Now I realise this may not look much to you but, to me and other locked down Londoners, this is like coming upon the first snowdrops of Spring. Lavatory paper has been absent from the shops and on-line grocery sites since the frantic panic -buying that preceded this lockdown. Our attempts at using less have not fared well and we didn’t stock up, so I confess to having been worried when my on- line searches yielded only “Parchment Baking Paper”, for which I don’t have much call. I did get as far as wondering what using that might be like and remembered the horrible, shiny stuff we had to use in the 50s because there was no other – Was it called Izal? It came in flat packets dispensing minute squares, looked and felt like greaseproof and was the butt of jokes about children tracing through it and using it to play comb and paper. I remember it felt unkind and slippery and didn’t do the job. As absorption was out of the question, all it did was spread matter about. Anyway,” A Big Welcome Back” ,as they say, to “Luxury Soft’, though I think I could do without the coconut oil.
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I’m astonished at how this lockdown is teaching me things about my husband I didn’t know, after so many years of marriage. Today I came upon him peering into his sock drawer (See below) holding a pair of socks in each hand, and apparently frozen in helpless indecision.
Me: What’s the matter?”
Him: ” I don’t know which socks to put on”
Me: “Does it matter?”
Him: “Of course”
Me: “Why?”
Him: “Because I have ‘writing’ socks and ‘non-writing’ socks”
Me: “Good Heavens! So what’s the problem, you’re going to be writing today aren’t you?”
Him: “Yes, but the writing socks aren’t as nice as the non-writing socks. I save the non-writing ones for going out in and, since we’re not likely to be going out any time soon, I’m wondering whether to stop saving the nice ones and wear them to write in.”
At this point, I decide I’m incapable of making any useful contribution to the conversation and leave him to it.
I notice later he’s wearing socks that say “Tuesday” on them but, since today’s Thursday, I have no idea what message he might be trying to convey about his day’s activities. I also have to admit I can’t distinguish whether these are the going out socks or the staying in ones but I do notice he’s writing – so I draw my own conclusions.
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A Propôs ‘Lockdown Chic’. I receive an email this morning telling me I definitely need “a capsule wardrobe, at this difficult time”. I refrain from writing back to reassure them I already have a capsule wardrobe – two rather worn track suits, washed on alternate days and disinfected around the zips. Apparently zips harbour viruses….
Locked down in London 