How have you been coping with lockdown? That’s a question I’m sure many of us have been asked or have ourselves asked.
Subtext – how you coping?
Well, to tell you the truth, I hardly noticed a day-to-day difference, living as I do at the back of beyond. Or at the very least its armpit. (I’m kidding, it’s not that bad here, except when the men are up with guns. And the flies in summer. And the midges in summer.)
The place I live I call Hole in the Wall, inspired by my love of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In case you didn’t know, that’s what their hideout up in the Big Horn mountains of Wyoming was called. There are no mountains here, but there are some hills that will leave a fella out of serious puff. It’s not THAT remote, really, it is five miles from the nearest settlement, but the hardy few who have visited feel as if they are never reaching the place.
So, while many were hemmed in by lockdown, I still had the space to roam freely with Mickey, my faithful canine companion, and Tom, my fickle feline companion. Yes, Tom comes for walks with us but only when he feels like it. He is a cat, after all.
Where I did suffer was when everything I had booked was cancelled one-by-one. For someone who is by nature and, since the death of my wife, by circumstance solitary I do enjoy performing, whether on a panel or as part of the Carry on Sleuthing or Four Blokes teams. Put me in front of a crowd and I hog the limelight shamelessly but in a social setting I shrink into the background.
Funny, that.
So I was hugely disappointed by the domino effect as the events fell. I was looking forward to panels with brash newcomer Denzil Meyrick, who shows lots of promise as a writer, and appearing in the Glasgow International Comedy Festival with Four Blokes in Search of a Plot. It was also a blow financially but those are the breaks.
But lockdown was a time for people to do all those things they had been putting off for weeks, months or years.
Friends have been up to DIY, decorating and garden design. As lockdown began I looked at the things that needed done. The odd jobs. The painting. The gardening.
I did none of them.
Solitary and feckless. That way lies a chap living in squalor.
OK, I’m exaggerating but there’s still no way I’m letting anyone see my dust collection.
And I think there’s something living in a cupboard in the lobby. I’ve tried sending Tom in but he just looks at me as if I should be offering danger money and walks away.
I was not completely sans feck – I did complete Rebecca Connolly book three. I can’t tell you the title because the one I came up with months ago has been made useless by other, completely selfish, authors giving their books similar titles. I have their names in my little book and, something I learned from The Quiet Man, I’ve scored them out. That’ll show them.
There have also been some digital appearances. OnLyme Crime. Four Blokes did a one-off special, and we may do another, so it would be a two-off. (Oh, f*** off, I hear you say). I’m losing my Noir at the Bar cherry on Wednesday July 22. I’m chairing a panel on Tartan Noir in the reading Between the Crime book festival on Friday August 14. And I’m part of a panel in the digital Tidelines festival in September.
Lockdown has been lifted, let’s hope it is not a part of our collective futures again. Life is getting back to some kind of normal.
And I’m thinking of doing some decorating.
Yeah, I’m a maverick.
