Wednesday, 20 May 2020

An Unusual Place to Call Home.

I’m in a better mood today. Do you want to know why? OK, I’ll tell you why.

Eight weeks ago, or thereabouts, I acceded to a request from certain personages of the clucking hen variety to self-isolate. The rationale for such a request hardly matters, but the fact remains that I agreed to go into quarantine for their sake.

And so for the past eight weeks I have kept myself well apart from my fellow humans. I didn’t mind that bit because I’m not all that keen on most of my fellow humans anyway. What bothered me was having to have somebody else do my shopping. I had to prepare a list every Friday for the weekly shop on Saturday, and the pressure of doing so became heavier and heavier. Why? Well, for several reasons, but mostly because I greatly dislike having to rely on other people to do things for me, and also because I was most uneasy at seeing other people taking risks on my behalf. That’s the bit that really bothered me.

Things came to a head last weekend and I decided that I was going to start doing my own shopping again. I made the announcement and got moaned at, but I held firm because enough was enough and my decision was made. And today I went to Sainsbury’s.

I would never have thought that going to Sainsbury’s could be such a thrill. I mean, it isn’t exactly the Taj Mahal or the temple complex at Angkor Wat, is it? It’s a supermarket, a supermarket I’ve been using every week since I moved to this part of Derbyshire eighteen years ago. But a thrill it was after eight weeks of isolation. I drove there, I parked up there, I used the recycling facility, I walked among the people there, many of whom have worked in that store since before I even started shopping in it. I felt free at last, and dear old Sainsbury’s felt almost like coming home.

That’s why I’m in a better mood today.

And I suppose I should add that if I do contract Covid-19 and die from it, I hope I can rely on the readers of this blog to fill the comment section with a healthy array of LOLs.

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