Day 8
Day off today – circumstances have aligned in my favour such that – at least for this week – a return to my normal Tuesday-off schedule has been possible.
Lying in bed, I resolved to have a shower and shave. On getting up, I decided to skip that and go straight to breakfast.
Nicola calls, on the downhill section of a power-walk. We chat about various things including High School Musical, the misogyny in my early blog entries (she has resolved to start at its beginning, in 2006, and read a year’s worth of entries per day. Please pray for her), Zac Efron and the Backstreet Boys. It may be apparent who was driving the conversational content in this chat.
I think about having a shower, but am determined to experience Morrison’s in the morning, rather than at my usual about-to-cook-dinner-and-realise-I-have-nothing-to-cook slot. So I head there in my jogging bottoms and the t-shirt I slept in, accompanied by a cloud of undefined overnight fragrance.
It proves straightforward to maintain the 2m social-distancing bubble today.
Morrison’s at 11am is a revelation. The shelves full of things, mostly. Chicken is still a little thin on the ground. Are the NHS workers and the elderly scooping up all the chicken early doors? It feels churlish to call them out on this, but I may have just done that.
The Morrison’s DJ, confirming his status as the Best UK Supermarket DJ, throws on some ABBA. I try to listen for the chorus effect masking the overdubbing phase discrepancies, but it makes my head hurt and so I sashay out the doors into a mostly-deserted car park and the spring sunshine.
Back home I make coffee, and sit on the back steps, enjoying the view of a partially-cleared “garden area” complete with half a door lying flat on the ground.
Throughout the morning, the argument for taking a shower has become gradually more compelling. I finally cave in just before lunch.
Lunch includes boiled eggs again – which are excellent again, although I cracked one just trying to get it out of the carton, thus maintaining my average eat-2-use-3 egg consumption. Folks, if there’s a national shortage of eggs anytime soon, you know where to point the finger.
Today I should have had a haircut. Whether I pluck up the courage to don the full black-gospel-choir gown and shave my head today remains to be seen. But it’s been four weeks, and four weeks is a long time in the world of my hair. The time is coming.