Lockdown Disasters. Part One.

What an absolute bitch this virus is turning out to be.

Way back at the beginning of February, one of my university tutors asked what I thought about Coronavirus, at the time it was still just in Wuhan, China, so like a fucking idiot I replied “I’m not worried, the flu kills more people and I’m young and healthy”. What an ignorant twat I was three months ago. As I write, the official UK death toll is fast approaching 30,000, lockdown has been in place for over six weeks and although there is a review due on Thursday (07/04/2020), it is likely to stretch on for much longer. Some people seem to think it will only be a few weeks but honestly, I think it will be much longer.

In the grand scheme of things, I’m very lucky. I have somewhere to live until September, I have food and beautiful scenery to explore on my daily exercise.

Currently, I have been isolated for over six weeks. I live alone in a small studio flat, so some days I go without seeing another human, which is really odd but also kind of nice because that way there are no witnesses when I do something stupid. Turns out, even when I'm stuck in my flat with not a lot to do, I can still f**k up spectacularly.

The first big f**k up happened a few weeks into lockdown, I'd been lulled into a false sense of security and I was starting to think I couldn't make any drastic mistakes. Idiot. One evening I had some knarly cravings for flap jacks. I had most of the ingredients in my cupboard but I as don't have an oven I thought I'd give it a go in the microwave - what could go wrong?! I stood mixing the oats, butter and honey together, basking in the genius of my plan, a Cheshire grin across my face. As I waited for the microwave to work it's magic I stood on my balcony and took in the wonderful view. The peace did not last long.

An awful high pitched scream from the fire alarm ripped me from my reverie, straight into the sh*t show going on inside. As I re-entered, sickly sweet smoke was billowing from the microwave - which mocked me happily with it's final beep. Luckily, I am the CA for my building so I quickly called the security company and informed them that some idiot had just burned some toast (I was too embarrassed to tell them the truth) and to call off the emergency service response. After I turned off the alarm and returned to my flat I saw that the damage was minimal but my flap jack was beyond saving. It was a sad day.

The next two snafus came in quick succession after the fire. Deciding cooking wasn't going to be my new hobby I quickly moved onto a creative endeavour. I'd recently bought a bedside table from Gumtree, it was fit for purpose but not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing piece of furniture. I bought some cheap paint and brushes and quickly got to work on what I was sure was going to be a master piece. The first coat went well but trouble was lurking just a day away.

Upon the second coat I felt like a master, I had even put down a sheet just in case any paint went astray, I was prepared. I grabbed the paint pot and began to shake it so the paint would be properly mixed - like an absolute pro. Or so I thought. Quicker than I could comprehend a flash of dark grey paint flew from the pot. I hadn't put the lid back on properly the day before. The entire contents of the paint pot had escaped and missed the sheet I had put down, instead covering me, my favourite Llama pyjamas, my rug, and the kitchen floor.

Now, you may be thinking that one paint related incident would be enough for me to learn my lesson and leave it well alone. You would be wrong.

The very same day I f**ked up yet again. Later that evening I had had a few ciders and I was quite tipsy. At around 10 pm I started to sort through my arts and crafts supplies because I was bored as fuck of watching TV. In the first box I started riffling through I found some black spray paint. Score! In my tipsy state, I put down the sheet I had washed earlier, grabbed the drawers and got to work. My intention was to just paint the top of the bedside table, see how it looked and do the rest the next day out on the balcony. But I'm a f**king idiot, so that isn't what happened.

I sprayed away at the top and took a step back, I'd done a bloody excellent job! No sense in stopping now, right? So I carried on, spraying away until my little heart was content, and to be fair, it did look great. What I had failed to notice, however, was how god damn high I had got on the fumes. Spray painting inside with no ventilation is dumb, don't do it. I'd also failed to notice that I had managed to paint my bare feet which were now stuck to the sheet I'd put down. In a fumy haze I clambered over my bed to grab my slippers in an attempt to prevent the paint on my feet from being spread around my flat. From the small distance I'd travelled it became clear that the bedside table and my feet were not the only things that had been painted.

I looked over at the kitchen floor where the fumes had settled into a dark carpet. This is when the panic started to kick in. Quickly I filled a bucket and began to mop like I'd never mopped before, the water quickly became murky and spread the mess around more than it cleaned. In my high/drunk state, I thought I'd done an alright job and turned my attention to my sticky feet. Now in the bathroom, I encountered my next problem, my feet were stuck to my slippers. At this point all finesse had been lost and I ripped desperately at the slippers to free my tootsies, fluff and soles flying. Freedom! Now, into the shower for the final stage of clean up and I'm home free. With some of my home-made sugar scrub to hand, I jumped into the shower and got to work. As you've probably started to realise though, nothing in my life is that simple, and although the paint did start the come of my feet, it was now stuck to the shower tray. Twenty minutes later I was still sat on the soggy bathroom floor with a toilet brush and bleach scrubbing away at the mess in the shower.

In the cold light of the next morning the full extent of my blunder was clear. It wasn't just the kitchen floor that got a coating, basically any uncovered surface in my flat now had a fine layer of black paint. This included my laptop, the hobs, my glasses, mirrors, family pictures, the TV... f**king everything. Operation clean up is still going a full week later. The drawers actually turned out okay in the end though, so there is a very small silver lining!

So there it is, even though the world is struggling with a global pandemic and I am living in a country with one of the worst government responses to Coronavirus so far, there are still little moments of normality to relish amongst the madness. It is by no means easy to be isolated from friends and family, hundreds of miles away from most of them, but I hope that when they read this story they'll know that I'll still be the same idiot when we're finally reunited.