The List

By Marion Elliott

Those who know me well know that I am a “list” person! The habit developed many years ago, when I found myself waking several times during the night thinking of something I mustn’t forget to do the next day.

And so the List ritual began!! Each night before heading upstairs I list everything that I have to do the following day, and then I add Richard’s “to do” items so that they are not forgotten too.

Not only did this habit improve my sleep pattern, but guaranteed that I wouldn’t overlook anything whether collecting a prescription, phoning a relative, visiting a friend, keeping a dental appointment … anyway you get the picture.

To the amusement of my better half, he has witnessed me add something to the list during the day that I’d unexpectedly fitted in, and then immediately strike it off !! Its so very satisfying to have everything crossed off by the end of the day ready to start a new list for the following day.

And then came the Corona Virus and the Government’s instruction that we should self isolate, especially those of us of a certain age, to stay home and stay safe for the next twelve weeks.

So a strategy and focus for dealing with this was called for, and my immediate thought and yes you’ve guessed it, that I, no We needed a List. It would be so easy to drift through the next eighty four days and at the end of it having nothing to show for our period of isolation, so this was a list with a difference, not a scrap of paper as used for my nightly listing, but for this mammoth list an A4 sheet of paper would be needed.

Long overdue tasks both indoors and outdoors were scribbled down, the list filled the A4 sheet of paper to the extent that we might need more than 84 days to work through it!

Into our third week and reflecting on self isolation, is that the days have flown by, its been super to have more time at home together, (I now realise that in our pre isolation days we spent very little time at home at the same time) we’ve consumed far more coffee than in pre Covid-19 days, we are thankful for the digital age giving us video calls, virtual dinner parties with family, email communication, church services streamed to our sitting room, and are very grateful to the wonderful team of volunteers who stepped forward to look after the needs of the village, and to all the people who don’t have the option to stay home, those who bring food to our table, those caring for the sick, the emergency services, the surgery, our superb chemist team, the list goes on. The only contribution we can make to combatting the virus is to stay home and stay safe and yes, thirteen tasks crossed off the list, so we are feeling very pleased with ourselves, only another twenty six to go. Will we achieve our target? watch this space..