the restrictions have eased. We are allowed to go out now as long as we “stay alert” and schools look set to go back in two weeks for Years 1, 2 and 6. So this could be the beginning of the end (famous last words). What better timing to try and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy by reminiscing about the top five things we’ll associate with lockdown?

Zoom calls

With no commutes to meetings or work and no travelling to meet up with friends, video calls have become the norm. Now we can go over the latest sales figures, or lack of them, only to be Zoom-bombed by a small screaming child or your area manager’s husband (or even Charles Saatchi) walking in the room naked!

That oddness of leaving the airwaves open while you go off to the loo has now become the norm to the extent that people can pore over your peeling wallpaper or your poor choice of books.

As for the quizzes and socials, you’re stuck on them till the bitter end – there’s no secret signalling to your other half that bed calls and it’s really time to leave. And what about having to work out how to hang up? Is it only me that fumbles about like a moron scrutinising the screen and prodding at it for a few minutes until I have to concede defiantly, slam the lap top shut and hope for the best?

Grocery shopping

This is like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale’s Gilead. Queueing outside the local Tesco Metro, it’s all too tempting to say, “Under his eye” knowingly to the security guard when they eventually beckon you in, or ask “Are apples in season right now?” to the shop attendant. Maybe it’s just me craving in-the-flesh exchanges with anyone other than my nuclear family.

As for online deliveries, we’ll all remember jabbing the refresh button as though playing a particularly tricky level of Candy Crush and the elation of finally winning the lottery, only to find that milk is now being substituted for double cream. “Oh well, I guess I could always crack open that Carnation can that’s been in the back of the cupboard since 1962.”

Clapping for Carers

My kids now look forward to Thursday evenings at 8pm. They race to the kitchen cupboards to find wooden spoons and saucepans, compete to bang the loudest, leap for joy if passing cars honk their horns. Who knew that being appreciative could be such a brilliant family activity! We use the full allotted five minutes, listening out until we can hear no more claps on the horizon, safe in the knowledge we are the last ones to go back in. Last week my son took out a loud-hailer, chanting “Thank you, NHS. Thank you, NHS” repeatedly in a charming yet mildly creepy 1984 Thought Police way.

Maybe it can continue?! Maybe instead of just clapping for them we can vote for a government that doesn’t take the p*** out of them?

Homeschooling

As well as NHS workers and carers being heroes, many parents have newfound respect for the nation’s teachers. Who knew what a nightmare it would be to get the kids to knuckle down to a bit of maths and English every day? Who else can’t seem to remember Year 3 fractions despite having an A in A-level maths? As for digraphs, trigraphs and graphemes, Year 1 phonics is like doing a PhD in weird terminology to me.

Boxset bingeing

I can’t remember when I last watched proper TV in real time. Oh, actually, yes I can, the daily briefing – another entry for our Covid-19 lexicon. The first briefing was a ratings winner, and as for the VE Day speech, that peaked at 20.1 million, unheard of in these days of Netflix and Disney+. Slowly though, bingeing on the briefing has petered off and I’ve now got to the point where I switch off to most news and current affairs, so thank goodness for Joe Exotic and the like that we can now unashamedly watch back-to-back episodes of Tiger King without the guilt.

Lockdown has brought about an absence of guilt when it comes to all manner of previously guilty pleasures, such as staying in with the kids of a weekend, not tidying the house – who’s coming over anyway? – and our new social lives of unadulterated screen viewing anything and everything for hours on end every night.

So that’s it, just a few of the things we’ll look back on nostalgically. That and actually agreeing with Piers Morgan and thinking, “He’s one of the good guys.” These are strange times we’re living in.