March 2020 and the ultimate “catch-22” situation. We had always shopped on a daily basis, no freezer to speak of and no store cupboard of tinned or dry goods. We are also conformists – If asked not to bulk-buy we don’t and as my husband is over 70 on the recommendation of the Government, we were in self-isolation.
As healthy and active senior citizens quite rightly, we were not on the NHS register of those who needed to be shielded and protected but, neither were we on any of the supermarket home delivery customer lists and there were no slots available to us. Friends had offered to help but, in truth each one had their own challenges and we didn’t want to impose, especially as we were told this was going to be a marathon, not a sprint.
By the weekend of the 11th April, our food supply was really low and after dining on lettuce, tomato and cucumber for the second day running, inwardly, I was starting to panic. This was an alien experience, we had never experienced a shortage of food. But, this was not just about food, it was that we had never before experienced any situation that was so completely outside of our control.
I sat at the kitchen window contemplating the likely cycle of a ‘new normal’ whereby I would shop in week one, self-isolate from my husband for the next 14 days and then go out and shop so, repeating the cycle. Not a great prospect but, by no means as dire as the circumstances many thousands of people were already experiencing .
Then I saw it; a small white milk float gliding up the road.
Quickly grabbing a pen and paper I waited until it came back down the road to catch the name and number written on the float. Then, almost holding my breath, I dialled the number straightaway and a very jolly lady answered. When I asked if she could deliver to us she cheerfully said “oh yes” and when I asked if she delivered other items as well as milk she answered “oh yes, lots of things”.
For me, this was a turning point that gave me back just a little bit of control over my life. On the morning of the first delivery, I opened the door with an excitement that I hadn’t experienced since the Christmas mornings of my childhood.
There on the doorstep were two pints of fresh milk – in glass bottles – and six eggs!!
I could have cried with joy. I had never really looked at egg so closely before neither had I really thought about how precious it was or how it could best be used. For me, the egg symbolised everything about our ‘new normal’.
It will serve as a permanent reminder of exactly how the lockdown of the 2020 Pandemic felt and the realisation that life would be never be the same again.
Jane