In the series My New Normal writers are telling us how their lives, routines and minds have changed during the coronavirus outbreak – and if they plan on keeping it up post-lockdown.
At the start of April, I was due to move to New York with my fiancé Vik. Our leaving party was planned. Our flights were booked. And crucially, we’d given notice on our flat.
But as March progressed and Covid-19 spread through Europe, I began to doubt whether we should be moving at all. Then, two weeks before we were due to fly, the US closed its borders and the decision was out of our hands.
- The symptoms of coronavirus, according to the WHO and NHS
- The UK lockdown rules and how they work
- What we know about when the UK might end lockdown
- Coronavirus travel update: Whether summer holidays will happen this year
- Coronavirus testing centres near me: the full list of UK locations, and how to get a test
Staying in the flat we had called home for two years wasn’t an option, and we’d already booked a removal firm to ship everything we owned to the States. I knew there was no way I could risk bringing the virus to my family in Suffolk, and Vik’s family live on the other side of the world in Singapore.
So we arranged for everything we owned to be stored by the shipping company and began to look at Airbnbs, knowing that if lockdown came, we’d be spending an awful lot of time within those four walls. Previously unimportant things became vital: how fast was the WiFi and how big was the TV? Did that sofa look comfy enough to sit on for weeks at a time?
If we can live with fewer things now, do we really need it all once this is over?
We booked a month in a one-bedroom flat in a leafy part of North London, a world away from our concrete corner of East London where curry restaurants outnumber trees. The prospect of spending so much time surrounded by someone else’s stuff was disconcerting, though we were hugely aware of how lucky we were to have a comfy place to go.
Boris Johnson announced the lockdown a week before our move, but luckily moving house was still deemed essential travel. So with a suitcase each, we drove a thoroughly disinfected Zipcar through the emptied streets of London.
Settling into the Airbnb, I soon realised I didn’t really miss the mountains of books, clothes and kitchen gadgets we had put in storage. If we can live with fewer things now, do we really need it all once this is over? Although that’s easy to say when my daily outfits consist of leggings and t-shirts on rotation.
Like millions of people, I’ve realised just how valuable outdoor space is. I used to think gardens in London were a tad frivolous – who really needed one in a city so full of green spaces and so covered by grey skies? But now, faced with upturned benches and a megaphone-wielding park warden, the idea of lying in the sun with a book seems like immeasurable pleasure.
When it became clear that lockdown wasn’t lifting anytime soon, I searched Airbnb for somewhere to spend a second month and realised the website had become an unnerving place. Property captions blazed with unkeepable promises like CORONA-FREE ISOLATION UNIT or SANITISED COUNTRY RETREAT.
We booked an apartment with a small balcony on a competitor site, and just a few days later, Airbnb restricted renting to anyone but key workers. It’s definitely irresponsible for landlords to be advertising Covid-19 retreats, but there must be other people like us, caught between homes in a pandemic.
I relished the change of scene of moving to the latest apartment. The long hot Easter weekend had been unbearable spent indoors – as soon as the sun comes out, I’ll be on the tiny balcony here.
It’s a funny feeling being in a block of flats surrounded by strangers, each of us sandwiched in our own small slice of property for 23 hours a day. The walls are thin and the air is thick with the sounds of isolation squabbles and neighbours thumping about to Joe Wicks workouts.
Leaning out of the window for #ClapforCarers, I glimpsed the woman next door, going hell for leather with a wooden spoon and a pan. We smiled at one another, against a backdrop of claps and cheers, whoops and whistles, that I never thought I’d hear on a twilight city street.
If there is one thing that moving during a pandemic has made me realise, it’s just how much the people around you matter. When you’re cut off from the world, those neighbours you nod to in the hallway become the only people you see, and you never know when you might become one another’s lifelines. In the last Airbnb, a neighbour left a package of homemade hot cross buns outside our door with a note that said, “Happy Easter. Don’t worry, we wore gloves to make these!” It was such a simple gesture but I felt hugely moved.
When we do eventually make it to Brooklyn, I’m going to try to blow away my chilly British reserve and get to know the people living around us.
Rosie Hopegood is a freelance journalist
Read more from the series:
My New Normal
