My Life Under Lockdown
Lockdown was introduced in the UK on 23rd March, but I was actually living a lockdown life slightly earlier. My partner started working from home as early as 8th March and it was around this time that we decided to take our own small measures, such as only visiting the supermarket once a week and cancelling social events in the diary.
As a small business owner and online teacher, very little has actually changed in my life. I usually work at home anyway, so I am used to being in my home office all day. The only difference is that I have my partner at home working in the living room. We are lucky that we have a garden outside our house so we can easily step outside for fresh air and enjoy this sunny weather.
In my little bubble at home, everything continues as normal. Luckily, my job continues as an online teacher, I can still contact my family through Zoom and Whatsapp and our life hasn’t really changed too much.
As a severe asthma sufferer, my partner and I made a decision early on that I would no longer do the shopping. My partner would go out instead… if anything, I had just freed up some spare time in my busy life!
It was only last week after eight weeks of being in lockdown, that I decided to venture out to the shops with my partner and this is when it dawned on me how different life will be from now on.
We have a beautiful walk to the supermarket through the city centre of Winchester, walking past the cathedral. What is usually a packed area full of tourists visiting our city sights or families having picnics on the lawn, was a vast empty space. There was nobody to be seen!
When we arrive at the supermarket, everything is regulated with a 2m social distance. We waited in a queue marked out on the floor for us to ensure we were keeping our 2m distance. There are strict limits on how many people are allowed in a supermarket at any one time, so we wait until two people have come out and the security guard tells us we can enter.
Every aisle is marked out with tape so you are always 2m away from somebody and we follow the arrows to guide us around the supermarket in one direction, but you can feel the fear of the people around. If somebody comes into the same aisle as you, you freeze and you can see how panicked everybody is.
With huge plastic screens at checkout to protect the supermarket workers, you feel rather intimidated and if you have a problem at self-checkout, you must move away to a waiting area whilst the supermarket staff can sort the problem before you are allowed to return, keeping 2m distance at all times.
When walking home, we passed a few people on the street and you still feel the fear in people, crossing to the other side of the street to keep social distancing rules.
When we get home, we have a rather rigorous cleaning routine with all food being wiped and cleaned and then an intense clean of the kitchen. We pop our clothes in the wash and disinfect the shopping bags. This is something that few of us would have imagined happening in 2020, but it’s now become the norm.
Rooms In The House
Review the flashcards below to learn the correct vocabulary for rooms in the house. Click on the card to see in full size. Some example rooms are used in the blog above (words in purple).
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