Golden Hour #004: I saw a time traveller this week.

how was it for you?

Hi friends,

On Thursday we went to Sainsburys, and as we got out of the car I noticed a woman carefully maneuvering her trolly. She wore black ankle boots, perspex safety goggles and a P2 face mask.

Here is a time-traveller, I thought, visiting us from those pandemic days. The days when we would nervously queue outside of the supermarket wondering: is this safe?

‘How was your lockdown?’

This woman’s demeanour transports me back to some very specific memories. In one of them I’m in a local park sitting underneath a cherry blossom tree. A police officer comes over—‘Please can you move on love?’ he asks. I start to cry, and he looks apologetic. But I already knew that I shouldn’t have sat underneath the tree. For some inexplicable reason (an arrogant sense of privilege that tells me I’m the exception to the rule) I think that surely it should be fine for me to sit there. Doesn’t this police officer know that I’m not doing any harm?

‘How was your lockdown?’

In another I’m sat in my back garden with my husband. It’s hot, and we’ve taken to drinking as a way to pass the time. We start picking up half-size bottles of Louis Jadot Beaujolais from Tesco and drinking them on our lunch break. Days and weeks are measured by the number of empty bottles we put out for the recycling. They smudge into one hazy, tipsy blur.

‘How was your lockdown?’

In the final memory I’ve used my time for outdoor exercise to walk to the local churchyard. The church has been closed for a few weeks by now, and people have been knitting hearts and rainbows and tying them to the railings. I open the iron gate and walk down the path towards the large front doors, where another (larger) rainbow has been placed.