Andy Richardson: There is nothing so precious as time – make the most of it

Except we’re not. Because summer is cancelled and the holiday industry looks as healthy as dead bees on a cake. And before you slam dunk the dead bees on a cake image, I have a confession to make. I stole Dead Bees on a Cake from David Sylvian. It’s the title of his fifth solo album and David Sylvian is God. But I digress before we’ve even made it to the end of the second paragraph. Where were we? Oh, yes. Holidays. Holidays-Schmolidays. We’re so over holidays. Holidays are soooo 2019.

Me and She Who Must Be Obeyed were looking forward to our great year of travel. First stop Denmark. Next stop Switzerland. After that New Yoik. And then, to cap it all, a buzz around the icebergs while marvelling at the delights of Antarctica. That would have completed my seventh continent. Bob would have been my uncle. Fanny would have been my aunt. The world would have been my lobster.

Instead, I am sitting on a bench in a garden that borders a car park. The view is of terraced houses and the roof of a Ford Transit van, rather than Times Square or Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen – there’s a song in there, somewhere. The closest I’ll get to an icecap is when I defrost the freezer. Curiously, I don’t mind. Just like Dominic Cummings, there are no regrets – and that’s the only thing I have in common with SuperSuperDomDom, except for wearing glasses.

Lockdown has brought with it all sorts of challenges but it’s provided that most precious of commodities: time. And time is a gift, if you spend it wisely.

It’s a challenge to compare the new normal with the old. In those days – I know, it’s only just over two months ago, but it feels like forever ago – conversations were rushed, the day ran to a strict regime, I was more impatient than a teenager on a first date and seemed to spend a third of my life in the driver’s seat of a Renault Clio. Not that there’s anything wrong with a Clio. Everything was rushed. And I think I quite liked that.

Now, the days are longer and more sedate. Life is calmer and healthier. I’m simultaneously calmer and more productive. Nothing is rushed. Everything has a purpose.

The world seems politer and kinder – we’re excluding Donald Thump and Minnesotan policeman in that generalisation – and people seem more considerate. Whodda thunk it?

Travel plans are over. The airline that took our money for flights is showing no signs of returning it and we’re sworn off booking another holiday until the world starts spinning the right way around. Instead, we’ll do something sensible, like, oh, I don’t know, move house in the middle of a global pandemic. Probably.

Holidays that we’d planned now have the shape of an escape. They look as though they were an opportunity to run away from the madness of lives moving too quickly. Rather than an opportunity to relax and unwind, they were respite from the rush.

Lockdown feels as though it’s returned some of us to simpler and more innocent times. The world has become smaller and less problematic. The rules of engagement are simpler. The onus to behave responsibly is more acute.

The gaffer asked each of us whether we were dreading anything about the end of lockdown – because, let’s face it, as responsible as most people try to be, lockdown is over in all but name. The parks are full, the beaches are fuller and if there’s a Covid-19 microbe worth its salt it will be doing its damndest among those who didn’t stay home.

I didn’t have an answer, incidentally, to notions of dread. The only constant in life is change. Some aspects of our former existences will remain when Covid-19 has passed and others will have fallen by the wayside. That’s just life, I guess. Against the backdrop of uncertainty and morbidity, of financial struggles and life-changing trauma, I can’t find it within me to bemoan the idea of a short drive along a motorway, the need to sit at a desk without a lovely view or any of the other minor gripes that people might have. We’re lucky to be here, to be doing the things we love and to still be afloat.

Covid-19 might have wiped out summer holidays, but that’s not so bad. There’s always another year and we can enjoy ourselves in our own small patch of the world in the meantime. Besides, the absence of motorways and airports, of ferries and traffic jams mean we all have more time. And there is nothing so precious as time.