SCENE & DONE IT by Michael Steinhage

Not quite a getaway

) So the other week I cranked the heating right up to the max. Then I dragged the big yucca from the lounge to the bathroom, put Greatest Club Anthems 2000 on shuffle, and got into a lukewarm bath with a jug of Sangria. Pretend really hard, and it’s almost Ibiza I reckoned. God, I need a holiday.

I’m not asking much of you, 2020, but how about just a little break? Nothing fancy, no one expects a fortnight off from those sudden surprises that seem to jump from behind the next, well, next anything really. On a much too regular basis. No, we’ve all become accustomed to that fact, and we know our place, 2020. You’re in charge, that much is clear to even the most adamant Covid-denier by now. But is a few days too much to ask? It’s like that lady on the radio, when everyone had to leg it back before the quarantine deadline. “Was it worth it, would you say Madam, to go to Paris?” “Well,” she told the reporter, “for five hours not really, but it’s nice to get away.”

The ski vacation almost worked, even though Jess and Tim from upstairs soon ran out of cotton wool balls to throw out the window

Lockdowns, quarantines and cancellations, one just can’t know if it’s worth it to chance it these days, or whether you should even bother hunting for the passports in the admin drawer. So I thought alternatives:

What else are we to do? The Mediterranean mini-break in the bathroom wasn’t a bad start, but I couldn’t stretch that out to a whole weekend – I got wrinkly granny skin after four hours (and you’re always worried it won’t go back to normal).

The ski vacation almost worked, even though Jess and Tim from upstairs soon ran out of cotton wool balls to throw out the window, us sat on the patio in our tracksuits and Ray-Bans. To be honest it was the Jägermeister that pulled that one off more than anything. Then we tried watching David Attenborough’s Deep Ocean, wearing swimming shorts and snorkels, but the door bell went for a delivery, and that kind of spoiled the Maldives fantasy. Couldn’t really see through the goggles anyway. “Finest French cuisine ideas to make at home,” I thought, if that doesn’t make you feel like you’re dining ‘al fresco’ in Marseille then what will? Well, the thought was there, but it’s just not the same if you have to cook for yourself, and pretend to be your own ill-mannered French waiter.

So, speaking of France, at the end of the day we did the only thing we could do, and stayed in our kitchen, crying into yet another glass of Merlot. At least all my friends are stranded too, and Facebook is eerily devoid of people with tans, holiday countdowns, or hammocks hung between palm trees. We’re, how does that tired old slogan go, ‘in this together’. A small relief, but just to be safe, I’m gonna hibernate for a while and come back out when it’s Easter.