Warming Up

“My friend came round,” said Ernie as soon as he’d woken up. “We went to Mr Todd’s House.”

My poor lock-downed child had been dreaming of socialising and going to his favourite place in the world, the mock up of the villain Mr Todd’s house at Peter Rabbit World at the heart-stoppingly expensive Willows Activity Farm. It’s heartbreaking that he can’t go (though it's saving us thousands of pounds a week) and more so that he can’t understand why. He wants to give Mr Todd a hug like he did the last time we were there. Given Todd is the villain the staff member standing by Mr Todd (obviously the fox can’t talk in real life) was surprised that this character would be the favourite one of any child. But I’m with my son. Peter Rabbit is a dick and Mr Todd never gives up on his quest to devour him, even after a million knock backs. Any other fox would just give up and eat turnips and insects, but Todd keeps trying, only to be humiliated again. He is like Milton’s Satan fighting boldly against an omnipotent foe. But Todd only has to be lucky once.

When will our kids get to play with some other kids? Is it going to be never? It feels like it. Luckily they are doing pretty well together, but whilst deaths and economic damage are unsurprisingly at the top of everyone’s agenda, the psychological repercussions are going to be big.

I’d had another awful night’s sleep and it can’t just have been down to the two gin and tonics I had whilst watching the Cobbler, but they were enough of a contributing factor to make me decide to knock the booze on the head for a bit (let’s see how long we last). I have two weeks to the book deadline and whilst it’s very unlikely that I will hit it, I’d like to give it a go. Which won’t be possible if I am trying to get by on 4 hours sleep. 

This virus is tough on us all to varying degrees. So far we have experienced the very softest of repercussions and even those weigh hard on us. None of us will ever quite recover and many have lost what can never be returned. 

So a child not getting to hug Mr Todd and a man too stressed to sleep through the night may not be the worst of it all, I know. But it makes me worried for the unseen consequences that we’re all going to face.

Which doesn’t help me sleep.