55

If 2 years ago, my birthday felt like part of a well established routine, and last year's in Lockdown felt distinctly strange, this year felt like an odd mix of both – not the same amount of restriction, and yet not a sense of total freedom either.

If we were to rewind to the early part of this year, when the vaccines first properly started rolling out, I was pretty certain that by mid-summer, our lives would be more or less back to normal. Certainly by my birthday I would have expected to be looking back on our Covid days as an unusual part of our past.

And yet, nearly 5 months since my 2nd vaccine, Maggie, Meg and I are still uncertain and wary about going out, especially where there might be a more dense gathering of people.

We're getting better with going to cafés, although there's still a heightened awareness of anyone who walks close to our table, and of course whoever is taking our order is still wearing a mask (at least here in Scotland – the rules seem more lax south of the border in England, which in turn seems to be reflected in the rocketing number of cases and hospital admissions).

We have been having a weekly delivery order from Tesco since the pandemic began, and don't feel in any rush to stop. Although we will pop into the Co-op to get a few bits of shopping every now and then, during quiet periods, we still haven't returned to live shopping in Tesco supermarket itself, which feels just a little too crowded and scary.

However, at the weekend, Tesco suffered some kind of hacking problem – the site went down, and no one could update their orders. Although they are apparently back on top of things, one side effect of this was our weekly delivery, which should have been here between 9am and 10am, ended up arriving just after 2pm.

Once we realised it was going to be late, we knew we would be fine going off to our favourite place for a mocha, In House Chocolates – a standard birthday treat we couldn't do this time last year.

Meg and I enjoying a very chocolatey coffee

However, the delayed delivery meant we had to miss out on the traditional picnic, walk on the beach, and ice cream.

First world problems, of course. Does it really matter? Not particularly. Way more important was we were still able to have my stepdaughter and grandson over to join us for dinner.

But it did act as a reminder that the world is not yet "back to normal", and in fact probably never will be.;

And that a "new normal" has yet to be established.

We are in a time of transition.

I'm sure in 10 years we will look back and, knowing how things played out, feel the path was inevitable and we won't be able to imagine it could have been any other way.

But from this perspective, here and now, the future still feels very unknown.

However, for this evening at least, having eaten too much in the way of birthday chocolate hazelnut brownies, I am feeling loved, stuffed and contented.