At the beginning of Covid-19 I was like the Headmistress of How To Do Things. Way before social distancing had become a thing, I sat miles away from anyone. I was a pain in the ass, I yelled at my friends who didn’t yet get social distancing, sorry I shouldn’t have done that, and to be honest, I haven’t relaxed much at all.

I hate going to the shops with a passion and in a way, I am dreading going out ever again. I mean, I know I will and it will be fine and I’ll get used to it in three and a half minutes flat, but I am at this point, cocooned and okay at home.

When I do go out, and I am stretching it for as long as possible, I do Woolies for my son and The Leopard for me.  I wear a mask, I blast hand sanitiser over everything, my hands feel raw, and the only thing I keep forgetting to buy from the store is moisturiser. If I am learning anything over this time, it is that moisturiser is a lot more important than loo paper and it is the one thing we should have stocked up on.

My son calls me a hypocrite for buying three moisturisers yesterday, I apologise, but fear for a dry body really did take over.

I sit on the one side of the house where I have a garden. Very occasionally, I move to the other side, the side that faces the road. I avoid it there because my dogs escape and then I have to break lockdown to run after them and it is TERRIBLE and the whole neighbourhood yells at me, the Headmistress, for allowing them to get out.

“They are escape artists,” I yell back, from a distance, thinking fuck you which is exactly what my friends first thought of me.

But this is what I have learned from those few minutes of sitting out on that side.

There are still a lot of homeless on the street. I can be there for twenty-seconds before somebody comes asking for food. It’s heartbreaking. Yesterday, a man came and I thought oh gosh what can I give him and I came inside to get food and in that instance my dogs escaped and also when I came back with food the man said, “No thank you, I don’t need food, but I would like soap.”

I got him soap. And hand sanitiser and moisturiser. We exchanged it all from a distance.

My dogs escaped. They were so delighted to be out they didn’t bark at anyone. Nobody yelled at me either.  The dogs visited the neighbours and came back when they were ready. It worked for them and it worked for me.  It also worked for the man who needed soap.

I’m going to sit on that side more often now.  And do what I can, when I can. I have some fruit, I have tins of food and I have cakes of soap.

I’m just not parting with any more moisturiser.