Isolationdiaries.net

Drum roll please.

You’d have thought that MacNamara’s Band was at the door if you’d seen the glee with which one pensioner and one still actively resisting it with every fibre of her body, greeted last night’s development. – We got a delivery slot from Tesco! 

Admittedly, it’s in three weeks’ time but we can choose up to eighty items which lovely people will pick, pack and deliver for us. We are online shopping virgins so this feels like Christmas - especially since we’ll be facing our seventh week in self-isolation by then (Bob’s underlying health issues). Nobody has THAT much in their stores.

Anyway, here’s the thing.

It was like the Queen’s Jubilee all over again.

Do you remember the big free concert at the palace with Stevie Wonder, Cheryl whatever she was called at the time, Paul McCartney, Elton etc, etc? Anybody could apply for tickets to a picnic on Buckingham Palace lawns, then onto the concert, complete with “Royal” popcorn and champagne with a “Royal” straw.

Well, we both applied and Bob got 2 tickets and I didn’t.  

NOT taking me would have been a chucking offence so luckily he did and it was all rather wonderful. We sat three rows ahead of David Cameron, Wills, Harry and Charlie. I bumped into David Walliams (literally) in the queue for “Royal” chips and the whole experience was marred only by Bob having toothache, for which he got scant sympathy.

There were also two rather large Northern ladies in the seats in front of us who insisted on standing up through every act (most of us stayed demurely sat) and when politely asked to desist just looked bemused and said “But it’s a party.”

I wouldn’t have minded so much but the static electricity generated by their derrieres undulating in floral polyester left my hair looking like I’d been attached to a van der graaf machine.

But I digress.

It was like the Jubilee all over again as we were both poised on devices yesterday, on hold for the umpteenth time over the last two weeks, waiting for a delivery slot to come free – and Bob got one and I didn’t. Again.

What does this matter, I hear you say, as you are both isolated in the same house? 

Bob had control of the ipad.

You need to understand that Bob and I are both very bossy people, each used to getting our own way, so I’m sitting there, having lost all cool and sense of propriety, wanting nothing so much as to snatch the live ipad from his grasp and monopolise it like Gollum until the list was complete.

We have diametrically opposed grocery priorities you see and I had to sit there, answering questions like “How do you spell scampi?” and “Do you think Aunt Bessie’s oven chips are better than McCain’s?” when I was inwardly screaming “Knorr stock cubes” and “Yakult”.

As anyone in a good, long term relationship knows, being with another person is good for the soul in so many ways.

Not least for developing patience.

PS Can I give a shoutout to our lovely friend Lisa McG who arrived outside the door yesterday with wine, chocolate, jelly beans and daffodils. It was a wonderful surprise.

Thank you to all friends and family, and everyone who is feeding souls as well as bellies.