Corona Diary: Day 6

Bethan’s really stepped up to the plate with the cooking since lockdown began. It makes sense, since everyone else in the house is still working, for Bethan to take on the cooking duties. It does mean a certain adjustment in everyone’s palates. Bethan is not a subtle cook. Yesterday’s lunch had so much pepper in it, it could have funded the retirement of a 12^th century spice trader. Nor is Bethan one to stick to traditional meals. None of us can ever forget her decision to add jam to the stir fry she was making. Or the joys of the mustard cookies.

It does take a certain amount of pressure off while working though. It’s also nice to gather round the table around midday, as a family, something that would never have happened while we were all at school, and work and… well at home in Sue’s case. She’s, in some ways, the least affected of us all. Having shared her work time between home and office for years, working at home is nothing new to her, although attempting to do so while surrounded by the wails and squalls of the rest of us is somewhat novel. She’s certainly taken over the study, and therefore the house computer, leaving me to camp out in the dining room working on a laptop.

Last night, I switched the dining room from workspace to makeshift pub. A friend of mine from university, Simon, had been due to visit London for work in April so I’d been planning to meet up with him as well as another friend, Paul. Given work trips to London were clearly not happening any time soon, we decided to bring the event forward and meet up for drinks over VC.

After some discussion on the appropriate technology to use, we settled on zoom. I can say now that software designed for work meetings is not easily adapted to a social situation. Since only one person is on the main screen at a time, its very easy to feel you’re in a one to one conversation, which since there was three of us meant there was often someone feeling left out. Conversely, there were frequent pauses as someone asked a question and it wasn’t really obvious who was supposed to be answering it. That said, we had fun. While not quite the same as a proper meet up, friends are friends and we spent a lot of the time in tears of laughter, as well as having a lot of fun with the virtual backgrounds zoom provides.

We’re still experimenting with the technology, but the friendship is tried and tested.

Still, next time, I think we’ll try Houseparty.