Only two weeks. ARE YOU SHITTING ME?

How can it only be two weeks since we were all told to stay inside and the schools closed down? 

It feels like months. 

Our previous life of wandering freely and carelessly now feels like a dream, like someone else’s life.

Remember when we used to nip out to the pub for a swift one? 

Or go out for an impromptu pizza just cos why the fuck not? 

Oh, and can you recall the good old days when we could watch a film at the pictures instead of on Netflix?

I can.

Of course I can.

But in the same breath, I can’t.

Not really.  

This new way of living has quickly and efficiently become the norm.

I saw a friend and her family out the car window as we were on the way to the shops.

We pulled over, wound down the windows and all of us shouted manically out of the car at them from the other side of the road.

Hollering enthusiastically, shouting over each other, the four of us desperately tried to have a face-to-face conversation with people other than our immediate family.

That’s one thing that’s really come into focus over the last fourteen days.

What a loud family we are.

How we all have an opinion on absolutely everything.

And how my children talk, constantly.

There is noise.

All the time.

Like every waking second.

Not even just waking, it transpires.

The kids also talk in their sleep, which was a joyous revelation, as everyone has now taken to piling in the same bed since lockdown.

Before this all happened, I thought of myself as someone who craved company.

I couldn’t imagine working all week in solitude. I need to be around people. I need the buzz of conversations. I need human contact to feel alive.

But I should have been more specific.

It wasn’t human contact I needed.

It was adult conversation.

What I would give for just two minutes peace.

I’ve started running.

I’ve turned into that guy.

I’m a fucking cliché and hate myself a little bit for it.

But this is survival.

I just need the occasional twenty blissful minutes of uninterrupted, painfully slow jogging, listening to music other than George Ezra, and allowing my mind to decompress.

I had, on my first ‘run’, started thinking how this would be a fantastic opportunity to get fit.

To really embrace a new way of living.

To slip back into my pre-wedding figure, and emerge from the lockdown as a svelte, younger looking butterfly.

Lockdown was going to be a chance to launch Anna 2.0.

I now realise how wrong I was.

The occasional jog around the park is counterbalanced with the end of the day thank fuck bottle of wine.

I’m going to roll out of this house, a bloated wineaholic. 

But, as we walk past the the recycling bins in the park for our hour of exercise, I realised I am very much not alone.

Hang in there, this wasn't anyone's plan, but it's the plan now and we're adaptable, brilliant woman. 

We're all over this shit. 

Let's just make a pact to not judge anyone's recycling box....