While life at 113 has been fun and eventful, a great deal of comic relief has been provided by none other than my mum and dad. There has been the odd case of “laughing with them”, although the strong majority of cases were definitely “laughing at them”, and their weird and wonderful reactions to the developments of Covid 19.
You’ve already read about my mother’s initial freak out before this all started, and this was obviously exacerbated once the lockdown had begun. As soon as it was announced, everything and anything entering the house was disinfected to the maximum. My parents immediately put in place every single precaution; those suggested by the Government, those found on the internet, and those they had just invented themselves.
I didn’t post this but I’m pretty sure my mum was doing something similar
From the sounds of it, if you had needed an operation at the time lockdown began, you would’ve had less of a chance of getting sepsis being operated on my parents’ kitchen table, than the general surgery department of Charing Cross Hospital.
During that period, I would regularly get missed calls from my mother who would accidentally call me while disinfecting her mobile phone.
Those of you who know my father well will know he was pretty OCD even before corona began, so he was a vital contributor to this. The first thing he did in lockdown was to dish out his old Yugoslav army gas mask to have at hand just in case.
The second thing he did was to devise a clear 5 stage plan for everything entering the house. The first of these plans was for opening the post.
In stage one the post comes through the letter box and is left to sit there a few hours. In stage two, only when deemed safe, my father approaches the post, at all times maintaining a 2-meter social distance. This stage introduces the use of ‘the claw’; one of those claw grabber tools my dad has, which has come in extremely useful during lockdown. Google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Using the claw my dad picks up the post and is now able to move into stage 3.
Stage 3 involves leaving the post for a few days in the garden, in the sunshine, to naturally disinfect it (sunshine kills corona). In stage 4, the post is moved (using the claw) to the shed, to spend a couple of days indoors to acclimatise. And in stage 5, the post is finally allowed to enter the house, and can be opened by the relevant parent. Genius. If you’re wondering where he gets his inspiration from, I should remind you he was raised in communist Yugoslavia.
My mother, although majorly freaked out, is not as “high risk” as my dad, and so with time she has relaxed slightly. She still respects the rules all of the time, but she has found interesting ways to keep herself entertained.
Luckily for her she has a Serbian neighbour, Ljilja. Ljilja is the best neighbour one could ask for and they are very close friends. My mother really lucked out there. I seriously hope wherever I live in the future that God grants me a Serbian neighbour.
During normal times, they go over to each other’s houses for Turkish coffee multiple times a week (Serbian tradition). My mum just comes out into the garden and yells over to Ljilja in her garden two doors down to put the kettle on (or džezva in this case as we drink Turkish coffee).
This extremely important tradition was the first to be adapted during corona times. Now, every day, instead of coming inside the house, Ljilja brings over a portable mini stool and comes to sit in front of my parents’ house, just next to the gate of the entrance to the porch. My mother, meanwhile, sits a few meters away on the ledge of her window. So, every day, at 5pm on the dot, they get together and have a good gossip about life, and most importantly their husbands.
There has been another vital adjustment to this tradition. Nothing to do with complying to lockdown rules, probably more to do with maintaining their sanity during this crazy period. They have simply replaced their daily Turkish coffee drinking with daily Gin & Tonic drinking instead.
My dad is obviously a lot less comfortable with this situation. On the first occasion that I went to see my parents to pick up the Easter eggs my mum had dyed, my mum was outside the house, Ljilja was about 4 meters away on the street chatting to her and my dad was about 15 meters away on the other side of the street.
But both my parents have their own coping mechanisms. My mum, aside from the G&Ts, has apparently considerably increased her wine intake. This may be one of the reasons why she keeps sharing weird-looking baked goods on our family WhatsApp group, and why every other loaf of bread she tries to bake comes out looking like a deformed fungus.
My father doesn’t appear to have taken to alcohol yet, although I was seriously, seriously concerned about his mental well-being when my mother shared a photo of him helping her to make home-made pasta. Thankfully it only happened the once, although I’m still scarred from it to this day. I’m banking on the fact that he never reads my blog, because he would be very upset knowing I shared this photo.
My mum has also finally discovered Netflix and she is really getting into it. At first, she asked me and Jewi for recommendations. One of our first recommendations was ‘The Crown’, a nice family show about the Royal Family. Perfect for my mum.
However, she finished that one and then got recommended a show by Ceca. Those of you who know her may be as surprised as I was to know that her pick was ‘Peaky Blinders’, a show about an urban youth gang, filled with bad language, sex, and lots and lots of violence.
You’ll be even more surprised to hear that not only did she watch it, but she became obsessed with it. She would be watching it literally every time I logged on to Netflix. This obsessive, binge watching spree was like none that I’ve ever seen her have before. Things got so serious that I even asked her at one point if she’d read one of my blogs, to which she replied “No, I’m watching Peaky Blinders”.
I have tried to get my dad into Netflix because I think he’d really get into some of the shows, but he is too busy watching his French crime drama/ murder mysteries, and he claims he wouldn’t be able to find a moment when mama isn’t watching anyway.
Aside from freaking out and watching Netflix, my mother has of course kept up her mothering duties even long distance. She not only dyed us eggs for Easter and baked me a cake for my birthday, but we have in the last few weeks been able to visit and sit in front of the house and have a social distance coffee and even lunch with them.
And finally, how could I forget the most important thing- the home-made masks. After multiple attempts at cutting up mine and Jelena’s old pyjamas and pillowcases, she has finally found the right template to create the perfect mask. By mask number 4 she had run out of the elastic bits that go around the ears, but even then, she mustered up all her creativity and recycled some old items of clothing. I’ve been banned from sharing which ones, but I’ll leave you to use your imagination on that one.
