Lockdown Birthday Fun...

Here's a question that at one time would have been 100% hypothetical. How do you celebrate a birthday when a national lockdown is announced, three and a half hours before it's due to start?

42 today. New top,
big tea. Could be worse.

Yep. That's where I was at a couple of weeks ago. After a succession of daily briefings, each one announcing a little more restriction to society, the big guns were saved for the eve of my 42nd. I didn't take it personally. Indeed, I'd seen it coming and had been adapting my plans with each new restriction. When it came to the day, the restaurants and bars were out. The family get together at home was not allowed. Even the solo drive to a beautiful part of the country was not going to happen. I was left with me. Me, in a house, with a local environment to walk in, and whatever food delivery options I still had in the vicinity. 

Perspective is always handy in these sorts of situations. I could be ill. I could be dead. I could be unhappy with my own company. I could be attempting to homeschool a brood of children. I could be working long hours in a hospital, pharmacy, or supermarket. I could be living with an abusive partner. I could live in a tiny bedsit with nowhere to walk nearby. None of these things were my reality so all in all, it was a good day. It just took a bit of extra thought to make my birthday feel as nice as it possibly could. 

My thumb is covering up wine.
If you were in any doubt.

Because I like to impart helpful information at times like these, I am here to help you navigate your own special days in lockdown. Many of us will have birthdays over the coming weeks or months. Some people will feel the need to make the Easter weekend different to the others. Maybe it will be your anniversary, or the date of the wedding you were supposed to have before all this started. Here's my guide to making a really ordinary, restricted day, feel different from the ones before and the ones after. See what you think, adapt, ignore. As per.

1. I had breakfast in bed. I never do this usually, but I got up, made toast (with full fat butter no less!) and a cup of tea, and climbed back under the covers. It was lovely. Eat something you usually deny yourself. Luxuriate in the preparation of it. Take it to the most decadent place you can choose. Revel.

2. I had a bath. For some this is a daily event so skip this if it applies. For me, and my annoyingly small cess pit - not a euphemism - it's a weekly rationed pastime. That is, except on my birthday, when my motto of choice is, 'Sod it.' I also shaved my legs, used posh conditioner that I don't normally bother with, and took a lot longer than necessary. Because I could. 

New top, nice fields,
windblown but conditioned hair.

3. I wore new clothes. I had a small amount of pharmacy-related work to do in the morning so that doesn't count. But I did wear a new top to do it in. I had already bought it for the family meal that never happened, so I wore it for my rejigged birthday instead. Wearing anything new makes me feel nice. My new year's resolution was to avoid buying new clothes unless something wears out. But this top was meant for a special meal, so it had been deemed OK by the Nicky Bond Ruling Body of New Year's Resolutions. (Happily it was a blue shirt, and not a sparkly black number that would have been inappropriate in a Pharmacy setting.) As I drove, I played this song on repeat, that my sister sent me. It is probably well-known but it was new to me. (Anything released in this millennium is likely to have passed me by.) Find some music to soundtrack your special day. Sing it loud. Make it upbeat.

A birthday footpath.

4. I had an adventure. I live by some fields. Occasionally I do a circuit of a couple of them. That's my basic daily walk. But there's a place a little further behind those fields that locals have talked of all my life and I have never been. At least not that I can remember and definitely not as an adult. So, I checked the map, got detailed instructions from my brother, and then set off to find... Pex Hill! Locals will find this amusing. It's not Narnia, nor the Enchanted Forest, it's just a nice place to go for a wander. Beloved of dog walkers and local 10K-ers, and now me. In terms of adventure, it really was. Mostly because I never found it. In spite of following the instructions to the letter, I took a wrong turn somewhere and came back to the road before I had found the hill. But still, it was a very pleasant five mile walk, in breezy but warm conditions, seeing a bit of countryside, and building up an appetite for calories later. Explore somewhere new. There are footpaths, roads, or housing estates that you've always driven past but never seen where they lead. Now's the time to explore. (Locally, at a safe distance, and only once a day. But still.)

My Scandikitchen order
arrived on my birthday. This
was purely coincidental but
cheered me up no end.

5. I had a Eurovision. Don't skip this part, just use it to think of your own historical and brilliant TV events. The day before, I had celebrated my birthday eve with my fave, 1992. It's my fave because it's the first ESC where I got a bit obsessed. I can almost quote the commentary word for word, and I know all the songs, albeit none of the lyrics. I simply laaa laaa laaa along with gusto. So 1992 had been boxed off, and danced along with, the day before. Come my birthday, I followed chronological convention and went with 1993. I also knew this pretty well, but haven't seen it as much over the years. It was like revisiting an old friend from years ago. I knew it well but was fascinated to see how it had aged. Plus it brought back memories. My baby brother was born two months before this contest. I remember being left with him a few times (CUE VIOLINS!) and putting this on as a last resort, to stop him crying. My memory is that it did the trick. It was also funny to be reminded of Sonia, who I had forgotten all about. But yeah, use your own happy TV memories. YouTube will have them all. A football match, an Olympic event, a Royal Variety Show? A week or so into lockdown and YouTube are doing a lot of heavy lifting. National Theatre Live are streaming new plays every Thursday, and The Show Must Go On channel are streaming Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals every Friday. We're being spoilt with content. We should use it.

Get in. (Please note the
low calorie milk roll
I have included. Always
striving for health, me.)

6. I had food and drink. It was all a bit fraught in the days leading up to my birthday. One by one restaurants and take-away places were closing. Some were hanging on for longer, but nothing was guaranteed. When it came to it, I was lucky. My local chippy was (and still are) doing online ordering, online payment, and socially distanced pick-ups. I also had my bottle of champagne that had been chilling for a month. With chippy chips and adult-pop it really did feel like a birthday. Then there was cake. By the time I had eaten, and was opening my cards and presents, it felt as lovely as it normally would. Finding restaurants that deliver is a thrill. I'm placing regular orders with Scandikitchen. I've got a frozen bag of scouse in my freezer, delivered by SKAUS in town, that I'm saving for Easter Sunday. I even put in a wine order with my local wine bar that got delivered the same day. Businesses are having to adapt, and the ones that can, are delivering. It'd be impossible to afford it all the time, but for a special day, special food helps.


Full of chips and booze, my birthday was over. The next day, I was fully at peace with the lockdown. Just as I would have been initially, had it not signalled a further tightening of my birthday freedom. As well as the stuff listed above, I also had a House Party chat with some family, received several vouchers for local businesses that I wanted to support, and was given rain-free Spring-like weather. It was a good day. Would it have been better if I'd been able to go out for lunch, get my hair done, have a manicure, and hit the pub that night? Well, yeah, obvs. That goes without saying, surely. But none of that was an option, so I adapted. I'm lucky I could. The longer this goes on, the more boredom will set in. We may become used to the new rubbish normal, but it won't make it any more fun. We have to inject bursts of change into the weeks ahead. If you've got your own special day coming up, for whatever reason, you have the chance to plan ahead. Make a list of fun-injections. Plan your clothes, food, pampering routines, whatever floats your boat. I am here to advise. Use me.