Quarantine over; Lockdown continues

Quarantine. Is. Over.

It's so innocuous and straightforward on paper, on the government issued booklet that finally came through our letterbox on Monday. The person who develops symptoms self-isolates for seven days or until the symptom disappear / they're no longer contagious; the rest of their household is in quarantine for 14 days to be sure they won't develop symptoms. The reality for myself—I'm sure, for many other families out there—is that it's the children who develop the symptoms, and the parents, the drivers and workers of the household, who can't go out for two weeks.

This was an entirely self-enforced exercise and that was what made it so hard. There were so many times when it seemed so pedantic to ask somebody else to get me some milk, or to tell the kids that we had to play in the back garden and not in the shared access courtyard or the old school grounds.  It felt like creating unnecessary work for others. After all, I knew it wasn't Covid-19 the kids had had.

Except I don't know. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but it's entirely possible that the kids had a light touch of the coronavirus and I either didn't catch it or was asymptomatic. If I'd made a judgment call to just run out to the shop myself one day, it probably wouldn't have done any harm, but there are thousands of people across the UK making those judgment calls every day. Some of those people are wrong... It's better not to take the risk.

Mentally, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. True, I'm having a bit of trouble sleeping, and my brain isn't really thinking in straight lines. Twice in the past few weeks, I've rubbed the empty space on my ring finger and had an instant of panic before remembering that I've not worn my wedding rings in almost two years, and they're quite safe in my jewellery box.

Yet there's no fear there. Despite the inherent stresses of the pandemic, and even knowing we've had a confirmed case of the virus in our village now, it's still feels like something that happens to other people... As somebody said to me, the magnitude of the death toll just dehumanises what's really happening. I know that's a false sense of security, but at least it lets me relax.

At nine and eleven, the kids are probably the right age for this: old enough to go on a walk without me but not so old that they're frustrated at being stuck at home with their family and away from their friends. For our family, lockdown is just restrictive enough to be an adventure, and the kids have risen to the challenge.

Twice in the past week, I relied on the children to cycle/walk the mile to the corner shop for some milk, paying with their GoHenry cards (a kind of pre-paid credit card for children). The second time, my son went by himself, only to discover that their credit card machine wasn't working. The staff suggested he use the cashpoint (ATM) so he could pay with cash. My son has never used a cashpoint before, but he went and figured it out (I was impressed he remembered his PIN!) and brought the milk home.

Perhaps the biggest help was that this fell across the Easter Holidays. We didn't have to do anything, and we didn't attempt to do anything. No schedules, no projects, no self-inflicted deadlines... we just pottered around and pleased ourselves. We settled into an unforced routine of mornings playing Animal Crossing on the Switch, then afternoons in the garden, enjoying the sun.

We've barely had two consecutive days without rain since we moved in, and my son was absolutely dumbfounded to discover that Cornwall could stay dry for more than a week. We got creative with our patch of grass out back, creating different games and/or spaces with whatever was in the shed. The cats loved it, lounging in the sun with us.

So what we got out of two weeks of quarantine was family time. Time spent enjoying being a family. The past two years have been so turbulent for us that there has always been something to worry about, something to do... particularly in my case. We spent the past two weeks without anything to do but be happy together, and we were. For years (long before the marriage break-up), I've struggled with being mentally present for the children. This past two weeks, it's been effortless, even with insomnia brain.

Two weeks of quarantine down, and potentially months of lockdown still to go. But we've already come a long, long way.