A very interesting message to me on Instagram the other day from a reader who has been discussing with her friends, “the rage”. That is, a general formless anger that is bubbling away underneath our increasingly lined and fraught surfaces, that emerges at weird points.
Her excellent example was a full-on open-air row between two women: one had asked the other if she was “permitted” to be walking in this beauty spot. The other woman just exploded and called her names.
I am really sympathetic. I cannot stand the pass-agg stuff that the virus has brought out in people. A friend of mine discovered (in a roundabout way) that her neighbour had called the police because she (my friend) went out twice in one day.
My other, different, friend was berated for not keeping his distance in the open air from a pregnant woman, although he did not, he stresses, come within the designated safe area, he merely looked as though he might be about to.
Actually that isn’t pass-agg, that’s more just agg-agg. My friend was really quite shaken up by it, as I would have been.
I am not exactly exempt. I will very much snap at the next person who tells my children to keep away. These get-away-from-me people are always the type to be huddled off to the side, clutching their face mask to their mouths in horror, waving their hands in big arcs as if they expect you to take your children to walk, what, in the fucking street?.
I do really suspect that people who do that just hate children generally and are delighted to have good reason to treat them like germ-laded vermin. This virus has been a Trojan Horse for some really crappy behaviour.
See?? I am so mild-mannered normally, I am so nice – and this has all brought out a total monster in me.
(Although I must say I don’t know what it’s like where you are but round here there is a distinct lack of giving much of a shite about social distancing rules any more. The streets are pretty full, the Heath is rammed. There are people openly walking with three or four kids tumbling about who clearly aren’t siblings. Teenagers sit about smoking joints under trees. The government has lost control completely.)
Anyway how’s your rage? Being unreasonable yet?
I started therapy last week (virtually, of course). That’s all you need to know.
Good for you! Virtual therapy is great, I much prefer it to the real-life version.
Me, too, now!
Can I ask how it’s going? Is your therapist nice?
Only 1 appointment in, but I vented a lot, and already feel lighter mentally.
Oh yes. I live at the moment for joggers running too close to me so I can have a cathartic vent. Those people not picking up their dog’s shit better watch out too. Dobbing in one’s neighbours is definitely a step too far though.
This, in spades. I was out walking the dog the other week and admittedly distracted. All of a sudden I hear someone shouting ‘Welcome’ in the distance. I looked behind me and full 200 feet away (at a minimum) a couple are tutting and finger wagging at me. They had never been in my line of sight. I am guessing that they may have averted their path to avoid me, before I saw them, but SHOULD have seen them, and clearly laid a path of rose petals to guide their path (a safe social distance away, natch.) I was obviously giving of “I need a hard wrist slap” vibe: I am distracted because my husband, made redundant before COVID-19, is struggling to find another job, I am concerned for my own, and trying to hold my shit together for our two girls. It wasn’t out of concern for my latest Ocado order and what substitutions there might be!
TWATS
Oh dear, this all sounds awful but perhaps it’s a reflection of the curve going down in London in a way it isn’t really doing anywhere else in the UK yet. No good excuse I know and certainly not a good excuse for the agg-agg. I’m sure the police blue-lighted it around to your friend’s house after the call from that neighbour….
Here in the (almost) countryside, people cross the road to avoid you and wave and smile as they do it although in the mornings, there are curious piles of empty beer and wine bottles, kebab wrappings and pre-packed sandwich packets near park benches. The smell of dope still floats down onto the streets at all hours of the day and you do wonder how its distribution has managed to remain so efficient when the supply of flour has not.
There have been nobs who glare at you if they don’t recognise you walking down their street or wait for you to cross the road because they’re not going to be the one to do it. Just smile and wave and keep on walking. Esther, you are normally quite mild-mannered and Clark Kent-ish so now’s your chance to be Super (angry) Man for a bit.
Does anyone else have a problem with people trying to talk to you from across the road and expecting you to know who they are when they are in sunglasses and a mask that’s muffling their voice. If it wasn’t for the 50m queue outside Barclays, it would be free reign for anyone planning a hold-up.
As you can see, I’m saving my rage for when the real dickhead behaviour starts once lockdown starts relaxing. I’ll pop back for a supportive message from the rest of you then.
I went absolutely psychotically mad at my neighbour’s builders. Just full mental. I won’t go into details (boring) but they were chucking fag butts into our garden from the scaffolding and I. Just. Lost. My. Head.
They haven’t been back for 3 weeks.
(This makes me sound like a horrible bitch but I promise I’m usually v nice)
Oh that’s horrible, though. I would have gone full Gordon Gecko on them as well.
No standard COVID-related rage as yet. But gripped by reading American Dirt after your recommendation and enraged by the dangers of those Mexican cartels …. anything that involves people having to flee their homes and communities because of danger to life really scares me …..at least it’s the opposite with COVID19 which puts things in perspective a bit.
Love your blogs. And your podcast with Giles.
Fiona
As a jogger, I completely understand people’s nervousness of people running too close but I do agree a few people are using this to channel their sociopathic sides. Even though I go into the middle of the road to avoid ppl (waiting for first report of someone being run over doing this) I still sometimes get filthy looks and people protectively gathering their children to their skirts, looking reproachful.
Oh my god yes, Philippa! I run everyday to keep myself from descending into an apocalyptic rage at home. And I am constantly running into the road to avoid people whilst walkers tut at you. I’ve moved out of the way, they are taking up the WHOLE pavement by walking 3-4 abreast or pushing a massive fuck off buggy that takes up the whole Pavement yet I’m the bad guy?!. You can tell when they see you coming and they think to themselves here’s a twat of a running I’m going to stand my ground and not move an inch from the middle of this pathway whilst maintaining passive aggressive eye contact with them at all times. I just keep my head down and jog to the other side of the road so they don’t get the pleasure of being the poor defenceless victim
and write about it on Twitter.
Absolutely this. Thank you! I live in a relatively quiet seaside town. Took my two children out on their bikes, 6yo son cycled past an older couple sunning themselves on a bench (admittedly he was less than 2m from them as he whizzed past). As I got closer to them they were talking in stage whispers “should be inside” “can’t control them” etc, pointedly looking towards where my son had cycled off and then back at me. So I said loudly “sorry are you talking to me?” To which – slightly taken aback – they began muttering something about private conversations.
I was livid! I can’t bear that passive aggressive judgy thing towards children and their parents (which you sum up beautifully in your article). It is so often from people that just fundamentally hate children, but at least own that when challenged. Tell me that my son was too close and I can apologise and also tell you my side of the situation. That I’ve told him to be careful 50 times already, and we’ve been cooped up all day, and he’s missing school and his friends and being free and being SIX. But I’ll tell him again and I’m sorry if he scared you (but maybe you should also not be sunbathing on the bloody bench in the first place…)
As parents we are ALL struggling with the balance between ensuring our children are safe and respectful of social distance, while not giving them such giant complexes that they end up really damaged by the end of this. It’s hard. And shit like that really doesn’t help.
Anyway – thanks for raising this. And allowing me to vent my simmering rage… X
Infuriating! And sunbathing is not okay. I mean, I don’t really care if people choose to, but if you are going to do that you can’t then be weird about children maybe straying too close. GAH the whole thing is so angry-making
Totally with you on this one. I long for the day when I don’t have to tell my kids to “keep to one side” twenty billion times each time we go out & they can get on with being kids & seeing their mates again. Instead they have to endure a very aggro teacher (me!) each day & the never ending agony of being cooped up at home.
This situation has been a gift for people who like telling off other people. The local online community board has been very good value. More snitches than a game of Quidditch. I am not immune. I have not felt rage but it has brought out a touch of the Margot Ledbetter in me “Does that look essential to you, Jerry? It doesn’t look essential to me”. But I have been ill so I think that’s licence to go a bit Rear Window as long as I don’t phone the authorities. People are mainly adhering to distancing, but the thing that has struck me is how unable some people are to just, stop for a bit. They’re hustling for spare this and that, trying to declutter and sell stuff, asking is this open is that open is the other place open, setting off fireworks, blaring music, organising quizzes quizzes quizzes. It’s been 3 weeks.
Cindy, we are of the same mind. Snitches get stitches
Cindy your comment made me laugh so much I have completely turned into Margot but wish I was more Felicity and being self sufficient and wholesome in a pair of dungarees. We are in Kingston upon Thames and lockdown is a joke here. The pavements and roads are so full of people exercising its really hard to go for a walk never mind anything else. Its far worse than normal I imagine because the gyms are shut. Big groups of cyclists still fly past my windows. Are they really all related? I just walk my two dogs every day and I do clear up the dog poo. I go out really early and there are still loads of cars on the roads (are they all doing essential stuff at 7 am?) and NO police in sight. I haven’t seen one. My neighbours keep having parties which is REALLY getting on my nerves but I haven’t grassed them up because Im not that sort of person, usually I wouldn’t even notice what they were doing. I am also sick of people constantly inviting me to ZOOM drinks/Skype drinks etc etc. Ive just told everyone I cant work technology which is actually true as I REALLY CANT BE ARSED Im too busy crying at the news and bitching about the neighbours having parties with my husband. What really disturbs me is how every time somebody survives in hospital there are so many NHS people clapping I find this very disconcerting and Im really worried about how the hell we are all supposed to get out of this lockdown when there is no vaccine in sight etc etc. I could go on but better stop now.
Recognise a lot of this. But parties?! What are people thinking?
I’m not being unreasonable and I don’t have rage, yet. Maybe this will happen? I’m generally more of an anxious/internalising everything bent. But who knows where that will lead, if I’m pushed? Maybe my head will explode or I’ll have a conniption.
Weird question. In times of trauma or emergency like this, does anyone else think about terrible events, like the Holocaust? I once read that it’s a common motif or fixation for some people with shonky mental health. Situations like this always bring it to mind, for me. Like, one of my neighbours, she’s a lovely girl, is a youtube mummy blogger. Her channel is all sweetness and baking and she’s a Christian and just generally she is as wholesome in real life as she is in her videos. BUT, then, she was on our village Facebook group the other night proper having a go at people for not obeying the one walk a day rule! She was all ‘the Government have said this. The Government have told us not to do that.’ And I was thinking, if I had a Jewish family hidden under my floorboards, you’d be the one to dob them in! You, the smiley banana-bread-making one! Kinder, Küche, Kirche right enough!
Obviously I sound mental, but do you know what I mean? Times like these, where society hasn’t exactly disintegrated but the edges are looking frayed, show you how people react under stress. They reveal who the hoarders and the pearl-clutchers and the tell-tales are. It makes me not like people. Good job I’m isolated from them just now. Bloody can’t stand them all. Get away from me with your Dettol wipes and your Daily Mail snitches hotline.
All of this! Especially how this brings out the extremes and the worst of peoples personalities and take on life.
It is revealing. Don’t get me wrong – we are very strict about the guidelines ourselves and haven’t even left the house in the last fortnight – and yet I’ve looked at how willing people are to jump on others and put them in the stocks and it is unsettling. Like someone posted about two people who she saw from her window going for a walk on a large open park and the suspicious thing apparently was she personally didn’t recognise them and they didn’t have a dog with them. She even admitted there was no one else around but still rung the bell of shame.
Funnily enough a friend of mine called me weeks ago saying “X is being totally unacceptable, I swear if this was 1942 Germany SHE’D DOB IN JEWS” – not quite her exact words but sort of. So no you’re not alone
Have you seen the Crown? I find it helpful to see how they went through similar things – the smog, Aberfan, power cuts and sick prime ministers. We’re just living through one of those right now (and many older people have lived through all of them) x
I find this fascinating. We haven’t been in a position in Italy to feel the rage at social distancing etiquette or lack thereof. Even trips to the supermarket are controlled, muted and quiet. Because we have to wear face masks and we can only leave the house with a self certified official print out from the government, (which if incorrect can hit us with a €3k fine), trips out are a serious business. Plus there are no children…anywhere. Only one adult can leave the house to go shopping and there’s no walks for fresh air or exercising.
The only rage I feel is at the U.K. government for not being clear with their instructions. Here we have black and white ‘Lockdown rules’. There’s no pussy footing about with guidelines, advice, strong recommendations etc. No wonder people are interpreting them as they wish and getting arsey. From a distance it seems as though there’s a real vacuum of leadership in the U.K…and it’s all…very British. We’d really love you to follow these social distancing guidelines…but don’t worry too much if you need to make a few exceptions, we’d hate for you to think we’re telling you what to do… Ad infinitum.
Mind you, come 4th May, I might be eating my words, once we’re allowed to go to the parks again. But given we will all have to wear masks outside and continue to observe social distancing I just can’t see it happening. Everyone is so bloody grateful just to be allowed to go outside. And I think we are all still reeling from the tragedy in Lombardia. I’ve yet to come across anyone here who hasn’t treated this whole ‘thing’ with the seriousness it deserves.
Spot on Esther. I hate that pass-agg virtual signalling stuff. And it often comes from the people who plaster ‘be kind’ all over their social media. Yeah right.
Oh god, don’t. We live in a small 2-bed flat with an 18-month old. We have a communal garden that we are trying to let the bigger kids in the block use since their need seems greater than ours. So yes, people in the park, the toddler does need to run around here everyday just as much as you need your daily walk, and if you’d like to have a go at reasoning with him – “Darling, it’d be simply marvellous if you could stay 2 metres away from other people at all times. What’s that? You don’t know what 2 is let alone a metre?” – please be my guest.
But then! The people that stride right over to the patch we’ve managed to commandeer, with their band of kids, and set up camp right next to us. Chatting to the toddler FFS. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!
This is bringing out the best or worst in people, with some who are inwardly (or not so inwardly) raging about other stuff, using it as a licence for terror.
One week into lockdown in my usually pleasant corner of North London I found myself held hostage in a small branch of Boots by a man who went berserk for being asked by the shop assistant to queue outside in line. Enraged, he assaulted the pharmacist, stole the pharmacist’s card for issuing prescriptions which triggered the emergency alarm, the shutters went down and we were locked in for over an hour, not knowing if he had a weapon. Luckily, I was able to crouch down in a corner behind the sanitary towels and dial 999, first helping an elderly customer run out the staff exit to escape. It was terrifying. Six Police and a van later, they stormed the building, eventually wrestled him to the ground and carted him off to the police station, but not before he exploded about infringement of his human rights. The Police were fantastic, the pharmacist heroic, and I was both Cagney & Lacey. Next stop, Witness A, crown court trial.
Esther – an article waiting for you here to write about rage and lockdown licence for bad behaviour!
THIS IS AN AMAZING STORY!!!
Surreal! (One for my ‘Love in the Time of Corona’ novella).
You are *so* on the zeitgeist with this right now, Esther – the papers need your incisive take, to keep newspapers (essential item) going.
xx
I cannot wait for that novella! I hope you are being serious x
What?! That’s crazy. What a level head you’ve got. And great use of sanitary protection.
Thanks Cindy. Tena Lady; To Protect and to Serve!
I count myself lucky, living by myself. I only leave the house once a week to go shopping or to nip into the office to collect urgent post. Both times I feel guilty, I wait in isles to let people go by and I adhere to the strips of tape on the floor for strict social distancing. I’m worried one of my caseload might come running up to me without thinking and their parents might get antsy with me. I exercise at home and don’t go out for a walk because I feel very exposed and vulnerable. I do have the odd under-the-breath rant when I see people obviously not related having a good non-distanced chat in Tesco’s car park………….most of the time I’m hiding away, which feeds into my hermity personality, (and I’m thinking not in a completely healthy way). If I’m indoors, I don’t have to deal
I totally lost it the other day. And I’m not ashamed. My house backs onto a small London park. It has been closed throughout this lockdown as it’s impossible to keep any distance in it and it has a football pitch and playground which encourage crowds of course. People who think rules don’t apply to them have been jumping over the gates and skateboarding there, playing football and seeing people they do not live with (unless their homes are enormous I guess).
I was on a work call looking out of the window when a football landed in the garden. 5 mins later a knock on the door. So I ask my team to wait a few mins and go and answer. There stands a man of about 40 asking for his ball. I played dumb “how is your ball in my garden?!” “Oh from the park, I kicked it too high” “but isn’t the park closed?!” “Yeah” “apart from for you is it? You got some special licence or something?” “Can I just have my ball please” “hell no, it could be teeming in your virus. I’m not sodding touching it” “oh maybe I can jump over to get it?” “Go anywhere near my bloody property and I’ll call the police who will have to remove you AND the garden broom from your arse” “oh Um I’ll come back in a few weeks” “yeah enjoy that” I was so so angry!!!! Imagine If he had jumped into the garden!!
IT WAS SO CATHARTIC!!!!
I was sitting in a huge (no exaggeration) *deserted* field with my four year old daughter when suddenly a big dog ran up to us and I heard the owner, on her phone going “there are two people sat on the grass they’re obviously not aware of the rules”. So I gave my best scowl (which would have been a “f**k you” had I been alone)
I find it all totally bizarre. As someone who grew up in a field in Wales and now lives in leafy SW London I am fascinated by how furious people living here are to find there are lots of people also living here, many of whom would *also* like to walk in the pretty bits. Also the shock that some people don’t follow rules as if the enormous amounts of crime/stabbings etc weren’t a thing either.
I’m just sticking to the residential streets when out jogging and crossing the road to avoid people, doing shopping for local oldies and getting to know my neighbours from a safe distance. I am looking at my fledgling career as quite possibly dead in the water (lost my job didn’t I – anyone need a lawyer?!) but maintaining some sanity. Personally I don’t want to look back on this time as one in which I was horrible to everyone around me but clearly not everyone sees it that way!!
Esther – I hope the Times extends your new column after this, it’s been really good 😊
O Georgie bless you. As soon as the restaurants are back open I will be out of there, but I’m hoping they will take some more features from me as a reward for my stepping up to the plate and the slightly painful process of having to submit copy to my HUSBAND for approval, ye gods some tongues have been bitten x
I was out with my three boys doing a walk across the fields from our house which we do all the time (lockdown or no lockdown). Now, my boys are age 12, 10 and 7 and literally look like a set of Russian dolls – similar hair, similar features…no doubt they are brothers! They are running a little ahead of me down the footpath. They all really respectfully (*proud face*) slow down and skirt around an elderly couple walking the other way. They give at least 4 or 5 metres around them and my eldest even huffs a little “hello”. Po-f**king faced couple, as they walk past me (me being the one who moves off the path into the long grass to give a good 2 metres passing space) comment loudly “Don’t try and tell me that they are all one family group, they shouldn’t be out together”. The other one then adds, “And they shouldn’t be running into people like that”. WTAF??? They couldn’t look more like siblings unless I put them in matching jumpers and frankly they were far more polite and proactively aware of social distancing than those old fools.
This was 10 days ago and I still feel a huge puce ball of fury coagulating in my gut when I think of it…
this is exactly what I’m talking about. total bastards
God I love this blog and the comments from readers. Even more so in lockdown. Like listening to an actual much desired conversation with someone I don’t share DNA with or am married to. We’ve had two extra weeks and I’m trying really, really hard to keep it all together. The 24/7 noise is so tough. The smallest one got up at 3am and both get up at 6 every day. Ready for a day of homeschool and feeding and tidying and more feeding and more tidying. Just like the last blog post. I have so much to be grateful for and I am but bloody hell it’s hard sometimes. Anyway, your new column is brilliant and as much as I like your husband’s normally, I think you smashed it this week. You thoroughly deserve a regular one.
Jill this is so true. 2 under 3 here and the noise, feeding, cleaning, feeding again, tidying again, changing, feeding AGAIN is going to send me over the edge.
Oh bless you Jill that’s so kind.
A 3am wake-up cancels out everything else, sorry. I don’t care how nice your house is or how luck you are. 3am you might as well be in prison
Yeah my shithead neighbours have had 4 social gatherings – my shithead neighbours are an ambulance driver and a care assistant in a elderly people’s care home – we asked them about that and they explicitly said they don’t care about COVID. So sure I grassed them – PoPo just been round. Absolute dregs.
WHAT? this is crazy
That’s awful, Ted and must have been completely maddening to witness.
Whilst I do sympathise with these stories, I have more empathy with Ted having to watch his neighbours not give a shit about the virus. I’m guessing they haven’t lost anybody with the disease. I would grass them up pronto! Sorry if this isn’t appropriate looking at the comments, but for fucks sake, what is it with these dumb bat people? Maybe they get a buzz thinking they have killed off another elderly person at their care home. Now this has really got me riled!
Oh I would absolutely grass *them* up. What a horrible pair. They deserve everything they get.
No I agree Jules. I was talking more trivially of the make something from nothing types where people are trying their best and no harm is being done. People not taking it seriously and putting others in danger is another matter.
In my daily (internalized) rants in the shower that I have at them I have bellowed about presumably having no one they care about being vulnerable or susceptible, raged about them not deserving precious NHS resources and called them every name under the sun. The first incident was a midday (wet and therefore heavily smoking) wood fire barbecue beneath my bedroom window – I did bellow out the window that they were f%cking morons on that occasion but apparently they were not shook because they had another barbecue the next week end, and then 2 all day board game sessions this week. I cannot understand the disconnect they must’ve made between what they do for a living and how they’re behaving.
I have been raging at the police making up laws on twitter but also at my neighbour getting a different supermarket delivery every three days, as I’m a hypocrite.
Loving all the comments. Margot Leadbetter, more snitches than Quidditch – made my day . Really trying not to get angry at people not distancing but also stupidly hurt when peeps cross the street to avoid me like I am a plague victim (which I could be, of course). My neighbours are having their parents to visit at weekends, and their sister. I wouldn’t dob them in and almost hate my curtain twitching notice of it. I think most people are being amazingly compliant.
When I see people in the park with kids I just think how hard it must be for them, and thank providence that mine are grown up now (under one roof and continually sniping at each other, but that’s another ‘pandemic problem’).
I am going for long walks on my own (recommended if you can at all manage it) while listening to thrillers on Audible. But if I have to go with a family member we take Magnums (lollies, not guns). Be hard to stop that habit when this is over.
It is the lies I can’t stand. One neighbour thanking everyone for their socially distant birthday wishes for her son on facebook, discreetly ignoring the herd of people she had round the house ALL DAY. Another neighbour saying how sad her (adult) son is that he can’t be with his girlfriend when he’s been round her flat every single day.
Give me the opera glasses, let me lean out of the window and observe.
opera glasses!!! I love this
Last week tired after a really long working week me and my husband drove to the local supermarket. It was 8pm, hardly anyone around and we both picked up a basket each and bought a few items. When we went back to the car park someone had written a note, left it under the windscreen wiper and it said ‘only one member of your household is allowed in the supermarket at any one time’. Wtf?! Who are these people?
this is fully awful
They’re probably the ones out clapping for ‘our’ NHS, and dobbing in people who don’t, on social media. The ones who ‘when this is over’ will be punching paramedics, spitting at nurses and screaming abuse at doctor’s receptionists. My daughter, who lives in a flat in London, took her 2 and 4 year olds to the park yesterday, the 4 yo is becoming anxious and has started wetting herself again and using her dummy. They sat briefly for a drink, nobody nearby, until a policeman moved them on, he then moved a couple who’s baby was trying to take it’s first steps, then a man who was praying. Nobody was anywhere near anyone else. I see it in the village we live in, those people walking on the footpath, best Tubbs and Edward voice on, ‘they weren’t local’. So bloody what, if a trot out has saved them from punching someone or worse, what on earth does it matter, the footpaths are actually open to anyone, public is a clue!
ooooh poor little mite with the wetting and the dummy! I know what is WRANG with people
Esther this was such a great read. I’ve definitely got a bit of rage at the moment. Nothing specific just generally annoyed, mainly at my husband for working from home and therefore an excuse not to do the parenting. Enjoying your columns so much though, unexpected benefit of lockdown, hope it’s renewed once we are back to normal!
Thanks Cia!! I doubt it, and that’s fine. But it will be a while before the restaurants are back up and running again… hope we don’t run out of things to talk about !
My sister rang me yesterday screaming that I shouldn’t have let my daughter come stay – she’s 27, had been completely isolating and was very lonely. My sister says now that she can’t look after our elderly mother who lives alone as I may have contaminated her. She’s not working – I am albeit from home. I know I shouldn’t have let my daughter stay but I was satisfied she was ok. I’m tormented now that I’ve caused all this. I was a tutter, tutting at people who didn’t follow the rules. Now I’m one of them and I hate myself for it
Oh no you sound really upset about this. First of all, if it’s any help, I don’t think it was wrong to let your daughter come to stay. If you’ve both been on your own for 14 days and healthy what’s the issue, really. Very soon it sounds like the government are going to allow people to widen the group of people that counts as “family”. This may have been done much sooner if Boris hadn’t been ill.
Second, your sister’s anger. I don’t think she’s angry at YOU, exactly and she probably feels pretty bad for shouting at you. She’s angry at something else or her situation. I’m sure deep down she knows you were fine to let your daughter stay but she was just letting off the steam that we all have boiling up.
Anyway I hope this resolves itself. It possibly already has!
Someone in my road received an anonymous letter through the door, telling them that their children were making too much noise in the garden! Our lovely road WhatsApp group were all appalled. We think it was probably the miserable people whose garden backs on to the “offending” family. We live in London with close neighbours – of course you can hear people in their gardens! I think we all have low level anxiety at the moment, and it doesn’t take much to tip us over the edge.
Late to the party but loved this and the comments. I’m always struck by what a fabulous group of people read this already fabulous blog.
Every day I worry I am going to get dobbed in by someone because we live on the same street as my parents so are treating ourselves as one household. If I didn’t see them I would go completely insane. Two smalls and a husband sequestered in the attic all day every day doing his very important key work which means you get a Get Out Of Jail free card for doing ANYTHING EVER. We’re being very strict with social distancing and everything but I still worry so much that I’m going to pass the virus on to them. Yet please don’t make me stop seeing them, I couldn’t take it.
God, yes. The get out of jail free card. I would pay good money not to be a SAHM right now 😉 Husband sits upstairs from 8-6pm then goes out for his hour of fucking exercise right over bath/teatime. If we make it through this lockdown it’ll be a miracle 😡