December

 Surely it had only been two or three months since we took the tree down, I mused, as John rummaged around in the dusty loft. How could this be happening again so soon?  'Where the fuck has this year gone?' I asked him.

     'Who cares? I just want to see the back of it. The sooner we get Christmas over with, the better!'

     'Oh John! Don't be like that! Where's your Christmas spirit?'

     'The only spirit I want to see is gonna be covering ice cubes at the bottom of a tumbler!'

     'Don't be like that, John! It's Christmas. Let's do our best to make it the best one ever.'

     And I do believe that it was at this precise moment, as John grudgingly handed me a mangled ball of fairy lights, that it all began to turn to shit. At first, I thought it was the dust from the loft that did it. Maybe a speck or two had hit him in the back of the throat, while he had been complaining so profusely. They were just little coughs at first. Barely audible in fact. 

     'Could you be extra careful with that ceramic tree please, John? It used to belong to my .....'

     'Your grandmother. Yeah (cough) yeah. You say that every (cough) year.'

     'Well, I'm really sorry that I'm so predictable but it is an actual family heirloom.'

     'What about this massive reindeer? Are we doing (cough) outdoor decorations this year?'

     'Of course we bloody are! Why wouldn't we? '

     'Well, I just wondered if there was any point (cough, cough).'

     'Any point? There's more point this year than ever! It's like living with the bloody Grinch That Stole Christmas sometimes!'

     'Well, let's be honest (cough), given everything going on with the virus, it's not like we're gonna have any visitors or ....(cough, cough, cough).'

     'John! Will you be careful with that ceramic tree? It wobbles like hell every time you ...... ' I looked at John. John looked at me. '.....cough.'

     'Shit!' we said, in complete harmony for the first time all morning.

And that's how it started. There followed, a long chain of panic and misery. John got a test later that day and we all went into isolation once again. But well before John's result came in, it was pretty clear that dreaded Rona had indeed struck: I too began coughing, followed by Cleo. Our worst fears were confirmed when a text from the NHS pinged through to John's phone on the second evening of our quarantine. This was followed two days later by positive results for me and Cleo, while Molly lay on the sofa with a sky-high temperature. We became a house of contagion for the first half of December, outside of which cars would occasionally pull up, a figure springing out, depositing a carrier bag or two of essential items onto our doorstep, before dashing back and pulling away to safety. Throughout all of this, Marcus remained untouched by the horrible symptoms that the rest of us endured. 

     But by far, the most severe and prolonged symptoms were of course suffered by John. If he mentioned ambulances and ventilators once, he mentioned them a dozen times! He lolled about by day, groaning and loudly puffing out infected air and paced the house by night. By the tenth night of our confinement, I feared that if the virus didn't finish John off, that he might meet his end at the hands of myself or Cleo. 'I'm concerned about the ventilator situation in this city, Daisy,' he said, switching off the Evening News.

       'You don't need a ventilator John!' I snapped. 'You're fine. You practically ate half a loaf of bread at lunchtime and I've heard you screaming at the Loose Women again.'

     'But we don't know that, do we? What about Long Covid? I've been hearing on the News that people think that they've recovered, then they're stuck down by .....'

     'That's it, John! The News is BANNED in this house for the rest of the week!'

I wish that I did actually have the power to avoid the News altogether, because it seemed that the moment that we had been released from our isolation and were feeling able to get back to a sense of normality, that the News found us and the final Christmas blow was dealt.

     'I should be up to going into town tomorrow to get the last of the kids' presents,' I told John on the Saturday afternoon before Christmas. 'I'm way behind with my shopping thanks to bloody coronavirus. Of all the inconvenient times to get it! It's typical really.'

     'Town? Could you pick something up for my mother too, please love?' John muttered, as he scrolled casually through his phone.

     'You what? You only have to think of something to get your mother and me!' Was that a flicker of panic in his eyes just then? Could it be that he'd forgotten about a present for me? Fucking charming! 'Just two bloody people to buy for! Do you realise how many .......'

     'Daisy!' he suddenly shrieked, causing me to nearly drop the frying pan that I was transporting back to the cupboard, onto the cat's head. 'Grab your coat! We've got to go!'

     'What? Go where?'

     'The shops! Now!'

     'Christ, John! Calm down. You've got the best part of a week to.....'

     'No Daisy. No,' he said, shaking his head solemnly. He held his phone aloft, displaying the headlines from Wales Online. 'They're all shutting. We're going into lockdown again. FROM MIDNIGHT!'

      Needless to say, the queue for Argos that night looked like something you'd see on the morning of the men's final at Wimbledon or a Take That concert. The police were called three times while we were there, to sort out fights over Xbox games and action figures. It truly was the stuff of nightmares. I vowed there and then that if I survived that night, then I would see out the rest of 2020 alternating between drunken stupors and food comas. 

     Since then, I have been as true to my word as it's possible to be, while orchestrating a family Christmas. Turns out, best decision I've made all year ......🍷🍷🍺🍠🍲🍲 😏