View from inside

What are we doing with ourselves now that we can’t while away the time in cafés and shops? Have we embarked on a strict project of self-improvement? Have we joined Gareth Malone’s online national choir so that we can frighten the cat with an off-key version of Elton John’s I’m Still Standing? Or are we following an energetic online exercise programme led by Joe Wicks? Honestly, young men already resembled Grizzly Adams on a rough day, but now that they no longer have access to barbers they’ll soon start to look like woolly mammoths. Cuddly and scary at the same time.

I do sympathise with the people who feel like they’re under house arrest, with several generations of their family all annoying them in different ways. As for home schooling, I wouldn’t know where to begin or have the patience if I did. Parents of young children have my full admiration and sympathy.

But what am I doing? Not improving myself, not learning Elton John’s back catalogue and not following Joe Wicks’ morning exercise routine, although I might tune in every so often just to see how the pelt is progressing. I do virtuously practise tai chi exercises every morning and go for a walk daily, as well as spending an awful lot of time chatting to people on Zoom, Skype and Houseparty. My various WhatsApp groups demand constant attention and naturally I have to watch the many entertaining videos that are doing the rounds. But when all that is done, what I do is dream of travelling. Largely because I know I can’t. I had been thinking that I needed to travel a bit less and stay home a bit more, but now that we are all grounded all I want is to be somewhere else. The perversity of human nature.

I satisfy my urge to travel by planning my next holiday (January 2021?) and enjoying virtual tourism. India is high on the list – I’d love to see the Golden Temple at Amritsar and the wonderfully bizarre opening and closing ceremony of the border between India and Pakistan. I have just taken a virtual tour of Yosemite Park in California, enjoying its spectacular natural beauty from my armchair and feeling wistful about all those people enjoying it, not confined to their local neighbourhood and definitely not two metres apart.

In the meantime I am getting my travel fix by working on a photo book of our recent trip to Southeast Asia, which probably won’t be ready for printing until the lockdown ends. I can’t believe how long these books take me – I spend nearly as much time putting them together as I do on the actual holidays. I really don’t need to devote so much effort to carefully selecting each photo, editing it, placing it on the page, planning the layout, writing captions – the list is endless. There is an ‘autofill’ option where the programme places all the photos for you, but that horrifies the perfectionist in me. I just couldn’t. Besides, it keeps me occupied and our cat is very grateful.