A long Covid, or Over the Wall — Saturday 10th April 2021

I’m definitely a cat person. I do like dogs, and I especially like the dog in the room with me now. His name is Ernie and he is the master of my Brother David and his wife Siobhan. He is currently dropping a little ball next to my Dad’s leg.

We’re spending the day in David and Siobhan’s today. Max is here too. My Mum is out having a wander with my niece, Mairead. Mairead has smiled every time she’s seen me today and it’s bloody great when she does. I love it, and I love her.

David and Siobhan are at the Grand National today. It’s a beautiful day for it.

I am a cat person.

Ernie and I went for a walk earlier and when he saw another dog he escaped from his harness and for a moment my heart skipped a beat. I didn’t look the other dog owner in the eye as I mumbled my apology and regained control of Ernie but at that moment I thought of my cats and missed them. I always miss them when I’m not at home with them.

They’ve taken to hiding my pens and pencils at the moment and are probably playing with them now back at home. They always take pens and pencils that people have bought me and that I cherish and I don’t know where they’re hiding them. But even still, I am a cat person.

I’m reading a book about a cat at the moment. It’s called The Travelling Cat Chronicles and I’m going to sit outside in a sunny garden shortly and have a read of it. I’ve read four books about cats this year.

I love my cats.

Of all of the significant new things that have happened to me during the past couple of years, my pair of cats, Nina and Woody, could be the biggest of all the new things. Max can be here on days like today, and Anna and I can chat on FaceTime always when we’re apart. But my cats are always at home when I’m not and I always miss them a lot when I’m away, even if just for a few hours. I can’t FaceTime with my cats. I wish I could.

Ernie has cuddled up next to Max on the sofa. Max is playing a game on his iPad. My Dad is across the room with his eyes closed and there is a very real chance that he’ll fall asleep there.

I took Max to get his haircut earlier, in the barbers around the corner from here. I sent a picture to Amy and she said she thinks he looks about 15 years old.

I’m excited to see my cats later and chat with Anna shortly when she messages to say that she is awake. It’s just gone 9 am in Boston and so the message will arrive any moment now.

I’m glad I’m here, too.

Below is a picture of Max, Ernie and my Dad, and below that is an entry from my diary written this time last year.

Saturday 10th April 2021

A year ago today I started writing this little thing and today I posted the first of them live on the internet on a blog where I very occasionally publish the odd thing I’ve written. This will also be the last entry I write in this document and from here on in I’ll return to it to copy the text out on the relevant day, a year on from when I wrote it.

The document will be saved and closed for the last time a year from now, on the 10th of April 2022.

I’m marking this moment with a small glass of bourbon. It’s almost 10:30 in the evening and I said goodnight to Anna before I went to the kitchen to pour my drink. Max is asleep upstairs in my bed. Aside from the tapping of my fingers on the keypad, it is silent in the house.

As I’ve written this over the past year, I’ve sat listening to the sounds of my neighbours in their yards or at the ice cream van that pulled outside of the house at City Road at 9 pm every evening. I’ve written it mostly at night, sometimes with Max asleep, or going to sleep, next to me. I started writing this from the upstairs back room at our house at City Road, where all of my things were. Now all of my things, along with new things, are spread around a little two-up-two-down terrace house a five-minute walk from the house at City Road.

It’s different here.

It’s a different experience to write this now than when I started a year ago. Back then I was looking to meet my neighbours and we were just at the start of lockdown. I think I anticipated that I’d write about the entirety of a lockdown over three months and then we’d go back to some sort of normal. That little project turned into a year of writing what ended up being a bit of a lockdown diary.

But it hasn’t all been lockdown, of course. There was a bit over the late summer when I was going back out and drinking flat whites in cafes and went back to work for a bit. I often forget that that period happened at all.

As I look forward to the next year, it all looks a bit uncertain. Before the pandemic I had plans — plans to visit Anna and for Anna to visit me. We’d go on holiday to Paris or Iceland and then we’d figure out living together. I had a loose plan for work too, and after the business festival, I was planning on doing a bit of reevaluating and maybe changing course slightly.

If I’ve learned anything over the past year it’s that it’s probably not wise to plan too far ahead, now. For a start, we’re still in the pandemic and so who knows what will happen as things open up. And also, life is unpredictable and surprising and the things I might want to do in a year's time as I see it now, might not be the things I want to do as I see it then. And that’s how it should be.

For the most part, I’m happy and able to count my blessings. I’m in a house of my own that I pay for and my son is comfortably asleep with a belly full of ice cream that I bought him for helping me with chores today. My Dad came over earlier and brought some picture frames and I hung two pictures in the kitchen and have nine postcards to hang tomorrow. David and I chatted on the phone today and he has four new beers for me to try. My Mum will pop over tomorrow. Amy and I are getting on well.

My work is going well. I work for clients that I enjoy spending time talking to and I admire the work they do. I get paid each and every month and I enjoy working with my colleagues. And we have plans and irons in the fire and I have voluntary work that sometimes frustrates me but feels like important and valuable work.

I’m in love with someone that I’m planning a future with.

I’m hopeful. I have a lot to look forward to.

And I got to know my old neighbours. We chatted and still do. I’m friends with John and Jade on Facebook and I’ve seen both of them around and about. But most importantly, Amy has a relationship with them and they’re looking out for her. This summer she’ll have chats in the yard with them and maybe even backyard bingo or water battles. I’m glad they’re there.

And that I’m here.

I never did make it to 100,000 words, but I did make it here.

To the start of the next year and the things that’ll happen in it.

Very good, indeed.

This is the final entry of a series of diary entries I wrote from April 2020 to April 2021. I posted them a year out from when I first wrote them. You can read the other ones I’ve posted here