Baby boomers more able to survive the lockdown?

I have done my own testing by phone.

What came out on top, surprisingly, was family visits, either going to or having family come to you.

I recognised that one right away.

I like to think that family life in the wider sense in Northern Ireland is treasured.

Being of the baby boomer generation I do remember – just about – those years after the World War Two when my mother’s greatest treasure was her ration books or a visit from a spinster aunt who brought the treats we couldn’t otherwise afford.

My aunt, (my father’s sister), may have longed for a family of her own but we never knew or asked why she hadn’t married.

I wish she was around today because her attention to us taught me, even though I was very young, the value of close family connections and the fact that our parents weren’t the only ones who loved us.

I have several nephews and nieces now and I’ve tried to be a caring aunt, but it’s been difficult since I was a full time working mum and had to concentrate on my own children whilst not at work.

By the time my children had taken up careers in other countries I tried to concentrate on the nephews and nieces but time was still always against me and they too were scattered to the winds.

I have had to wait to what I call my ageing period to make any inroads into my relationships with them and being able to see them even only occasionally is a pleasure.

But not now, with this lockdown thwarting me all the way.

Family visits are out of the question as my sister reminded me in the early lockdown days when I was sure the odd visit wouldn’t matter.

I’ve been fully in lockdown now for what seems an age.

I’m certain that is what has revived my old back pain, my occasional bouts of insomnia and has left me looking much older than I should.

Definitely.

You see it’s not entirely family I’m missing - it’s the hairdresser, the chiropodist, the dentist, the dog groomer (my dog won’t let me near him with the scissors and bares every tooth in his head at me if I dare), my friends who live near and far, going to the shops and the prospect of not being able to pay a visit to my children and grandchildren - all of whom live in Europe.

Boat or plane, it doesn’t matter, neither is available to take me there and equally they can’t come here.

I think loneliness may be setting in.

Himself is showing signs of impatience – that’s not how I describe myself – because, at this time of year, he would be preparing his boat for the summer sailing season.

It sits, alongside a few dozen other boats, wondering if it will get it’s bottom scrubbed and anti-fouled this year before being released into the water amidst cheers of ship-ahoy and back slapping from the launching team.

Being deprived of this ritual as, at the time of writing, marinas and harbours throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland - north and south, are closed, is seriously bad for the old-salts brigade.

All they can do is look out to sea and pray.

We are well warned not to rush out of lockdown but a surprising number of people have run out of patience – not my generation I’m certain – with a sense of entitlement that puts everyone else at risk.

One newspaper headline this week declared that ‘lockdown for a year would be a crippling economic blow’.

The experts tell us it could cause a second ‘large and deadly peak’.

Not attractive choices at all.

We can do without those scenarios.

Maybe it’s lethargy setting in, but I haven’t got round to ordering food on line as I’m happy enough with our corner shop,

I’ll have to leave my hair to grow in its own unwieldly fashion and I don’t intend to fall out with the dog over grooming.

The gypsy look will have to do.

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