I’m a little bit behind with these diary entries right now: partly because there just aren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with everything, but also because it’s been a rough couple of weeks, really, which culminated on Wednesday afternoon with Max falling in the garden, and acquiring a nasty cut to the head.

It was one of those horrible moments in which time seems to simultaneously speed up and slow down, so while the moments that led up to the fall are still a bit of a blur, the fall itself seemed to happen in slow motion, allowing me to re-live it, frame by torturous frame, every time I close my eyes. In the muddled moments that followed it, we were absolutely sure we were going to have to take him to hospital to have it stitched: thankfully, though, once we managed to calm him down enough to let us get a good look at the cut, we realised it wasn’t quite as bad as we’d first feared. We had to shave a patch of his hair off to let us get a plaster on it, but he didn’t need medical attention, and, indeed, was attempting to climb over the top of the couch just a few minutes later, so THANK GOD FOR THAT, basically.

Even though Max is absolutely fine, though, I have to admit, the whole thing has really shaken me: mostly because I know it could have been so much worse, and the details of just how much worse it could’ve been have been playing on a constant loop in my mind ever since it happened. I’m also, of course, really aware of how very close we came to having go enact the scenario I talked about in this post, in which Max and I, having had to leave the house and potentially expose ourselves to the virus, would now be having to isolate from Terry, and in which, instead of writing this post, and looking forward to a nice family dinner, and a Netflix binge once Max is in bed, I’d most likely be rocking back and forth in a corner somewhere, absolutely convinced I must have picked the virus up at the hospital, and, well, basically just waiting to die from it, really.

I know that’s totally irrational, obviously. Even at the height of my anxiety, I know the chances are that I’d have been fine: and that even if I DID catch the virus, I’d be unlikely to die from it, not being in any of the high risk groups. Health anxiety, however, isn’t remotely rational: and I think it’s safe to say that health anxiety has taken the wheel right now, as far as I’m concerned. It’s been 8 weeks, but Scotland’s numbers are still too high for the lockdown to be relaxed, apparently: which means I continue to worry about the possibility of one of us (Particularly Terry…) catching it, and I’m still torn between wanting the lockdown to end, so I can at least see my parents, and knowing it’s safer if it doesn’t, however hard it might be.

In the meantime, though, the world outside our window seems to be gradually returning to something like normal. This week, for instance, the weather has been really warm, which has made it hard not to notice how many of the gardens around us have been filled with people who don’t live in the houses attached to them. At one point this week, you’d have struggled to park outside our house, because so many people had visitors round for drinks in the garden, and, at the weekend, the police had to break up a “stag party” party which seemed to involve a large percentage of the street.

We’re told by the Scottish government that it’s much too soon to relax the lockdown at all… but, going purely on what I see around me (And, OK, what I’ve been reading on Twitter…), a lot of people seem to already be assessing their own risk, and then doing as they please. I don’t see that changing any time soon, either – which means I don’t really see ANYTHING changing any time soon, unfortunately. Last night Boris Johnson announced some changes to the rules in England, but, north of the Border, the lockdown goes on … and on, and on, and on. I know why it has to happen, and I do think it’s the right decision to continue with it … but that doesn’t make it any easier when my two year old is crying for his grandparents, as he’s been doing more and more often, lately. And I can’t really blame him, either.

What about you? Are people observing lockdown where you are, or is it all starting to fall apart?

[Photo by Ella Jardim on Unsplash]