Delusional optimists have to live with catastrophising pessimists for balance, but a downside is that it takes you ages to catch up with each other. Mr Z asked me what was on my bucket list. I was thinking, we have 30 or 40 years to figure that out, and I have much more important things on my mind, such as I have just got a 12 quid voucher from Waitrose out of the blue and I’m cock-a-hoop.
He actually meant an activity bucket list, before the full-scale lockdown that now looks inevitable to everyone, but a week ago looked that way only to him. On the spot, I blurted out: “Trampolining.” I recently took up trampoline circuits, a weird fitness subculture where, possibly pandemic-related, everyone laughs wildly for an hour. I don’t want it to end. It is not as if we can break the two-metre rule when we each have our own trampoline. Mr Z looked nonplussed, as if I had failed … well, not at marriage, more a single marital module, which I can retake.
“I’d like to go to the pub?” I ventured, but again I disappointed, as this had already been taken as given. “I want to go to that field in Surrey where you take antisocial dogs and they are guaranteed complete off-lead solitude for a tenner.”
“I don’t think that will be subject to tier 3 restrictions,” he replied.
“I’d like to go to one of those country-club-style golf courses with the whole family.”
“My arse, you have never done that.”
“Bowling.”
“You went bowling two weeks ago.”
“To somebody’s house where they have a patio heater and a bad attitude.”
“I’d save that for mid-lockdown.”
Here is what I really want: a mini-break in an alternative Britain, where someone looks as though they know what they are doing, where progress is made, where there is an end in sight and where you don’t mind restrictions because you think they may work. But one of us has to stay optimistic. You know, for balance.
Свежие комментарии