No pulling the wool over our eyes on Covid challenges

DIARY OF A DEMENTED HOME WORKER: Week six and I’ve finally given up on the tidying, have reluctantly taken up knitting and am thinking of downloading TikTok.

• I NEARLY bought a pair of runners for €550 this week. I also nearly bought an outdoor couch for €2,000. Fortunately my straight-talking sister reminded me I was still in the market for an indoor couch. Spoil sport. That’s what too much time on Instagram will do to you.

• My sister did post me a little treat though – some needles and wool which she had popped into one of those long, skinny wine bags with a note that read: ‘Here’s an alternative for you to pass an evening’.  She’s funny like that – had me in stitches. I would have preferred the wine to be honest. I’m still trying to figure out how to knit/scroll Instagram/eat crisps/watch Netflix and hold my glass at the same time. I’ll get there.

• It’s the dinners that are getting to more than anything else at this stage. I know some people can literally pull a gourmet meal together from an onion, tin of tomatoes and few sprigs of parsley but I’m not one of them. Donegal Catch three times in a week never really harmed anyone did it? With (frozen) vegetables obviously.

• I’m also done with the cleaning and picking things up. The place can fall down now for all I care. Although at this rate that’s actually a real possibility. I’m not sure our houses were built for such intense living – my place is ageing faster than I am.

• I did get my wardrobe sorted, though. I know you’re all keen for an update and yes, the polka dot boob tube has been relegated to the ‘nostalgia’ section. My timing couldn’t have been worse  as I haven’t worn real clothes in weeks. It’s also slightly ironic, as most things no longer fit due to the Covid half stone meeting the Christmas half stone (which I was still working on in March). Not a good look.

• On a more positive note, though, (I’m really trying), for once I’m grateful for being fairly low maintenance. I don’t have any fake lashes/laser removal/tattooed brows/shellac/hair extensions etc to worry about. I will probably emerge from lockdown looking as bad as I did going in – only fatter and greyer.

• And on another more positive note, my lifelong ‘fear’ of technology is abating. Week 1 working at home was punctuated with regular screams like  ‘it’s disappeared,’ …’I’ve broken it’….  ‘Why won’t the microphone work,’ etc. Now that we’ve reached Week Whatever (I’m guessing six?), I’m contemplating launching my own YouTube channel or becoming  a vlogger. (Would I get free stuff? I’m running low on conditioner). Or at the very least, maybe I’ll download TikTok.

• On a rare recent trip to the post office, an alarming number of warning lights flashed up on my dashboard so my car has been towed to the garage which is making me feel more marooned than ever. Not that I’d be going anywhere, but even if I was allowed, I now wouldn’t be able to, do you get me? Also sometimes it was nice to just sit (or crouch down) in there and hide for a while.

• My husband is still going out to work. He rang on the way home the other day, while I was trying to work, while also playing My Little Pony (I was concentrating hard on not mucking up my pony lines as the four-year-old takes it so seriously that any slip-up and she delivers the killer blow that we have to ‘start all over again.’) Anyway, he had just come from the garden centre, where he had picked up a few bits. That was after working for several uninterrupted hours in a room that did not have a clothes horse in it. He found it hard to understand my frostiness. Funny that.

• Then when I do get time to myself in the evenings instead of learning a new language or instrument like others, I’ve spent it watching some god awful stuff on Netflix. What’s the story with Joe Tiger King?  (am I missing a trick on that one? Just me?). Also avoid at all costs the film Love, Marry, Repeat (a shocking 2020 take on Four Weddings). I regret binging so greedily on Ozark now. Still, I have the knitting.

• But what I really need is for someone to come to my house around 10pm and put me to bed, to save me from myself. Someone who will say firmly but gently that all the snacks are gone, no more drinkies, that the internet is broken, there there, time for sleepies ... Any takers?

• I’m over my crush on Dr Tony (am fickle like that) and have moved on to Ronan Collins. As I was peeling potatoes last week (ah come on, of course I do potatoes to go with the Donegal Catch), in the space of 10 minutes he played Tony Kenny (a childhood crush of mine. Don’t ask), Christy Moore’s Honda 50, The Unicorn by the Irish Rovers and Some Enchanted Evening from The King and I. Talk about lifting spirits. A national treasure is Ro!

• The four-year-old declared the other night at bedtime that she’d like us to spend more quality time together. That’s certainly an interesting take on things. Then a few days later she was being suspiciously quiet and I shouted out at her: ‘Are you there?’ She replied: ‘Where else would I be?’

• She’s also been asking a lot if someone will text us to let us know when ‘the germs’ are gone – as if somehow normal life might resume without us realising. Oh yes I told her! We’ll be in the car, with the keys in the ignition, Ronan blasting from the radio and faced for road. Providing  the car is back from the garage.