10 things I miss during lockdown

Friday 1st, May 2020

Tags: Personal

We have now been in Lockdown for 53 days. That means 53 days ago Boris announced Lockdown and we have now been confined to our homes, with the people we live with. Cut off from family, friends and for some work. Even though now some of the original Lockdown restrictions have been lifted. It isn’t going to change anytime soon.  I’ve learnt to appreciate simple things a lot more. But there are things that I miss and I know it is going to be a long path back to normality.  

1. Seeing family:

Especially my dad. It has just been me and my dad for 18 years since my mum died when I was 10, even though I am now married to my husband. My dad still made an effort to come down and visit us regularly. But that has been taken away from me and I haven’t seen my dad in 2 months, I’ve gone longer without seeing him but I’ve been abroad doing summer camp in America or a ski season in the Alps. Not just 45 miles away. 

  1. Going to restaurants:

Although my husband and I have been trying to give ourselves the dining out experience by trying new recipes and using simple cook, nothing beats going to a restaurant and just spending time in that dining out experience, it's something about not having to cook or wash up afterwards that does it for me. Although I realise that it is going to be a long time until we can enjoy that we used to. 

  1. Seeing friends:

I would say my friends are important to me, although I have recently moved down to East Sussex away from my friends, I was just getting into arranging meetups with old friends and starting to make new, but now that has been put on hold, instead its more of an online catch up via various video calls which is nice as compared to the busyness of life before lockdown it was hard to find a time where everyone is free at the same time, but now there is more time than before,  but it does mean people are now filling their time with video calls 

  1. Picnics on the beach: 

This is one of the reasons I agreed to move down to Brighton to be by the sea, often when I was dating my husband we would have a picnic on the beach when it was the right weather. Now living here I was looking forward to meeting him after work and having fish and chips on the seafront watching the sunset but that will now have to wait for now, although with the new rules I still don’t feel like it is a good idea to do that. 

  1. Going to the shops and wandering around: 

Often my journey home from work meant that I had to go through Brighton to get home, when I went home by bus (which was often) I would get off in Brighton have look at the different shops both high street and independent. Although I have been doing some online shopping, there is something about being able to walk around the shops and have a browse. But again it is going to be a while until that is back to the norm.  

  1. Being able to explore the outdoors freely: 

My husband and I are keen National Trust members and would often go and enjoy their parks at the weekend, with a picnic and have a walk and take some photos. Again we will have to wait for that but I feel that it would be open soon but will have a form of social distance involved. 

  1. Being able to buy baking products easily:

Has Lockdown turned everyone into the next Mary Berry or Paul Hollywood, as finding baking products is even harder than ever, the next series of The Great British Bake-off better be a great series with all these people buying baking products? I love baking. I use it to relax but I am rapidly running out of flour and there are many recipes I would like to try out and bake again! 

  1. Travel:

We have already had one trip abroad rearranged for next year but will that be the same, I have a feeling it will be very different and strange. We had also spoken about having a few weekends away exploring some more of England, luckily we hadn’t done anything about it. Hopefully we will be able to book a staycation for a long weekend later on in the year but who knows what the next few months will hold and what the travel industry will look like?

  1. Leisure activities such as bowling and mini-golf: 

Often my husband and I would go and do a fun activity over the weekend, such as bowling or mini-golf to escape the whole adulthood, but that has been put on hold, we now instead spend our weekends binge-watching a series on Netflix or Apple TV.

  1. Going to get my eyebrows wax:

I know this can be done at home, with some tweezers, but trust me I’m rubbish at that. Anyways there is something about just switching off from the world for 15 minutes while someone waxes your eyebrows and makes them look 100 times better than what you could have done at home.