Here we sits, like birds in the wilderness: it's cocktail time

Well, it turns out a full year of crisis is not an anniversary that really makes you jolly. This time last year I was panic buying random longlife Polish meats from the Costcutter at 11pm, not nipping over to Paris for a meeting, and doing the last site visit I've done unmasked for the forseeable ever. It was not a fun time.

I'm a lot calmer now. I know how to do lockdown, I know that in the week that followed this date I would make a surprising number of very well-founded purchases, from extra soft furnishings to help with sitting in one spot for a year to a new phone as my old one was barely clinging on. I would start this blog, I would get into some routines that have broadly worked out (the exercise took a while to sort, but the bones of a working day are still as I sketched them on the train two days before work shut down, trying to imagine how I'd make it work). I know my local area better than I could have dreamed after walking every inch of it dozens of times this year. 

And I know that having a blog where I can tell you about my lunch, and where my head is at, and hear from people in similar or very, very different situations but all cycling through a similar set of experiences, emotions and menu planning, has been incredibly helpful. While Saturday cocktail hour has been a bit of a lifesaver. 

Speaking of which, 7pm. This is a reverse Manhattan, which is about all I'm fit for at the moment

 

Next week, a bit of a cookalong and a cheers to each other in a party-ish celebration of mutual support. Tonight, my cocktails are a bit maudlin and reflective. It's been a hell of a year. I asked last week about charities which needed help, and I'm still collecting them for next week's one year post. I planned to ask this week about what has cheered you in lockdown - what's been genuinely pleasing, however small? I can talk about a local wine bar and their home delivery, or the brilliant months of NT at Home, and since then other theatres like my beloved Jermyn Street Theatre learning how to do online over the year. The podcasts I've banged on about already, though I'd add the cheerfully unexpected Adventures in Art which I don't often mention (interesting on art which I miss so much, but also just an unlikely pair of TV presenters talking about their lockdowns - one of many examples of how amateurish setups are so much more endearing than formal telly). I'd like to hear yours too, and maybe share them.

But I guess I'm also just remembering this time last year. How bad it was to be that scared, and how good it was to be that scared *in company*, despite being shut in on my own. I remember screaming out loud, quite lengthily, after closing the door behind myself when I came home from work for the last time. And how much I laughed when Staged had that line in, about whether Michael had been screaming in the garden. It's been a weirdly shared experience. I hope we all get more variety in the next twelve months, but I also hope we remember this.