Released On 31 January 2021
Dolly's blog: I must go down to the seas again
It’s day 9865 in the lockdown household. Positivity is dwindling. Food is running low. The Wi-Fi has forsaken us. All is lost. Thirty years and several kilograms since the last time, I once again own a tracksuit.
Friends seen since last March: 2
Unread emails from schools: many
Millenia stuck in online meetings: unquantifiable
“Why do you have so many meetings?” enquired our middle child. “What are they for? Are they more of a social thing?” I had no answers, having been Zoomed into a coma.
In other child-related developments, the oldest is still scarred by having unmuted during a lesson just as Mr D lost it with the Wi-Fi and stormed across the room shouting “Jesus f**k!”. Not quite the supportive home learning environment I gather we’re supposed to be curating. Anyone real actually managing that?
Our youngest has reverted to wearing what he refers to as his Everything Suit. Invented in the first lockdown, it consists of an outfit which he wears both day and night for multiple days before his parents notice. We definitely went beyond the one week mark. Finished off with a flamboyant dressing gown acquired from an unknown source, he looks like a cross between a chinchilla and Liberace.
Meanwhile has anyone else noticed how good the music is in Tesco? That’s the sum total of my social life. I have lost all social skills. On the last occasion I actually saw a friend in person, I called her children by the wrong names and misgendered her dog. Sorry my friend.
Wilberforce our lockdown puppy is eating what’s left of our food, a full tub of Lurpak having met its match earlier with just a smudge left on his nose. Acquired at unmentionable expense before Christmas, Wilberforce also developed a taste for expensive cheese over the festive period (the house is littered with empty Cathedral Cheddar packs but he prefers Fortnum & Mason) and he regularly upends the kitchen bin with revolting consequences. He also therefore answers to the name Trash Panda (we once found him inside the dishwasher, looking back at us defiantly having licked every plate “clean”) and Flokati (on account of his resemblance to a shaggy rug and being wanted internationally for crimes against carpets). Yesterday he destroyed a small child’s snowman. He is the devil in a fur suit and yours for £10k.
Landlocked and surrounded by fields, I dream of the sea, London and escape.
After 19 years of fee earning, Dolly now works in a management role in a London law firm. Working four days a week she is supported by a wonderful (though often absent) husband as they attempt to bring up three children aged 14, 13 and 10. She’s still mourning the charismatic dog who kept her sane and still can’t talk about that – but the lockdown puppy is helping.
No Comments